Total Solar Eclipses
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11 Aug 1999-Paks, Hungary
26 Feb 1998-Maricaibo, Venezuela
3 Nov 94-Cecilio Baez, Paraguay
11 Jul 91-La Venta, Mexico
This photo of the 11 Aug 99 eclipse in Hungary was
made more interesting by the modernistic church steeple in the city of
Paks, about 60 miles south of Budapest. City officials hosted us
and wondered if I could capture the eclipse to highlight the nicely gilt
sun symbol at one of the steeple's tips.
This shot also made it to the cover of a national magazine. |
This photo was taken using ISO 200 Kodak PKL professional
emulsion Kodachrome through a 50mm lens on my 35mm Asahi Pentax screw-mount
SLR. Exposure was f/5.6 at 1/2 second. |
Through my 600mm f/8 Takahashi apochromatic telescope,
the view of totality from Hungary was spectacular.
For this eclipse, the solar corona was amazingly
uniformly distributed (compare it with the totality photos from other events)
around the solar disk. Note too, the reddish tinge around the edge
of the moon; this was the glare from the sun's brilliant red chromospheric
prominences intruding into the lunar disk. These features are far
brighter than the coronal details this two-second exposure was intended
to capture. The photos below, all taken at 1/1000 second, show the
prominences better. Eclipses display a range of brightness many millions
of times greater than even the best film can capture but the human eye
can see it all--another good reason to do whatever it takes to personally
witness these awe-inspiring phenomena.
 |
This photo, taken at the very
last moment before totality, shows the rich collection of chromospheric
prominences around the solar disk during this eclipse. Note the wonderful
structure of these streams of brilliant red glowing gas at the 10, 3:30,
and 7 o'clock positions. |
Just like photos of the corona, these enlargements
of the above image provide a rare glimpse of phenomena not visible from
the Earth at any other time except during a total solar eclipse.
 |
Prominences, huge swirling
streams of ionized hydrogen, blasted many thousands of miles from the solar
surface, are often shaped and contorted by the intense magnetic fields
of sunspots and other disturbances. Some, like the one at the right,
can separate completely. This prominence extends more than 50,000
miles out into space. |
 |
 |
Others were large enough
to contain the Earth (it'd easily get lost inside this huge cloud). |
This eclipse, though only 2 minutes, 20 seconds long
as seen from where we viewed it, proved to be one of the most spectacular
I've ever seen.
The city of Paks had hosted us and, after the eclipse,
officials asked us to meet with the local media. Tibor Lovas, author
of the city's web site, published a copy of one of my totality photos as
well as reproduced the entire text of the newspaper article about our visit.
That and other information about Paks can be found on Tibor's official
Paks
page.
Also, see many more reports and photos from the 1999
eclipse on Fred Espenak's MrEclipse
page.
26 February 1998 in Venezuela
 |
 |
| "Diamond Ring" (26 Feb 98) |
"Diamond Fleck" (26 Feb 98) |
 |
| Totality (Venezuela 26 Feb 98) |
The above solar eclipse images were shot through a
600mm f/8 Takahashi Calcium Fluorite refracting telescope adapted to a
screw-mount 35mm Asahi Pentax camera body.
Exposure times for the "Diamond Ring" and "Diamond
Fleck" images were 1/1000 sec and the totality image was captured over
2 seconds. Film was Kodachrome Professional Emulsion transparency
film with an ISO of 200.
3 November 1994 in
Paraguay
| This image was shot using a 300mm Takumar f/4 telephoto
lens equipped with a focal length doubler, yielding a 600mm, f/8 combination.
The camera body was the same screw-mount Asahi Pentax.
Exposure time was 2 seconds on Kodak ISO 200 print
film. Location was on the totality centerline in the village of Cecilio
Baez, to the northeast of Asuncion, Paraguay. |
 |
American Mensa used my photo and feature article for
the May 1995 issue of their national magazine. My article focused
on the excitement, adventure, and reward of traveling the world to witness
total solar eclipses.
11 July 1991 in southern Mexico
 |
| Totality (11 July 1991) |
This image was shot using a 300mm Takumar f/4 telephoto
lens equipped with a focal length doubler, yielding a 600mm, f/8 combination.
The camera body was the same screw-mount Asahi Pentax.
Exposure time was 1.5 seconds on Kodak ISO 200 color
print film. Location was 8 miles south of the totality centerline,
at the edge of the little village of La Venta, southeast of the city of
Tehuantepec in southern Mexico.
Please send any comments or questions to David Rosenthal at: n6tst--then the "at" symbol--ridgenet.net. (Note: As a result of the unavoidable nuisance now posed by spammers and their automated Web page-scanning, e-mail address-collecting software, I can no longer use the conventional name@server.com address format [humorously, that aforementioned e-mail address-collecting software will likely find my "name@server.com" address example, harvest it, and try to send spam to it. Ha!]).
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