[ I asked some MMDers in Europe to tell about the solar eclipse
 [ events in their localities.  Here are the first reports.  -- Robbie

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 From: h.marxsen@t-online.de.geentroep (Hauke Marxsen)
 Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 15:01:57 +0200

Hello Robbie!  You asked me to tell about the eclipse we had.  Around
Frankfurt it was not a total eclipse.  The moon covered the sun for a
short time, up to 98 percent.  It was not as dark as I thought it would
be.

Worse luck: we had heavy clouds.  For only a few moments did holes
in the clouds release a view to the event.  Some blossoms of flowers
closed.  From early morning, on the radio, we heard about traffic jams
on the highways to the South.

Kind Regards

Hauke Marxsen

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 From: havo@kabelfoon.nl.geentroep (Hans van Oost)
 Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 21:51:06 +0200

Dear friends,  Today's eclipse of the sun was the best I ever
saw: over 94%, with a clear sky.  It got quite dark then, and our
chickens went inside for a little nap.  Fortunately I did not take
the trouble to travel to the totality zone (the nearest point for
us would be about Luxembourg), because most of the European continent
seems to have been clouded (as nearly always...).

My son has a small telescope, and we projected the sun on a small
diameter projection screen.  We could see the sun spots vanishing.
Wonderful!  Moreover, nothing nasty happened, so Nostrodamus was
wrong again!

Cheers from Holland!

Hans van Oost

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 From: leo.perretti@projectpp.it.geentroep (Leonardo Perretti)
 Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 01:27:16 +0200

We had 80% eclipse here in central-south Italy, with a clear sky.
The light dimmed a little bit, and the sky turned to a strange
gray-blue color.  The rays of the sun became pleasantly fresh, while
we are suffering through very hot weather these days.

I saw the sun through a welding mask plus sun glasses.  Wonderful.
Also, I made a small pinhole projector, so that my little daughter
could see clearly the image of the sun covered by the moon.

The only disaster I noticed today was to go at work this afternoon
with no air-conditioner in my car...

Greetings from Italy

Leonardo Perretti