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Photo courtesy of Christophe Marlot
http://www.astrosurf.com/carnets-astronome
From: "Joel M. Moskowitz, M.D." <moskowi@attglobal.net>
Here are a couple of frame grabs from my video that shows what we saw at centerline on the coast south of Puerto Vallarta:
http://homepage.mac.com/joelmoskowitz/PhotoAlbum4.html
See also Daniel Fischer's description of our boat
trip out of Puerto Vallarta at
http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/skyreports/mex2002/
My own recollections are not so dramatic, since I was ensconced on the lower deck of the ship out of Puerto Vallarta. The sea got rough from Boris as we left the Bay, heading about 3 hours south to get within the zone of annularity. We spotted a hole in the clouds to the west and asked the Captain to stop, but when he did, the ship rocked from side to side too much, so he started up again.
My lecture was given as I held onto the ceiling (low ceiling) with my hand to keep from falling, but the people seemed attentive as I showed slides of past annular eclipses, the Seattle partial eclipse at sunset, and a few total eclipses out of the 32 solar eclipses I had previously been to.
I heard later that people were sick upstairs, but almost everybody on the lowest desk was outside on the stern and seemed OK. Perhaps the higher levels rocked more. We did have the sea coming through windows at times and sloshing around on the deck.
Throughout the partial phases, we had our eyes on slits in the clouds in the west, one at about 4 degrees and one at about 2 degrees above the horizon, especially. We could tell where the sun was from occasional crepuscular rays. But it didn't show through the higher hole. The lower hole was pay dirt! Just as annularity started, we saw a bright vertical streak through the hole, obviously one of the annular eclipse's limbs, and we cheered. And then a few seconds later, the opposite limb appeared to its left. We snapped still and video images and generally rejoiced. Within two minutes, the eclipse was over, and the sun set (it was behind the clouds) a couple of minutes later. We asked the question "What is the minimum amount of sun one has to see at an annular eclipse to make the expedition a success," and decided that we had just defined it.
Jay Pasachoff
Williams College and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Images: Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5 Image 6
From: Bill Livingston at the National Solar Observatory's McMath-Pierce Telescope on Kitt Peak
Partial Phases Image: small ; large
From: Ray Brooks <rybrks1@cs.com>
We got to see a unique eclipse on a ship that left at 4pm from PV.
Turned out to be the ship Jay Pasachoff set up.
Ship rocked and rolled all the way out for 3 hours. Dozens of of the 160 people got sick immediately.
But we saw the eclipse right at maximum thru a sliver...very cool. We had gotten inside the north limit but turned around after trying to stop.. it just got too rough standing still and he did not want to come about again because we rolled big time coming about. So we were just outside the limit at eclipse. The gift ship got 100% trashed..lot of life jackets being worn..quite an adventure.
GOTTA CATCH MY FLIGHT
RAY BROOKS
From: Ray Brooks <rybrks1@cs.com>
To add to David Makepeace's fine commentary, I too had the post eclipse high all the way back on our return to shore. That was proof that for me I must have considered it a success. What are the odds that a sliver of cloud would line up just right in essentially 99.9% overcast skies right at max eclipse time? Too cool.
I sketched up a 2D model of how the eclipse manifested itself to us..maybe I can describe it now that I am not rushing for a plane. Being right at or just outside the Centerline (I was not going to risk my GPS in all the water sloshing about)..what we had was a reverse-hand letter C to look at. Both the Sun setting off to the right (north latitude) and our boat moving left to right made the Sun move rather fast to the right as it set. So the horizontal sliver (slit) of opening came across the sun from right to left rather fast. The left side of the slit first showed the right side of the annular ring (it was so thin, you could only see points of light) Then it showed the left side simultaneously. Then the left side of the slit was on the dark part of the (flip-flopped) C with the right still showing. Then the slit was centered on the center left side of the sun so it showed nothing at all. Then the right side of the slit showed the upper left part of the C for a few seconds.
Ray Brooks
From: David Makepeace <imoon@interlog.com>
Further to Ray Brooks' brief report of our ocean-bound adventure to see annularity, here are additional details --
A number of us chose, at the last minute, to join Jay Pasachoff on the cruise into annularity off the coast of Mexico near Cabo Corrientes. With tropical storm Boris still waving its ugly hand in the air, I believe we were the only organized team to attempt an observation by sea. For some it was well worth it. For others a nightmare.
