Annular Eclipse Of 1994

[Fred Ley]

Hi Everybody,

 

With the annular eclipse that took place last month, I got to remembering the annular eclipse of 1994 that I observed from El Paso, Texas. I wrote a short article at the time for our astronomy club and thought that I'd share it with you all, here on Astrovox. My apologies for it being only in English. I hope that I havn't posted this before.

 

-Fred

 

 

Two Observatories, One Annular Eclipse & One Star Party in 89 Hours

 

By Frederick N. Ley

©1994

 

Some of the club members were aware of my plan to take a trip to El Paso in order to view the annular eclipse of the sun. Well, I went and came back and had an excellent time. I left Lancaster at 7:15 a.m. on the 7th of May and drove to a gas station at Division and Avenue J to fill up the car. At the gas station the steam coming out from under my car caught my attention. I proceeded for the house. I was wondering if this was to be a short trip. I looked under the hood and found the culprit to be one of my heater hoses, which had developed a small break and was spewing coolant. I found a garage and four to five hours later, plus a few dollars, the problem was corrected. I left Lancaster for the second time on Saturday, at 6:15 p.m. I took 138 to the 215 and then went south to Interstate 10 and headed east.

I arrived in Tucson, via a short stop in a rest area, at sunrise. I fueled up and drove to Kitt Peak National Observatory. While there I visited the 158-inch (4 meter) Mayall telescope. I even had the good fortune of being allowed on the floor of the telescope with a group that was there. The view from the observation windows, which run all the way around the building, was beautiful. Yes, you do take an elevator up to the telescope. You then only have to climb one flight of stairs to reach the visitors gallery.

The museum has some nice displays. One is a white light projected image of the sun. There were two small sunspot groups on the morning of the 8th. The central plug to the 158-inch telescope mirror is also on display. There are two computers that allow you to test your knowledge of astronomy among other things. The gift shop has some nice books and poster, coffee mugs (they were out of them when I was there-you can order by mail), a nice book on the history of Kitt Peak and many other items.

I then went to look at the 84-inch telescope. From the 84-inch telescope I went to see the large Solar Telescope. It definitely is a unique telescope. The visitor’s gallery is at ground level and you can look up and down the length of the light shaft of the telescope from the gallery. The wind on Kitt Peak rivals that of the Antelope Valley, just to be aware.

Next to the museum/book shop is the pier and structural members for a new observatory. This will house a 16-inch telescope for public use.

From Kitt Peak I left for El Paso. I stopped at Lordsburg, New Mexico and got some more gas. About halfway between Lordsburg and Deming, you drive over the Continental Divide at an altitude of 4,585 feet. In the evening twilight I drove over the Rio Grande and through Las Cruces. I arrived at El Paso that evening, found a Motel Six, took my key to room 302 and went to sleep- (believe me I needed it).

The next day, the 9th, I left early for Mc Donald Observatory which is situated near Fort Davis and where the Texas Star Party is held. The visitor’s center at Mc Donald Observatory is set up very well. There is an 8-minute introductory video that is shown on the history of the observatory. The usual array of books, pins, postcards, coffee mugs and other goodies are for sale too. I inquired if the 82-inch telescope was available to visit. I was told no, but if I cared to show up at 5 p.m., the gentleman told me that he would give me a personal tour. I then proceed to drive up to the 107-inch telescope and took some slides and video footage of the telescope.

I next headed to the Texas Star Party, which is twelve miles south of the Observatory. There certainly were quite a few people there, considering that it was the first day of the event. There are three observing fields. The upper field is a dirt regulation size football field. There were many telescopes there, and I was told that the space would continually fill up until all the space was gone. The next field is lower down, and it too had many telescopes. The last field is near the entrance and there were not as many telescopes there at that time in the afternoon. I did not notice any commercial vendors at the time. The registration took place in the meeting hall. I inquired, and fortunately, I was not required to register for the few hours that I was there.

Now, back to Mc Donald Observatory. I drove up to the 82-inch dome and waited for my tour to start. We walked up to the floor of the 82-inch and then proceeded to walk up to the roof of the control room, which occupies the western side of the dome. From there I walked up the stairs that curve up to the top of the inside of the dome. I did not feel like walking all the way up, but it allowed me to obtain some nice slides and video footage. After looking all over the telescope we went downstairs and toured the library and the stacks of old astronomy books that come from many different observatories from around the world.

Now comes the surprise, I was asked if I would like to tour the 107-inch telescope since some maintenance was being done. Fine, I said, lets go and see it. This time I took the large elevator up to the second floor of the telescope. The lights in the elevator go off just a few seconds before the elevator comes to a complete stop. There was an astronomer on the floor loading some liquid nitrogen into a camera for his observations later that night. I spoke to him briefly, and he told me that he was studying white dwarf stars.

The control room, which housed many screens with data on them and a few that showed a star from the previous nights run, was also toured. Then it was downstairs to the coude focus room, the spectrographic control room and the “clean room” where the prisms and gratings were kept. The room was not surgically clean, but employed an air-cleaning machine to keep dust levels down. From there I went to see the large aluminizing tank. This tank is also used to coat the 82-inch mirror too; its tank has a leak and is currently not in use. I was given a 1990 issue of “The Astronomical Ephemeris” which is labeled “Control Room 107-inch Telescope.” I certainly appreciated it. After expressing my thanks to the gentleman for taking time out of his schedule to show me around, I headed back towards El Paso in anticipation of the eclipse.

Eclipse Day, May 10, I am up at 5 a.m. and go out in search of some morning coffee. A Circle-K is spotted and I obtain my coffee and a newspaper, which has articles on the days eclipse. From there I head up to the mountain and set up my equipment at the large rest stop. At 6:30 a.m. another car shows up, and another who happens to be a photographer from El Paso. He had extra coffee too.

By eclipse time there was the expected large group of people. I was busy taking slides of the sun through my C-90 and video footage with the video camera. The event was impressive, and the darkness that ensued due to the sun being blocked had a strange look to it. I took a slide of the area at mid-eclipse and then another one after the event, still using the same shutter speed and f-stop, and there is a very noticeable difference in the light level.

At the point when the eclipse over, I started packing up the equipment and went down the mountain and filled up with gas and headed back to Lancaster. Using the rest stops to catch a few hours of sleep. I arrived back in Lancaster at 11:15 a.m., 89 hours since my departure. The total distance driven on this trip came to 2,424.50 miles or 3,879.2 kilometers.