{"id":13720,"date":"2012-05-20T22:24:39","date_gmt":"2012-05-20T21:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/?p=13720"},"modified":"2012-05-21T08:32:35","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T07:32:35","slug":"annular-solar-eclipse-20th-may-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/2012\/05\/20\/annular-solar-eclipse-20th-may-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Annular Solar Eclipse 20th May 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Eclipse near maximum projected from 100mm Swarovski spotting scope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m in Los Angeles at the moment, which means I got a half decent view of this evening’s annular solar eclipse.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Projected<\/a><\/dt>\n
Projected disc of sun in shadow of my head. Click for large image. (Photo:Tim Jones)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The sun didn’t show as a true annulus from where I am, but an off-set 85% coverage<\/a> is pretty spectacular all the same.\u00a0 The sun’s image is projected with a 100mm spotting scope, and I took pictures with my standard camera.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Rig<\/a><\/dt>\n
Rig for projecting and photographing the eclipse.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

With projection, you need something to shade the image from the direct light of the sun, and failing anything better at hand, I find my head does the job – complete with muzzed up solar flare haircut for the occasion!<\/p>\n

Note, this is all about projecting the sun’s image.\u00a0\u00a0 Remember: NEVER\u00a0 LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN THROUGH A TELESCOPE.<\/p>\n

The eclipse started at 17:24 PST and reached maximum at 18:38 PST.\u00a0 I caught the maximum but gave up shortly after because of trees getting into the shot.<\/p>\n

Working backwards from maximum eclipse, this is at 18:39.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Maximum eclipse 18:39 PST<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Maximum eclipse 18:39 PST<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Few sunspots visible again near maximum eclipse:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sunspots<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

About half an hour before maximum…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
18:10 PST. About half an hour to maximum eclipse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sunspots come out very well in projection.\u00a0 There’s some distortion of the shape of the sun\/moon by this method, because the camera is always a bit off-centre, but I reckon the detail is pretty good.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sunspots, in early part of eclipse (click for larger pic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well on it’s way….<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
30 minutes or so in....<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first nick out of the side of the sun at 17:27<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
First nick taken out of the sun (around 17:27 PST)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Craters on the moon?\u00a0 For sure there are craters on the moon.\u00a0 But can you see them in profile during an eclipse?\u00a0 The air tends to ‘boil’ the image so much that it’s hard to separate out random optical effects from real lunar geography.\u00a0 These two shots were taken a few seconds apart, so features appearing on both are likely to be real.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Close up showing surface irregularity of moon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Same as above but a few seconds later:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Close-up showing surface irregularities of moon (as above plus a few seconds)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think there is a bit of a dip about a third of a way up the limb, but it’s not clear cut.\u00a0 To do this properly, we’d need to take a bunch of photographs and electronically combine them to get an average profile over a few seconds or minutes.\u00a0 Some dedicated soul out there will have done it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

See also my post on the 4th Jan 2011 partial solar eclipse<\/span> HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in Los Angeles at the moment, which means I got a half decent view of this evening’s annular solar eclipse. Projected disc of sun in shadow of my head. Click for large image. (Photo:Tim Jones) The sun didn’t show as a true annulus from where I am, but an off-set 85% coverage is pretty … Continue reading Annular Solar Eclipse 20th May 2012<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[638],"tags":[1281,1242,208,1084,1070],"class_list":["post-13720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","tag-annular","tag-eclipse","tag-los-angeles","tag-solar","tag-sun"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkpOr-3zi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13720"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13756,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13720\/revisions\/13756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}