WAITING FOR THE SHADOW

SOLAR AND LUNAR ECLIPSE OBSERVING

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TSE 2001 Zambia
In 2001 I purchased a 400mm f5 "Shorty" refractor for visual observations.  I again used the 500mm f4.5 for photography but being in Africa, it served a double purpose. I was going off to do lots of wildlife photography with it after the eclipse and it certainly pulled its weight.


Before this eclipse I made my own light weight equatorial head more or less specifically for eclipse work. It was a single axis head.  I mounted it on my manfrotto tripod. I mounted the 500 f4.5 and the refractor on the equatorial mount.  It was much too heavy for the equatorial head but much too heavy for the manfrotto tripod. To strengthen the tripod, I taped two broom handles to each tripod leg to make a triangular bundle using packing tape. It helped but it was still a very wobbly mounting.  
http://joe-cali.com/eclipses/PAST/TSE2001/Zambia.html
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TSE2002 AUSTRALIA
This eclipse was only 1500km from my home in Canberra so I loaded up my heavy motorized EQ mounting into my 4wd and drove into the desert.  Home eclipses are quite rare so I won't count this as part of the evolution, more as a mutation ;-) I again used the 500mmf4.5 telephoto and the 80mm shorty refractor for visual observing. The set up looks like a pair of big binoculars in the photo on the right.
http://joe-cali.com/eclipses/PAST/TSE2002/index.html


In this photo taken with the 500mm f4.5 lens, the chromatic aberration can be seen as a red ring around the dark solar disk.




2003-2005
I took a break from solar eclipse chasing.   Two total eclipses occurred during this time.  One required cruise ship access in the south Pacific ocean, the other a flight to the Antarctic.  Some eclipse chasers like flights and cruise ships. I don't.  







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