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Bill:

I was there and I had a digital camera, but I took no photos of the
eclipse. There's just too much to look at. We were in northern China,
near the Mongolian border, and it was a good eclipse. Hell, there's never
been a bad one! Lots of corona, but the rest of the sun was quiet, as
expected. There was a lot of sophisticated equipment at the site, so I'm
sure thas someone has a photo. I'll nose around a bit.

I don't know if any navigational knowledge can be gained from seeing a
total eclipse, and if there were any, it would be of limited use, since
they happen so seldom. Maybe a million years between occurrences at the
same spot on Earth. In 2003, we were among the first humans to see an
Antarctic eclipse because the last one there (anywhere in Antarctica) was
10,000 years ago. Only the penguins saw it.

Anyway, the path of the eclipse is several miles wide, so seeing one
doesn't give much position data. First contact, where the shadow of the
moon first touches the sun, might give some data as to the position along
the track, but we heard others noting it before we actually saw anything.
It takes an hour for the moon to creep along enough to blot out the sun.
The beginning of totality is quite definite (and dramatic!), as is the
end. An average of these two times would give the center of totality.

We were at:

43N 25.273'
93E 44.427'

Someone asked, "You mean that you travelled half way around the world and
lived for twenty four hours on a bus to look at the sun for two minutes?"
It does sound a bit idiotic.

Jim Wilson
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