There will be a total solar eclipse coming March 29, 2006. I'm planning to travel to the Libyan desert to watch this event. Preparing the travel is demanding especially finding quality maps. Fortunately there is GE!
My GE beginner's project is first to draw the umbral path given e.g. on the NASA website: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmono/TSE2006/TSE2006.html


and subsequently find and map the possible routes to access the area (e.g. the volcano Waw an Namus, location: 27.25N, 17.50E, elevation: 1200 m)



I have overlaid a detailed NASA map from the above site showing the path close to the max. eclipse and after some help and try and error the result looks not too bad. I have also tried to test the accuracy of the overlay by using the given coordinates table, rearranged it in Excel and finally placed some of the coordinates of the umbra centre line on the map.

My newbie attempts to integrate overlays might still be a bit clumsy. Any suggestions for improvement? Maybe there are possibilities to integrate the entire coordinates table with some import tool? Then there should be a way to interconnect the coordinates with lines (is this only possible with paths in GE Plus)? How to mark the hardly visible tracks in the desert sand? ...

thanks for any hint, rw