Dirk Ewers - TOTAL ECLIPSE 08.11.,1999, SCHWALBACH NEAR SAARBRÜCKEN<BR>
TOTAL ECLIPSE 08.11.,1999, SCHWALBACH NEAR SAARBRÜCKEN
Here is my short description :
In the weeks before eclipse-day another
hobby-astronomer from my village and me decided to go to
Herbrechtingen at the center line.
At noon of 08.10., after getting the last weather
predictions, we changed our plan now to visit Schwalbach
near Saarbrücken, where friends of mine live.
The predictions for sunshine were 60% there at this moment.
in the eastern countryside of germany it was only 30% at all.
So we started driving to Saarbrücken at 3:45 in the morning
and arrived early at 8:15.
At 9:30 we began to get the instruments ready for viewing
and taking photos/videos.
Our instruments :
- Meade SC-telescope 12" 3000mm / F:10,
at totality with a focal reducer 2/3
- 2 Canon cameras EOS 500 and 300,
1x behind the telescopebody
and 1x in the background with an 28mm-objective
on a tripod
- Panasonic S-VHS-Camera (8x optical) with telelens 1,4 x
mounted on the camera-adapter of the SC-telescope
- Bresser Newton 110mm / 1000mm,
F: 9 ( from my friend Johann Spuling)
The 12"LX200 ready for action
(with mounted videocamera)
1: The sun 45% partial covered with sunspots, f:2000mm
2: The sun 80% partial covered with flares at 10.00,f:3000mm
At our place the growing partial phase could be seen well,
also we could take some pictures, there were only 10 minutes
of rain.
10 minutes before totality sun and moon could be seen very
well through a big gap in the clouds.
This gap moved fast above us to the south and we feared
that it would be away before totality.
From that moment on I was really excited. I couldn't concentrate
because there were some people around us and they were talking
very loud about unimportant things.
After viewing the last rays of the sun before second contact
with the telescope I found out that the videocamera wasn't
running, I had to start it again !
Now I saw the diamond ring through the camera.
At this moment the people around were TOTALY quiet.
There were only sounds like AAAhh and OOOhhh !
Quickly I changed to look through the photocamera behind the Telescope.
Everything was dark - what happend ?!
After nearly 20 seconds I found out that the telescope was still covered
with the filter - quickly away with it !
Then I saw unbelieveable beautyfull pictures - parts of the corona and
prominences without end !
After short correction to the center I started shooting pictures with
1/2000, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/125, 1/30, 1/2 second at Kodak Royal Select 100,
taken from 40 seconds to 1 Min. 10 seconds after second contact.
Then I ran to start the second photocamera with the 28mm-objective.
While going back to the telescope again I looked at the dark blue-grey sky
around and to the yellow corona for nearly 20 seconds...
In the last 20 seconds of totality I took some more pictures with
the telescope until third contact.
Very fast daylight came back thereafter. The complete partial phase backwards
couldn't be seen at our viewpoint, but that wasn't really a problem,
we had seen what we wanted to see !
So I'm very happy with the pictures and visible impressions.
--- TOTALITY ---
Photo with 28mm-objektive, manual focus,f 4, 1 second.
Photo with Meade SC LX200 12" telescope + Focal Reducer 2/3, F= 2000mm / 6,3
Negativescan on Photo-CD
Prominences at 1-3 o'clock
1/60 second, part of a negativescan on Photo-CD
Prominences at 2-3 o'clock
1/60 second, part of a negativescan on Photo-CD
Last update: 03.10.1999