Private
expedition to Tikahana Motu & Tatakoto Atoll, French Polynesia
July 3rd-July 18th,
2010
Organizer
: John Beattie
Participants
Joe Cali
Bengt
Alfredsson
Michelle Bales
Matthew Poulton
Emily
Love Bill Speare
Geoff Sims
Bob
Pine
Larry
Stevens
..................
Joe
Cali's animation of totality from diamond ring to diamond ring
"The
Nine" with our host Madeleine Voirin at the airport just
before departure.
Back row (standing)
Bill Speare, Michelle Bales, Madeleine Voirin, Emily Love, Bob
Pine
Middle
Row (sitting) : Larry Stevens, Geoff Sims, Matthew Poulton, Joe
Cali
Front
row(reclining) : Bengt Alfredsson
Group
Report (Based
on flash report sent to SEML on July 14th)
Success
on Tatakoto!!
This page contains a general report about the activities of our group. Also hosted on this
site are the individual reports or results from each of the participants. By following these
links you will access comprehensive reports in the form of photos, videos, slide shows and
written reports or accounts.
Joe Cali Bengt Alfredsson
Bill Speare
Matthew Poulton
Geoff Sims
Emily
Love Bob
Pine Larry Stevens &
Michelle
Bales
"
Alone at Last! "
Geoff Sims' stunning wide field totality
image.
Joe Cali is the lone figure sitting on the sand spit behind his
refractor.
Crystal clear azure waters of a stunning coral lagoon to his
left,
mother natures great spectacle front and centre.
We arrived on Tatakoto on July 6th, 5 days ahead
of totality.
Many of us had taken a few days on Tahiti
or Moorea to
relax and get over jet lag or fatigue
before moving on to Tatakoto.
From the beginning we engaged with the locals on
many levels. We
brought with us, enough eclipse glasses
and eye safety educational
pamphlets (written in French) for every
member of the local population.
This gesture went over very well and quickly
endeared us to the local
population.
On Saturday July 10, we surveyed two motus.
Motus are small islands
along the south of Tatakoto lagoon.
These motus are privately owned
however the two we surveyed belonged to
our wonderful host Madeleine
Voirin who kindly gave us permission to
use them. We chose to observe
from the lagoon side of Tikahana Motu.
Motus
along south of Atoll : photo Joe Cali
Tikahana was much larger than the first motu we surveyed and
had plenty of coconut trees to shield us
from the strong prevailing southerly winds. There was a
shed with a large awning for shelter from the rain and a pit
toilet set back among the coconut trees. On our return
on the afternoon of July 10th, we took the boats almost
straight across the lagoon 15 mins and were met by a vehicle
rather than taking the boats all the way back to town
down the lagoon - an 80 minute boat trip.
Different
team members had different goals so following the scouting trip,
the group decided to divide up on eclipse day.
Geoff, Emily , Bengt, Bill, Matthew and I decided we would go
to the motu. Bob Pine wanted to stay in town to experience
it with the locals. Larry had a slightly bigger EQ mount and
didn't want to carry it in the boat so he and Michelle chose
to
stay to the north side of the island on the ocean beach
about 2.7km north east of our location.
We
left Tumukuru at 4am on eclipse morning. Madeleine Voirin drove
us and our boatmen up to the mooring. She took Larry and
Michelle to the north beach and Dan McGlaun who hitched a ride
to the east end of the main island. As we waited for first light,
it began to rain.
...............
Emily Love tries to stay dry Photo : Bengt Alfredsson ......................................... Waiting in the rain . Photo : Geoff Sims
As soon as it was light enough to see, we crossed the lagoon.
It was still raining a little. The weather played games with
us including
two brief rain showers and lots of cloud as we set up.
Observers
Locations
Location of Joe's scope on the sand spit in front of the shed
: 17° 20' 47.5" S 138° 21'
42.3" W
Geoff
was further up the beach about 120 metres west of Joe : 17°20'49.80"S
138°21'44.55"W
Bengt was
about 30-40m south east of Joe. Larry and Michelle were
2.75km north of this location and
Bob was back in the town of Tumukuru (see larger scale map above).
