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the black lunar shape circled by the sun’s corona. At this moment the combined effect is of a giant celestial diamond ring.
Right afterwards, and lasting only an instant, Baily’s beads appear. They are brilliant points of sunlight shining between the mountains on the moon caught in silhouette around the lunar edge.
Eclipses were terrifying to the ancients, except to those few wise in the ways of sun, moon, and earth. Knowing when an eclipse was coming—and that it would quickly pass—gave enormous power to men who seemed to be able to put things right again just as the sun appeared to be going out and the world coming to an end.
Chinese astronomers once were beheaded if their timing was off in predicting eclipses. Some clung to an earlier way of ending an eclipse: Shooting arrows into the sky and raising a fearful ruckus to scare off the dragon they believed was eating the sun. It always worked.
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