Total Solar eclipse - 1st Aug 2008

[Carlos_dfc]

Partial eclipse visible right across the UK tomorrow 9:25 to 11:05

Telescope, binoculars, solar filters, and camera - all on standby.
Fingers crossed for clear skies in the morning.

[timebuster]

break out the ccd for us!

[Harry Hayfield]

I think it went very well indeed (as of the past eclipses since 2003 every single one has been clouded out)

[admin]

can anyone that saw it well post a report for us that missed out please?
thanks

[Harry Hayfield]

Certainly (as I saw it here and in Russia thanks to Russia Today), what sort of info would you like?

[admin]

any pictures or descriptions would be appreciated

thanks Harry

[Carlos_dfc]

Not exactly the greatest experience, here in North-East England.

Woke to quite thick clouds, and by the time it got to 'first-contact' for my location, there was still no break.
So, because I was intending to image the whole sequence, and that was now ruined, I put the imaging gear away, and only kept a small-ish scope, and a pair of binocs on standby.
(I was originally planning to image with a ED100 on motorised-tracking EQ mount, and a borrowed DSLR)

Then miraculously, just before maximum coverage, the clouds started to break up, and I got to watch (on and off) for about half an hour.
I did manage to get a few pics, but they were simply done with a mobile phone (cell) Hand-held up to the eyepiece, of a 90mm Maksutov, at 50x (25mm plossl eyepiece), with Baader Astrosolar 5.0 white-light filter, and a pale orange filter on the eyepiece to give a slightly more natural colour.

This is the little scope I ended up viewing through


Eclipse pics - very basic - mobile phone, hand-held at the eyepiece
Max coverage from my location (about 30%)


Just before the clouds closed in again

[Harry Hayfield]

The eclipse started at 9.23am BST and was at maximum by just after 10.00am BST when I took these pics. I also recorded the eclipe on video and uploaded a movie file from my camera onto YouTube

[admin]

Great stuff thanks for sharing guys We are hoping to add a video sharing feature here as well but the pics are great especially when some of us cant make it.

[Asteroid1989]

the path of a total eclipse goes through westChina ,but I watched the beginning of the eclipse in eastchina