Our poor vessel, the Princesa Yelapa, had never seen such stormy seas. During our harrowing three hour journey inside the northern limit, over half of our passengers became extremely sea sick, retching and vomiting beyond capacity. Then the gift shop exploded - the incessant pitching and keeling of the boat becoming too intense. The glass display cases and stands snapped into shards sending souvenirs flying as we buckled under the pressure of the waves. To make things even worse, there was water crashing in the windows on the lower deck every time we hit hard. And we weren't even there yet.
Still, the mayhem didn't stop Jay Pasachoff from presenting a great slide show about what we were expecting to see. And I thought the eclipse was super-human!
By the time we entered the zone of annularity, it was only the most keen of us paying any attention to what was happening. Great beds of clouds ruled the skies with only scattered breaks where the Sun was supposed to be. I was sure we would see partial phases in part but I was wrong. Holding on for dear life and juggling a 300ml lens (which was futile) we got our only treat of the trip. A brilliant tangerine diamond burst out of the clouds - growing like a diamond ring at third contact. Then another! It was both sides of annularity! Through a break in the clouds less than a quarter of a degree wide we observed the nine and three o'clock positions of the ring for about ten seconds. Prayers went skyward for a reappearance on the horizon - but it was not meant to be. I know both Jay and I tried our best to record the event, but it was Daniel Fisher that got the best results with his video camera. The rest of us were just lucky to be alive.
The return journey was less rough and extremely subdued but I still had that post-eclipse glow. We dragged our soggy bottoms back into port about 11:30pm.
I consider the chase to be a complete success and one of the most outrageous of my career. I loved it! But there are many who would beg to differ.
On 04 December 2002 I'll be in the sky in a twin-prop, six-seater aircraft northwest of Woomera if anyone wants to look up and wave.
Cheers to Patrick and Joanne for having us at the Hard Rock in PV and for giving many of us a chance to meet in person - and hats off to Klipsi for his tireless efforts on his website and for being the best PR guy we've got.
David Makepeace
Toronto, Canada
UmbraLog 1257
- --
Visit my website at www.eclipseguy.com
Hi Jay,
[I asked about the extinction for Ceduna, with the
sun at 9 degrees altitude.]
At 9-degrees it's a lot less uncertain. Assuming "typical" clear sky conditions
the extinction should be about 0.3 stellar magnitudes at 5000 angstroms, i.e.
~ 30%. As you can see its a VERY non-linear function. A typical multiple-scattering
problem the problem is known the composition and particle density of the scatterers!
I was VERY impressed with the photograph Michael
Gill had pointed to at
http://www.cdepa.pt/sol.jpg
but there was no description of it. By chance had you seen this, or a similar
"on the horizon" photograph before? I have emailed the contact address at that
site to try to get info on that photograph.
Glenn Schneider <gschneider@mac.com>
From: Glenn Schneider <gschneider@mac.com>
Subject: [SE] ASE 2002 "Cloud Scan" Photographs
Later than most, due to my extended stay in Mexico, I have now put a sequence
of images from ASE 2002 on my web server at:
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/ECLIPSE_WEB/ANNULAR02/ANNULAR_2002.html
This is not yet linked to my other pages, so you'll have to go there directly, and there is not much verbiage at this time - but the images probably speak for themselves. These were taken from the same centerline beach location which has been written about by several on the SEML list. If the clouds look familiar, yes, this was the same vantage point from which the images Joel Moskowitz posted earlier were taken. We were only about a meter apart, Joel to the South. I was the one on centerline ;-)
Note: These images and the QuickTime movie linked on that page were rendered for web display and look as I intended on my Mac. They look much darker and higher contrast on my Sun/Sparc and on Windoze boxes. This is because Macs use a default gamma for display of 1.8, whereas the windoze world uses 2.2. So, it it looks a bit dark and high contrasty to you you can adjust the brightness/contrast on the downloadable QuickTime viewer also pointed to on that page.
Cheers,
Glenn Schneider
From: Glenn Schneider
Despite Pat's possible admonition about "personal" posts to SEML, I must say what a real pleasure it was to have had the opportunity to meet and talk with so many of you I have gotten to know only "virtually" over the past few years at the Hard Rock Cafe and on eclipse day at the centerline site. And my special thanks to Pat for acting as a catalyst which made this confluence happen. Perhaps it was spontaneous, but without SEML I have my doubts. My only regret there is I had so little time to actually talk to him (and many others) as having my 8 year old daughter along forced a very early evening - perhaps another day and another eclipse. Having spent nearly a week in PV, and just now catching up on my overstuffed email boxes, I see reports and comments, many echoing my own thoughts, from many of you and many others. So, I'll try not to be redundant here as I was at the same site as Joel Moskowitz, Freed Espenak (after all these years and eclipses Fred and I were finally at the same site - a first - but separated by about 100 meters), Pierre Arpin, Jim Huddle, Michael Gill, and many others. Nature conspired to herd most of us seeking centerline to a single spot this time - for better or worse, unlike when we disperse across the globe as will happen in December when we straddle two continents. So, I took this opportunity since "I don't do annulars" (or so I have said on my web server, but I suppose I'll have to amend that to say I "usually don't do annulars") to observe eclipse chasers observing clouds (and an eclipse, of course!).