But it did clear at the critical time and save two brief
periods of thin transparent cloud, we saw a spectacular
unobstructed eclipse and have captured some great video
and still images. Larry and Michele on the north side of the
island and Bob
in town had similar experiences and we will send detailed
reports and make imagery available in due course.
Lots
of prominences were observed in photos and I observed them through
my refractor but we think that a particularly bright
inner corona made them more difficult to detect with the naked
eye than other eclipses. The diamond rings were especially
long and
the emerging diamond ring was small and sharp and lasted for
perhaps 5-6 seconds. Right at second contact, some thin
cloud drifted
across partly dimming but not obscuring our view of the eclipse.
The photographers fired shutters anyway. After the eclipse
we
discovered that four of us had recorded shadow bands projected
onto this low cloud. A first in eclipse photography.
After
totality we donned eclipse glasses and floated on our backs in
the crystal clear waters of the coral lagoon watching partial
phases
then we enjoyed some snorkeling along the reef. You really couldn’t
want for more.
............
.
Photo's
above : © 2010
Geoff Sims.
Left : Our
boatmen Christian and Michel enjoy the partial phases through
eclipse shades.
Right: Geoff and
Emily watch the closing stages of the eclipse.
..........
Photo's above:
©2010 Bengt Alfredsson
Left: Is this the coolest eclipse chasing photo ever? Bengt enjoys
the partial eclipse after 3rd contact.
Right : Who invited Lurch from the Addams family? Actually,
it's Matthew Poulton, Brittish eclipse chaser who now lives and
works in France.
This
private expedition was organized by John Beattie and all group
members wish to publically thank John for the exceptional job
he
did. We also wish to thank our incredible host Madeleine Vorin
who bent over backwards to help us enjoy our stay. One
of our group
members, Matthew Poulton speaks fluent French and spent the week
translating for us and on occasions translating correspondence
from
some
tour administrators for
the Tatakoto administration. Without his assistance our
eye safety project would not have been nearly as successful.
Finally a big thank you to the beautiful people of Tatakoto who
have made us feel so welcome during our week long stay.
Mauruuru Tatakoto! We will always remember you.
Kind
regards from : -
Joe Cali Bengt Alfredsson Matthew Poulton
Geoff Sims Emily Love Bob Pine
Larry Stevens Michelle Bales Bill
Speare
Wait, there is so much more.............
This was an incredible place to observe an eclipse. To get the
complete picture, please take the time
to "see it" through the eyes of each member of the
team. We have all presented different aspects
of the eclipse, recorded in different media from video to film
to written verse.
Follow the links below to see images, videos and/or written reports
by the individual team members.
Links to individual observer's reports and photographs
TSE2010 Home Page
Group
report as sent to SEML on July 14th.
<- YOU
ARE LOOKING AT THIS PAGE.
Joe Cali
- Images from 70mm f6.2 APO refractor;
- fisheye
time lapse of totality using a still camera presented as a flash
slide show;
-
wide field time-lapse
video;
-
written account
of observations on Tikahana Motu;
-
pictures of
shadow bands projected on clouds;
-
flash gallery
of pictures from the eclipse and Tatakoto
Bengt Alfredsson
-
Images from
Nikkor 180mm f2.8 APO telephoto;
-
flash gallery
of general pictures from a great week on Tatakoto.
Larry Stevens
-
Images from
90mm f11 Maksutov.
&
Michelle
Bales
(still
under construction - no content yet)
Matthew Poulton
-
Flash gallery
of pictures of the atoll, its landscape and people and our group
enjoying a fantastic week on Tatakoto
Geoff Sims
- Wide
field (21mm) and close up(500mm) stills;
-
two really well-edited
movies : -
- one of
the eclipse;
- one covering
the eclipse and the other gives a great overview of our whole
week on Tatakoto.
Emily
Love
-
Emily's impressions
of her first total eclipse.
Bill Speare
-
Written passage
recounting his impressions of his 27th totality.
Bob
Pine
-
Bob's account
of the eclipse from the almost deserted town of Tumukuru ( the
town on Tatakoto).
