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WAITING FOR THE
SHADOW
SOLAR AND LUNAR ECLIPSE OBSERVINGREPORTS AND OBSERVATIONS - ZAMBIA 2001 |
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Equipment and related activities
The equatorial head, constructed just days before departure, was mounted on my Manfrotto 090 tripod. In order to make the legs stiffer, I purchased nine wood broom handles for the princely sum of US$ 0.25 ea at the Lusaka markets a few days before the eclipse. I used packing tape to tape two handles to each tripod leg. This triangular cluster became very stiff. To improve the arrangement further, I taped the remaining three handles across the bottom of each leg to construct a nice rigid tetrahedron.
To photograph the eclipse, I used a Pentax M 500mm f4.5 telephoto lens with a 2x converter. For visual observations I used an 80mm short focus refractor with a 16mm Koenig eyepiece which yielded 25 x 80mm with a 2.5 degree field of view.
To measure light and temperature curves I used a Sekonic L-318B light meter and a dual display digital thermometer. This experiment was carried out by two local school students, Friday Tembo and Florence Chipote.
I conducted briefing & education sessions with teachers of Kayosha Middle Basic School and with members of Kapini village during the week before the eclipse to make up for the Zambian government's neglect in providing resources to schools or the public. See the eye damage prevention project report for a full description of this project.
After the eclipse I ran a special science class at the school on the Sun and eclipses for the upper school.
Planned Experiments and Observations
This site gave us good shelter from wind if necessary and open space on a nearby football field if desired.