I had a brief discussion about this with Michael Gill, but I think I will always remember this as the "glass half full" eclipse. The amazing story story of the tiny sliver of a hole in the very high pervasive and long lasting opacity clouds, just at the right time and right place, which we ALL seemed to get a piece of - even those stability challenged on the "high" seas (very glad to hear Ray Brooks and Jay Pasachoff got their piece of it too) has been told here as well, and beautifully portrayed in the frame grad from Joel Moskowitz's video he shared with us. Yet consider an inverted chronology of events leading to the same results. What if we awoke to a cloudless clear steel-blue sky - made our 100+ km trek over bumpy roads and fording creeks to a magnificent vista of a blazing sun heading toward an unobscured horizon. But then, just before the onset of annularity a small loan cloud partially obscured the sun leaving us "only" to see annulaity in slices through small breaks in the cloud. Oh! How we would hear tales of woe and agonizing "we came THAT close, say a bit of it, but that DAMN tiny cloud!". Invert the parity of the sky coverage and we feel blessed (as we were) to be given a truly unexpected break. We were all so happy to never have seen the entire solar disk at one time, just slices of the partly cloud-obscured ring. Me? Of course I was happy, elated actually. When the first bit of sunlight broke through with only moments before sunset, giving us a glimpse of annularity, I knew that the prayer Joel M. had offered up at unseen 1st contact was answered. Still, I cannot help to think how miserable we would all have been if we say the same thing but started the day under ideal eclipse viewing conditions. Of course, if this were a total THEN I would be grumbling!...
No photos here yet, as I am just unpacking and will get the film in today, but given I was only about a meter from Joel I doubt anything I have would offer a new view. Thus far I have not heard of anyone out or over the Pacific who had seen annularity unobscured - but I may have missed this in one of the posted links. Does anyone know if this was seen?
Now it's time, back to work on TSE 2002 and 2003.
Glenn Schneider
Folks,
A failure it was, this was supposed to be my 2nd central birthday eclipse (after 1983 in Java), but this early morning eclipse on tiny Pulau Batuwingkung was essentialy clouded out.
I spent june 4 till 11th on the indonesian island of Sangihe, the early morning weather in the capital Tahuna was perfect until sunday morning broke down with clouds and rain. I did some prospecting for a good observing spot the previous day, went to the village of Manalu on the east coast, chartered a boat, and inspected some small beaches on Pulau (=island) Tehang, which was supposed to be on the center line. Most of the coast line of Sangihe and the tiny islands nearby, is very steep, rising rapidly (in Tahuna, on the west coast, the centrally eclipsed sun would be behind the central mountain chain..) I set off to Manalu again on monday, and headed by boat to Pulau Batuwingkung, barely 1 square kilometer, with a small hill on the east side, and three small hamlets stradling the southern and western part of the island. I made my mind up fast, to observe from the top of the hill, as the surrounding view was almost perfect. It was not such a hard climb starting at 4h15m on tuesday morning, all my equipment in a backpack, being guided through the bush (scratches all over my arms and leggs and face) by William and some of his friends, making a living on this island as fishermen, and Joly, police agent in Manalu, doing a wonderfull job as interpreter. The sky looked OK at the time, with a large clearing in the northeast, but the cloud cover was building again when dawn rose after 5 am, the sun rising at approximately 5h35m local (=UT +8hrs), but behind the cloud. Shortly thereafter the light began to fade down remarkebly (central eclipse at 5h55m local), some small holes in the cloud filtering through the tiniest amount of sunlight: accepting I would not see annularity, I was struck by the beauty of nature under the subdued light. The eclipsed sun only showed some 25 minutes later, the small crowd gathering around, were now gratified with some nice views through the Televue 70mm telescope, and I remembered not to forget my birthday. See some of you in South Africa or Mozambique, next december!
Wasyl, still spending some time in Sulawesi Utara
http://science.nasa.gov/spaceweather/eclipses/gallery_10june02_page3.html
Page 3 includes an annular phase, while the other pages have only (so far, as of this writing) partials.
