An observation team from the Swiss Federal Observatory observed the total eclipse in Nejapa and Miahuatlán, Mexico. The weather conditions were good at both locations. Miahuatlán offered particularly good observation conditions with an altitude of 1,620 metres above sea level, high air quality and
solar zenith angle of 63° at the time of the eclipse. The team took images of the
corona and analyzed them with a
polarizing filter. Austrian-American physicist
Erwin Saxl and American physicist
Mildred Allen reported anomalous changes in the period of a
torsion pendulum when observing a partial solar eclipse with a
magnitude of 0.954 from
Harvard, Massachusetts, called the "Saxl Effect".
Visible Planets and Stars During totality, other celestial objects brighter than
magnitude 1.5 often become visible. By far the brightest and therefore easiest object seen around totality on 7/3/1970 was
Venus, which lay about an hour east of the eclipsed Sun.
Mars and
Saturn were about three hours east of the Sun with Saturn the brighter planet, while
Mercury, 16 days away from superior conjunction (and therefore showing most of its sunlit side, making it bright), was an hour or so west of the Sun. Of the stars,
Fomalhaut was almost due south of the Sun, the
Summer Triangle of
Vega,
Deneb and
Altair was well up in the west, and recently risen
Aldebaran and
Capella were in the east and northeast respectively. == In popular culture ==