Astrophotography by Eddie Guscott

ECLIPSE 1999 (MY FIRST TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE)

As August 1999 approached, I was planning to watch the eclipse from western England (probably Cornwall) travelling the day before.

However, the weather forecasts were not promising the first week of August, suggesting at best, a 50/50 chance of seeing the eclipse from Cornwall.

I decided to go to northern Europe where at least I might be able to chase the clear weather if necessary. This proved to be a good decision.

August 10th, I travelled to France with my wife and two children (at 14 & 15 years old - I'm not sure this was a good idea!!), my father and a brother. We stayed at a friend of my father's on the outskirts of Amiens for the evening (a large bed & breakfast place) from where we could make travel plans for the following morning (eclipse day) depending on weather.. As it turned out, Amiens was fairly close to the centre line of the eclipse.

August 11th (eclipse day) awoke at about 07.00 to grey skies from horizon to horizon, and raining slightly. This didn't look good. However after breakfast we received a translation of the weather forecast from the local French television channel (which perked us all up a little - the forecaster reckoned on a 75% chance for clear(ish) skies in the Amiens area at around mid day (second contact - totality - was scheduled for about 12.20 local time if I recall).

"Grey skies from horizon to horizon"

We were all packed into our cars by 9.30 and decided to drive south as it seemed to be clearer in that direction (we would also be closer to the centre line and also closer to major roads that could take us in most directions).

Local traffic (and our inexperience with knowledge of the local road system) held us up considerably, even to the point of actually driving past the exact same spot we had passed about 15 minutes earlier.

11.00 and we are driving through the centre of Amiens. We decide that we must find a suitable spot within the next 30 to 45 minutes (we will likely miss first contact) and agree to head south (again) where the clearer skies appear to be.

Surprisingly, we find ourselves out of town and on on a small quiet road fairly quickly and stop at the first suitable place (a large grassed area to one side of the road). There are several groups of cars already stopped there with some Belgian and Dutch people setting up cameras etc.

This is where we decided to stop for the eclipse.

We've missed first contact by a matter of minutes but at least the weather seemed to be improving, brightening all the time (although still with a lot of cloud cover).

As this was my first total solar eclipse, I had decided to enjoy it to the full and not get bogged down trying to photograph it. I was armed only with a Sony camcorder (with Mylar solar filter) and binoculars.

I managed to get some reasonable video clips of the eclipse unfolding (most of it through varying cloud), and around noon, the clouds started to thin a bit more.

Left: My brother setting up a projection method of viewing the eclipse Right: Soon after first contact

My father was listening to the reports coming from England on the radio (thick cloud over western England - so anyone there would probably miss out. Could have been us!!)

Shortly after noon we thought we could detect a slight darkening of the light levels around us (the sort experienced at dusk) but there was still about 15 minutes to go. This was crazy, there was only a small crescent of the sun visible yet it was still normal daylight!

Ten minutes to go and something is definitely happening now. The clouds thinned a bit more (at least in the direction of the eclipse) and birds could be seen returning to trees, cows in a nearby field are lying down. The temperature appears to have dropped slightly

Five minutes to go and it's still surprisingly bright, a lot brighter than I thought it would be 5 minutes before a total solar eclipse. Maybe we had the wrong timings. I changed the battery on my camcorder anyway, putting a fresh one in. There is only a very small crescent of sun left now, so the timing must be right. Totality is  imminent.

Just a couple of minutes to go and all of a sudden, somebody's  turning the dimmer switch down. We could see the light level dropping visibly in front of our eyes. The kids started humming the tune from "The Twilight Zone".

Just a minute (or maybe less) to go and it is now  quite dark (and a little bit cooler). I get ready to remove the filter from the camcorder but fumble and just miss recording second contact properly (my inexperience showing as I wasn't sure when it was safe to remove the filter).

And there it was - the totally eclipsed sun - what an awesome spectacle.  There is still some cloud cover, the corona is not spectacular and some surrounding cloud prevents us from picking up any planets or bright stars, but that didn't matter. Just watching this was magical.

I raised my (unfiltered) binoculars and could see several pink prominences "dancing" around the sun's disc. It was eerie - you could almost see these pink streamers in motion. Some were even detached from the suns disc.

Then all of a sudden, there was a flash in the sky that seemed to hang forever, highlighted in the nearby clouds. This was third contact and the "diamond ring" effect. We were literally blinded by a display of light and colour (even though it lasted for only a second or two), the nearby clouds exaggerating the effect.

An extract from the video tape sound track was "WOW, did that light up the sky or what"

And it was over. I quickly put the filter back on the camcorder and was again surprised at how quickly full daylight resumed, within a minute or so.

Everyone started asking - "when is the next one"?

The vidcaps posted on this page are raw "grabs" from the video tape. The camera was setup using a digital zoom method. With hindsight, I shouldn't have done this, but should have used some sort of optical zoom instead (digital zoom just enlarges the pixels).  As time allows, I may eventually post some of the actual video itself, especially the 'diamond ring' effect.