From: Evan Zucker <ez@AbacusTotality.com
>
Subject: [SE] Great San Diego eclipse
We enjoyed a beautiful 80% magnitude eclipse in San Diego. The weather unexpected cleared up to a large degree, resulting in nearly the entire county able to observe at least some of the eclipse. However, clouds did start moving in from the coast during the eclipse, and so I was glad that I chose to observe about 30 miles east at 3,000-feet elevation at a vista point on Interstate 8 (32-50N, 116-40W). I didn't mind giving up 1% of magnitude in exchange for cloud-free skies.
I was sorry to see such extensive clouds in Puerto Vallarta at http://www.live-eclipse.org/eng/index.html. From the looks of the video, I don't think the folks at PV saw the entire annulus. It looks similar to the clouds we had in San Diego for the 4 Jan 92 ring of fire sunset eclipse except that we were fortunate that the clouds obscured only a small portion of the sun, at least south of Camp Pendleton; Los Angeles was completely clouded out then, but not this time.
This was a special eclipse for me because my younger son turned 5 on June 10, and he had been looking forward to his "birthday eclipse" for many months. Not surprisingly, I suppose, he was most excited seeing the eclipse with his own eyes through a solar filter. He enjoyed the much larger view through my 8" LX200, but it was a more "detached" view.
He and the other kids there also enjoyed the crescents formed by my colander (spaghetti strainer), the leaves in the trees, and by small circles we made with our fingers. The only mishap is that one of the kids dropped and shattered one of my pieces of No. 14 welder's glass, which was about 20 years old. That's why I always have backups.
We definitely noticed the air cooling and the sun and sky dimming as maximum eclipse approached. For whatever reason, the wind died down -- it had been relatively breezy when I arrived 80 minutes before first contact. The most interesting visual effect was that the shadow of my straw hat was sharper on one side than on the other side near maximum eclipse. And, of course, all the shadows were sharper than usual.
At mid-eclipse, the sun was 17 degrees above the horizon and still blindingly bright, which was good because it ensured that none of the children would violate my instructions and try to look at the unfiltered sun (if they were so inclined). I glanced at the sun and could just barely discern the crescent with unfiltered eyes. (Kids, don't try this at home!) When I closed my eyes, the after image was a crescent.
In contrast to San Diego being the best place in the U.S. to observe this eclipse, San Diego will be the worst place in the U.S. to observe the next U.S. solar eclipse, on 2005 Apr 8. Of all the places in the country that will see some portion of partiality (and about one-half of the U.S. won't see any), San Diego will have the very lowest magnitude and shortest duration -- about 3% and 13 minutes, respectively.
2012 May 20 will be a lot better. I would love to try to observe it at sunset in the Texas panhandle, but that is in the middle of Tornado Alley, and May is the peak of tornado season. Consequently, thunderstorms are quite common that time of year, and so the drier desert states, such as Utah and New Mexico, may be more promising. How about photographing annularity beneath an arch in Arches National Park!
Evan H. Zucker
San Diego, California
From: Pierre Arpin <parpin@videotron.ca>
I barely saw the eclipse too from a beach near La Cruz de Loreto. I was visible from a tiny hole at the horizon over the sea.
We were about 300 afficionados, mostly from the university of Guadalajara, Many americans and some from France and Canada like me. I will post some of the pictures I took on that day once I will get them.
Scientific Observations of Alan Clark, U. Calgary
From: "T. Alan Clark" <taclark@ucalgary.ca>
Subject: Re: eclipse
The measurements at the McMath-Pierce telescope (of the National Solar Observatory, on Kitt Peak, Arizona) on the partial eclipse were in support of the MSc program of Claude Plymate of NSO and thus, Marcel Bergman, my colleague, and I were assisting him with this experiment. The "provenence" of this experiment is as follows:
Charlie Lindsey, Doug Rabin, Bill Livingston and I used a similar partial eclipse with somewhat better geometry in May of 1994 (the completion of the paper from which is close!) to improve the definition of the height of the layer of cold CO gas significantly. This experiment in turn was a continuation, and significant expansion, of a series of such measurements carried out by myself and graduate student Rita Boreiko from a Lear jet in the 1980's and on Hawaii with colleague David Naylor in the 1991 eclipse using a continuously-variable filter photometer. This latter experiment was part of the collaborative submm experiment by Charlie Lindsey, John Jefferies, Richard Harrison and I on the JCMT.
