Last month on June 20, 2020 at 4:10 am the maximum point of the annular solstice eclipse passed through Xiamen Bay, China (our header picture is of the Zheng-Chngong Memorial Hall) that got 98% coverage. Our header is of Zheng-Chengong Memorial Hall on Xiamen Bay, China. Xiamen China is 389 miles away from Hong Kong and 221 miles from Taipei, Taiwan.
Solar eclipses are total, in which the Moon completely covers the Sun, or annular, in which the Moon obscures all but an outer ring of the Sun. Which one occurs depends how the distance between the three because of Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun, and then how the Moon travels around the Earth.
When the Sun is nearest to Earth but the Moon is at or near its greatest distance (see below where the Moon is inconjunct), the Moon appears small in comparison to the Sun (the distances of these objects are the key because in reality the Sun is enormous and nothing can hide it) and cannot cover the Sun completely, creating a rim of light and an annular eclipse.
The pirate called Koxinga
The June eclipse could best be seen from Xiamen Bay, which is where a memorial is for Zheng Chenggong, (the Wade-Giles romanization is Cheng Ch’eng-kung) is found. Our header picture shows the memorial park gates floating in water as lands and sea dissolve into one.
Zheng was born Aug. 28, 1624, Hirado, Japan (died June 23, 1662, Taiwan), and was a famous pirate leader of Imperial Ming forces against the Manchu conquerors of China. He is best known for establishing Chinese control over Taiwan which makes sense as his Venus (acquisition) is partile the fixed star Regulus (we’ll ignore houses because I have chosen a default sunrise birth chart and they are possibly wrong).
Zheng’s title, Guoxingye (“Lord of the Imperial Surname”), was mispronounced by the Dutch into Koxinga.
His Sun is opposite his Part of Fortune, something we have found in both he actress Ann Sheridan’s chart and Chief Justice John Roberts,’s. His Moon is opposite his Saturn in Leo, that is often a barometer of someone who has a dark cloud over their life like the composer Franz Schubert,1 while the proximity to Uranus makes Zheng often find himself in violent situations because his Venus which always wants what someone else has.
The Eclipse
June 30. 2020 ten days later, China unveiled a new law for Hong Kong late Tuesday that grants the authorities sweeping powers to crack down on opposition to Beijing at home and abroad with heavy prison sentences for vaguely defined political crimes. The law’s swift approval in Beijing signaled that Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, is expanding his control over Hong Kong to quash pro-democracy protests that evolved last year into an increasingly confrontational challenge to Chinese rule.
The Hong Kong government issued the text of the legislation at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, after weeks of unusual secrecy surrounding the drafting of the law in Beijing. The law took effect immediately, even though the public was seeing it in full only for the first time.
This eclipse is in effect until the next one, a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, later this year on Monday, November 30th right after the Presidential elections and Thanksgiving. C’ya then.
Footnotes:
- Composer Franz Schubert suffered from maniac-depression but it seems that the depressive cycles overpowered his maniac ones so he was often despondent about his talent and his magnificent works. A real pity.