A Tale of Ten Eclipses
Evolution of my eclipse chasing equipment over the past 17 years or how in the space of ten eclipses I went from
this
to
this
The
challenge for solar eclipse chasers is to travel with what can be a
heavy
burden of equipment. Total solar eclipses (TSE's) can only be observed
from
relatively narrow geographic paths across the Earth's surface. A
typical eclipse can be observed as total from only 1% of the Earth's
surface and much of that is usually ocean. A total eclipse is only
visible from your backyard on average once every 375 years and this is
just an average for the whole Earth over thousands of years. The time
that passes between total solar eclipses for a specific location can be
much greater. For
example, from my home in Canberra, the last total eclipse was visible
in 1247 AD for a miserly 23 seconds and the next in 2337AD for just 1m
47s. So we poor eclipse chasers are forced to travel to sometimes
remote or exotic locations to indulge our hobby. It's a hard life but
someone has to do it.
Like all eclipse chasers, my equipment kit
has evolved considerably over the years. I began eclipse chasing with
light flimsy equipment. As I've tried to do more photography, my kit
grew much heavier. Over the past 9 years, I've put considerable effort
into lightening the weight of my kit while retaining or even improving
functionality and stability. I've done this by using the old
mountaineering adage : watch the grams, the kilograms will take care
of themselves.
My checked luggage for the total eclipse in Zambia in 2001 was
30kg. In July 2009, I checked 21.5kg yet I have what I believe is a
better setup. For TSE 2010, I checked in 19kg and only carried
3kg of hand luggage. This met a restriction imposed by the
airline due to the specifications of the aircraft(ATR45) and the
shortness of the runway (1100m).
Better doesn't mean more equipment nor does it necessarily mean more weight.