These near IR experiments showed limb extension of the CO. The spectrometer available on the McMath-Pierce telescope provided much better spectral resolution.
As to the eclipse last week, results were marred by a data recording problem. The use of a partial eclipse, while less than ideal, does provide the advantage of making a series of observations at a sequence of contact points (7 in 1994 and 6 last week). The disadvantages of a partial eclipse are obvious. Seeing fluctuations in a direction perpendicular to the solar limb can be handled by integrating the intensity from sky to moon but fluctuations parallel to the limb of the remaining wedge of sunlight can produce significant variations. Also, the "rough" lunar profile is sliding across the slit compared to the equivalent situation in a total or annular eclipse and this can produce uncertainty in the effective "eclipse rate".
Analysis of the 1994 eclipse measurements have revealed a number of intriguing results.
A) Emission from the strongest transitions of CO
apparently reaches 0.62 +/-0.04 arc seconds beyond the IR continuum limb, and
little if any emission exists beyond 1 arc second. Effective spatial resolution
of these data was 0.1 arc seconds. This result will constrain theoretical models
of the lower chromosphere.
B) Extension of CO emission appears to be linear with line strength but isotope
dependent, the 12CO following a different linear relation to those for the 13CO
and C18O lines.
C) These data show that, at the highest layers, the CO is very cold.
The technique during these partial eclipses is to
take a series of spectral-spatial frames at about 3 frames a second as the lunar
limb passes across the chosen contact point, with the solar limb centered upon
the slit. The spatial extent was 50 arc seconds, the spectral region about 3
cm-1. An "integral" eclipse curve was then produced by integrating the spectral
energy in each spectral element between the dark sky and the moon. Differentiation
of these curves then produces a profile of the limb at each wavelength. As is
typical in eclipse measurements, the noise on this profile diminishes as the
limb is approached. Limb extension of each wavelength, particularly the center
of each line, is estimated by sliding the profile to match that of the nearby
continuum. The limb extension can be estimated in this way to somewhat better
than the effective spatial resolution.
I hope that you can use these notes.
Alan Clark
The eclipse sequence images are taken from a video
made with a Sony miniDV camcorder with tele-extender X2.
One more time, the clouds on the photos will be the same that on other eclipse
shot, 'cause it seems there was only one good spot on the centerline, near La
Cruz de Loreto. When coming on this attractive beach at about 2 pm, there was
almost nothing else than wind, sand, sea and wind ! We were only six people
on that fantastic beach : an eclipse chaser camping on the beach, our friend
Pierre Arpin (bonjour Pierre) and his Quebec flag, Dan and Ginger Derose, Christelle
and I. Well, not so bad for about 5 km of white sand.
Then a car arrived, and another, and another ; then a bus and a dozens of cars,
then a couple of buses ... Finally : 400 people !
Glenn was located about 3 meters behind my cameras, so , don't expect great
difference between Glenn's nice set of images and my own set ;-)
Yet, I included a stunning view of the sky just before the annular phase and
a more interesting view of an orange sky just after the sunset. Remember this
fantastic sky ? In a mail to the "Chasseurs-Eclipse" mailing list,
Pierre Arpin said that he remembered some clear holes in the sky that looked
green. Can't remember these sights. What about you ?
There are such clear gap on the photos, but the sky looks blue-white.
You will find the photos here :
http://astrosurf.com/carnets-astronome/eclisol/2002/eclimex2002.htm
Home page for other eclipses :
http://www.astrosurf.com/carnets-astronome
LESS than 6 months to the next sunset eclipse in Australia !
Christophe Marlot
THE ROAD TO CHIMO
MEXICO: ANNULAR ECLIPSE 10TH JUNE 2002
"The road to Chimo" may seem a strange title for this trip report, but it's what the trip was all about. Eclipse chasing again, annular this time, and a sunset annular with unpromising weather prospects, but still we go, with the hope that the weather god will bless us all.
Being English you would think I am well used to being frustrated with what's going on above the clouds, but it doesn't count when you know something spectacular is happening rather than normal sunrays. However, this trip was so worthwhile, so valuable in so many other ways, and I therefore learnt a valuable lesson. How to value an eclipse trip by other measures. Not just seeing the eclipse, of which we were lucky enough to see about seven minutes worth of partial phase, but also the amount of fun and effort getting there.
After breakfast the day before the eclipse we headed out of town for Derryl's hotel, who had hired a 4 x 4 for the trip to Chimo. Most friends were heading for the centre line; we however, were going for the northern limit. El Tuito was 33 kilometres south of Puerto Vallarta, from there we headed west towards the coast, finding the road to Chimo wasn't straight forward, there were no sign post to speak off, Patrick's knowledge of Spanish helped with the locals giving directions.
