3 Ottobre 2005: The Ring of Light!

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The "surprise", part 2

While we are setting up our equipment, the cloud blanket starts breaking, and this gets our hopes up of seeing the eclipse. Every now and then, some breaks in the clouds let us have a glimpse at patches of a blue sky. Here is the Sun peeping through the clouds low above the sea in the eastern horizon at about 8.30 am CEST:

The sight is undoubledly breathtaking, but the prospect of missing the eclipse is not! Anyway, preparation goes on, while the sky is clearing to the southwest. The air is cool (about 14 °C), and a bracing wind is sweeping the hilltops..

To send the clouds away, we are even willing to use some unconventional methods!

Around 9.15 am, or roughly twenty minutes before first contact (expected at 9.42 am CEST), the southern horizon has cleared, but towards east and northeast a thick bank of cumulus is still there, through which the Sun seldom manages to poke light holes with its feeble rays. The border of this cloud bank is approximately hanging overhead, while areas lying only a few kilometers to the south (such as Cabo de la Nao) are enjoying an almost completely clear sky and are being flooded with early morning sunlight. In the meantime, our observing site has become quite crowded with many eclipse observers (at least 20 people from all over Europe). For a while, we seriously consider throwing out telescopes into the car and rushing away to the south: we soon give up our plans because there is a serious risk of finding no other convenient sites, getting lost, or (even worse) being chased by the clouds.

As you can see, we were not alone...

L'inizio dell'eclisse!

Much to our disappointment, the first contact takes place behind the clouds, that prevent us from viewing the first twenty minutes of the phenomenon; only a few gaps in the cumulus bank allow us to spot a clearly visible dent in the solar disk. Later on, an unexpected miracle occurs: those pesky clouds clear the field for our sights and telescopes. Needless to say, a photographic spree springs out!

As far as I am concerned, here's my setup. An MTO telephoto lens (1000 mm f/10) with a Canon EOS 300D camera rides on a Vixen GP equatorial mount and is used for narrow field photography. A Nikon F3 camera with a 50 mm lens is meant to shoot the whole eclipse sequence on a single frame; of course, it will turn out to be incomplete because we missed the first 30 minutes. Last but not least, a Nikon D100 with a 35mm lens is used for "casual" imaging..

My setup. From left to right: Vixen GP + MTO + Canon EOS 300D, and a Manfrotto tripod with my Nikon F3.

As with the total solar eclipse back in 1999, as the Sun is gradually covered by the Moon, its light dies out as during the sunset, but the color shades do not have its typical reddish cast. As time passes by, shadow outlines grow fuzzier; and during the partiality phases, light rays passing through small holes or slits (i.e. the foliage of a tree or even a simple hole punched into a sheet of paper) cast small Sun crescents everywhere.

Partially eclipsed Sun in the clouds (10.27am CEST)

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