The road to Chimo I will never forget, 55 kilometres of dusty, bumpy, mountain track, at places with sheer drops from the side of the road, at places no wider that the car, with blind bends, and rivers to be crossed, we kept telling ourselves, "it can not be that bad because the bus goes there", but it was. We felt like Indiana Jones on the last crusade. Four or five villages lined the road sometimes with a small church and shop, and some small farms. Simple people living simple lives. The last village before Chimo was Mal Paso, translated graciously by Patrick for me, means bad pass, I was happier in my ignorance. With still 19 kilometres of bad pass to be driven, sometimes my eyes were closed. When we reached Chimo we had not noticed the amount of dust which covered, our first view of Chimo was a small cluster of buildings by a glistening sea, we knew immediately we had found a perfect location.
The weather that morning had been the best since we arrived in Mexico, but by lunch time when set out for the eclipse site it had clouded over. Chimo isn't much to write home about, could be described as off the beaten track, away from the tourist drag. There is no village square to speak off, two shops though, and the beer was only 7 pesos a bottle. From now everything would be compared to Chimo's prices, the houses are simple by our standard, chickens running around, donkeys outside the front door, and no glass in the windows. The men were playing dominoes, and the kid's swimming, fishing looked like the main source of income, but the kids looked healthy enough, and happy.
The children gathered around us like the clouds. Derryl gave out shades to all the kids, and became instantly popular. We set up and wait.
First contact gone - clouded out. There's a shaft of light, we have a hole in the sky, then the eclipse appears, over half way the moon is covering the sun, 7 minutes of precious partial phase, and then it's gone again. Only to re-appear during maximum but we can only see one side clearly.
We wrongly thought that when the sun came into our hole, we would have visibility until sunset, but the sun's rays were obscured behind the thick cloud behind down to the horizon. When the last beam of light came through during maximum 20.33.42 p.m., I was already dismantling the camcorder, so the last filming was very shaky by hand.
We packed up for the very tough ride back, everyone nervous, the road to Chimo was difficult enough but now it would be during dusk and into nightfall. At midnight we reached the hotel and had a well-deserved beer with Derryl, Pam, and Michele. We watched the video over and remembered the road to Chimo. The weather god may not have been with us all the way, but the god of adventure certainly had been, and we were thankful for that.
On our last day in Mexico we visited Teotihuacan, pyramids of the sun and the moon. Ancient cultures are always fascinating and this seems to round off the trip so neatly. Climbing up the pyramid del sol who is always there, if not always visable, followed by climbling the pyramid del la luna who predictably crosses the sun's path, and there we will all be again, see you in Afica.
Special thanks goes to Derryl Barr who allowed us to join him, the driving was incrediably tough, he was great.
Joanne Poitevin
From: Jay Friedland <jay@cinemagic.com>
Subject: [SE] ASE2002: Los Playitos, Mexico
Just wanted to let everyone know that they have added a fifth page of eclipse images at spaceweather.com and three of our photos made it in: http://science.nasa.gov/spaceweather/eclipses/gallery_10june02_page5.htm
We are still trying to figure out if the small glint in the image means that we captured just a bit of annularity or just post third contact - its very hard to tell. The images were a surprise (thanks to an automated camera setup) since we really thought we had missed the hole in the clouds. We were about halfway between the centerline and northern limit, also about 50 km down dirt roads on one of the nicest beaches I have ever seen. I have to agree with Joanne Poitevin that this eclipse will go down on record as one with high adventure - it was great and definitely half full!
- - Jay
Likes Shadows... Totals: 1991 Baja, 1994 Bolivia, 1995 Thailand, 1998 Galapagos, 1999 Austria Annulars: 1992 Catalina Island (clouded out), 1994 Erie, PA, 2002 Puerto Vallarta (mostly clouded ;-)
From: Mark Egan <astrophoto@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [SE] The road to Chimo
This was indeed a charming report.... thanks for posting it.
I was one of the "many" :-) who went to the centerline site. Of course, the roads down there weren't great either.... but, after reading this report, it seems like they were in better shape than the one to Chimo. In fact, it wasn't too much worse than the road to my astronomy club's dark sky observing site..... EXCEPT that it was much longer, and EXCEPT for that part where we had to cross the river. (although that part wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.) Perhaps it didn't rain as much on that stretch of road.
I did as much research on the road conditions down there as I could..... joining various Puerto Vallarta- related mailing lists, reading books, and e-mailing Puerto Vallarta- based websites. I didn't receive much help-- and I wasn't expecting much..... because very few people go down there. The few people that did help did a fairly accurate job.
My biggest fears befored driving the roads were: river crossings (which we faced), roads that could turn to slush (which we didn't face), and the "crazy night drivers" that I had been warned about.
But it was really "my kind of road".... I'll never forget the 3 hour winding, dust filled adventure we had..... passing fields and villages where people live lives much simpler than we do. It's a shame that this eclipse was at such a low altitude... so many of those inland towns missed out on the best part!
But I like to get off the main highways and go to the smaller roads.... and when I can, get off of those roads and take the dirt ones. Lots of neat stuff to see.
Anyway, as memorable as the road was, it was finally good to see so many eclipse chasers in the same area. I had read so many reports about other eclipses but many times everyone observed in a different area. it was so exciting being in the company of so many people that shared a common interest.
I hope to see some of you at future eclipses.
Happy Chasing.
Mark Egan
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 23:30:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Egan <astrophoto@yahoo.com>
Subject: [SE] How did everyone's pictures turn out?
Hey Everyone,
It's been great to see the numerous fascinating pictures that were taken at June's eclipse.... especially the ones taken from in and around Puerto Vallarta.
For those of you who haven't shown us your pictures, how did they turn out?
I'm especially interested in finding out about pictures taken with long focal length lenses. Most of what I've seen (including my own) seem to have been taken with medium- focal length equipment (300-500 mm) But I talked to at least one person who was shooting at 1000mm focal length.
As for my results, I actually have something workable! I didn't think anything was going to come out, since I was shooting so fast.
The frames are a little dark, but I believe I can get a good result from them. I can't wait to see an enlarged print.
Unfortunately, my video is slightly out of focus right at the critical moment (ouch!) but the audio is classic.... myself and Pierre Arpin yelling with glee at the miracle clearing we were witnessing.
Had the eclipse been clear, my plan was to take pictures with a big lens zoomed in on the sun, then to take wide angle pictures with 2 cameras-- one facing east, and one facing west, to record any interesting lighting effects. Then I wanted to do some video, zoomed in on the sun.
A few minutes before annularity, I offically resorted to plan B: ignore the sun. No reason to zoom in on the clouds, I thought. So I put a wide- angle adapter on my camcorder and took more pictures with my 2 cameras with wide angle lenses on them.
What I didn't have was a plan C: what do do if a sudden clearing appeared! When Pierre Arpin yelled out "Oh!", alerting those in his vicinity to the appearance of the sun, right before the crucial moment, I started rushing around.... I needed to zoom in on the sun again, and there was not much time to do it! Hence the blurriness of my video-- and my pictures seem to have some vibration to them. Oh well. It was certainly exciting to experience!
By the way, some have commented on the picture taken by on "page 3" of the spaceweather.com eclipse gallery. When I first looked at that shot I thought "Whoa! Someone got more of the ring than we did!" (referring to the first of their 2 pictures.)
But there's a catch: it's a composite.
Here's part of their response to an e-mail I sent them:
WE SAW THE VERY SAME THING. IN OUR MAIL TO SPACEWEATHER WE DID MENTION THAT THE FIRST PICTURE IS A MULTIPLE EXPOSURE. THE SECOND PICTURE IS AN INDIVIDUAL FRAME. WE HAVE ABOUT 24 PICTURES OF THE SUN WHERE IT SHOWS AS A PARENTHESIS, BUT WHEN I MADE A ANIMATION SHOWING THE MOVEMENT OF THE CLOUDS OVER THE SUN IT WAS CLEAR THAT IN SOME WAY THE CLOUDS HELPED TO "SCAN" THE SUN, SO I ASEMBLED 11 IMAGES IN PHOTOSHOP, AND THE RESULT IS VERY PLEASING BUT IT DOESN'T REPRESENT WHAT WE SAW THAT DAY (SIGH!)
WERE YOU THE GUYS WITH 3 BUSSES AND A LOT OF TENTS? WE DROVE AROUND YOUR SPOT THE DAY BEFORE IN 2 CARS, INCLUDING A VW CONVERTIBLE. WE WERE ABOUT 2-3 KM TO THE NORTH, I SUPPOSE YOU WERE IN A BEACH CALLED PUNTA PENITAS.
It's too bad that SpaceWeather.com did not relay the fact that the first picture was a composite.... I really was under the impression that someone saw that much sun at annularity!
Anyway, lots of good memories from this one. And one of them is soon to be framed on my wall.
Best Regards.
Mark Egan
Go back to the top Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002
From: Glenn Schneider <gschneider@mac.com>
My pictures posted at
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/ECLIPSE_WEB/ANNULAR02/ANNULAR_2002.html were taken with a 400mm lens - right in the ballpark of your 300-500mm posting. I had chosen this format which gives an appx. 7-degree FOV to have allowed for a nice reflection of the eclipsed Sun off the water (compromise of field of view and resolution), but of course, the clouds had other ideas...
Glenn Schneider
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/
From: Christelle & Christophe Marlot <ccmlt@wanadoo.fr>
http://astrosurf.com/carnets-astronome/eclisol/2002/eclimex2002.htm
Paul Maley's account of his Tinian expedition:
http://www.eclipsetours.com/June10.html
From: Friedhelm Dorst <sietis@gmx.de>
Subject: Happy Birthday !
[Here are] some of my recent pictures I could sample on Tinian Island during the annular eclipse of June 11 together with the Maleys (Paul&Lynn), the Nyes (Derald&Denise) as well as Paul Stewart and Ann Bullen from Melbourne, Australia. See the attachment!
My eclipse adventure was not as thrilling as yours which you happened to experience together with Daniel Fischer when facing the menace of "Boris", but a big and long cloud at my hotel roof location did not disappear before 5 minutes from annularity, 10 minutes earlier I would definitely have been clouded out. The general weather on that day had been very promising during all the other partial phases on eclipse day, much better than on the previous days, but this very long cloud 25 minutes before central eclipse threatened to ruin precisely the ring. People situated more to the south did not need to care, so the tension was paralyzing one's mind. The relief came just in time though I could have needed it 5 minutes earlier. Nevertheless: what a present from heaven that no more clouds appeared in front of the sun for a long time, be it small whisps of cumuli or the slightest cirrus ribbons: it was so wonderfully clear as You could not have wished for any more!
I used two camcorders with ND4 and an even stronger ND filter respectively. But the most important instrument was a Nikon 400mm-telephoto ED lens with two tele- - -converters yielding a f.l. of 1120 mm . The camera body was a Nikon D1H digital camera which I ran in uncompressed RAW mode. I used the lowest speed of 200 ASA at an effective f/32 with an ND3 filter (which proved to be ND 2.7 instead). These parameters allowed me to capture "normal" pictures displaying the limb darkening effect on the sun's surface just at the shortest exposure time of 1/16 000 second as well as 1/8 second (just avoiding image smear, since my lens was leaning against brick stones) for prominence and coronal picturing. I also did the latter with removed filter at a range of 1/16 000 second to 1/250 second, but the use of a filter is safer for the light meter and the longer exposure times with filter helped to prevent the blooming effect.
Friedhelm "Freddy" Dorst
I just got back from Puerto Vallarta after traveling there to observe the annular eclipse. I was clouded out of annularity but I got to see an 89% partial on the road east of Cruz de Loreto. The full story with pictures, including a shot of the SEML meeting at the Hard Rock is here:
http://www.moonglow.net/eclipse/2002jun10/
Fred Bruenjes
fred@moonglow.net
From: ccmlt <ccmlt@wanadoo.fr>
Subject: [SE] Mexican ASE : photos taken at 1250 mm focal ...
Dear friends, I finally got the photos taken from that famous beach near La Cruz de Loreto last june .... Never too late !
The photo were taken with a Meade etx 90 Mak at 1250
mm focal (german EQ mount, no motor drive), on Kodak Royal 100 iso. 1/4 and
1/2 sec. From the roll, I chose 2 rather nice images, despite cloud's bluring.
Hope you like them ' ;-)
What a thin crescent !
You can see the first photo here : http://astrosurf.com/carnets-astronome/
And the other one here (bottom of the page, or direct
click on the first photo) :
http://astrosurf.com/carnets-astronome/eclisol/2002/eclimex2002.htm
Please note that the PV ase photo, will not stay forever on my front page, but rather in my special mexican page : http://www.astrosurf.com/carnets-astronome/eclisol/2002/eclimex2002.htm
Sincerely,
Christophe Marlot
I'm new to this email list, so I wanted to share some of my pix of the June 10th Annular that I took from near the center of town in Puerto Vallarta.
My website, www.schmahlconsulting.com also contains links to other astro photo projects I and others have dabbled in over the years. Some of the links are still "under construction", but I hope to fill them in one of these years.
Best wishes to all,
Dave Schmahl, Vista, CA.
