Tom Hughes (舒大同) | Research Fellow in Extragalactic Astrophysics

TomHughes Research Fellow in Extragalactic Astrophysics

  • Home
  • Research
  • Publications
  • Slides
  • Posters
  • Thesis
  • Blog
  • About
  • CV (PDF)
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimetre Array Arecibo Observatory Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment Palomar Observatory Very Large Telescope Arecibo Observatory VISTA Xinglong Observatory

Solar Eclipse 2015

Posted on 20/03/2015 by Tom

Today the Universe treated us to a superb view of a partial solar eclipse.

The only solar eclipse I had previously witnessed was in August 1999, where the path of totality crossed Europe, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. We were on holiday in Majorca at the time, where only about twenty percent of the Sun was obscured, yet the startling image of the Moon partially blocking the Sun remains a powerful memory. Needless to say, I was very excited at the chance to see this rare phenomenon.

Although I knew the solar eclipse was approaching, my visit to Toravere Observatory almost immediately followed by a brief trip to Ghent, meant I had no time this week to properly organise my observing strategy. Of course, you can’t observe the sun directly and must take precautions to avoid damaging eyes and camera lenses, but by Thursday it was already too late for me to either make a custom solar filter or simply buy one, and rushing round the local supermarkets to find some eclipse glasses proved fruitless. Defeated, I resigned to instead try out the telescope projection technique or just view reflections in water.

This morning started off overcast, yet after many prayers to the great sky gods asking for clear skies, the clouds completely cleared and I raced to set up my telescope. As I’ve wrote before, I love my 12-inch Meade LX90GPS but the overlapping region of the Venn diagram depicting “At Home In UK”, “Free Time”, and “Clear Skies” is extremely small, leading to a highly limited amount of usage. Fortunately, I was in the right place at the right time, and quickly set my scope up to project the Sun’s image onto a piece of white card.

From my location in Tamworth, the eclipse started at approximately 8:26 am, reached maximum partial eclipse at 9:30 am and ended at around 10:40 am. I crudely calculated that 90% of the Sun was obscured at maximum eclipse (with a few percentage error). Without a proper solar filter, I didn’t dare try connecting the camera to the eyepiece, but I managed to take some nice images of the projected images. I’ve included some of my favourite images representative of the different stages of the eclipse below. A couple of the eclipse images also include the active sunspots.

I’m pretty thrilled Birmingham received near-perfect clear skies to witness this event in full, especially given the long wait to the next partial solar eclipse in the UK, due in August 2026. However, the impatient can head to North America in August 2017, where observers will be treated to a total eclipse.

Click on each image below to see the full size version.












Posted in Astronomy | Tagged eclipse, observing, solar, telescope | Comments Off on Solar Eclipse 2015

Blogposts

  • Recent Posts

    • MethylCal: Results published in FASEB Journal
    • Award of the China-Chile Fellowship
    • Observing at APEX (Run #2)
    • The Valparaíso ALMA Line Emission Survey
    • Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array
  • Recent Comments

    • sravani on Solutions to errors with APLpy show_regions()
    • Tom Hughes (舒大同) | Postdoctoral researcher of galaxy evolution on MethylCal: Results presented in Switzerland
  • Archives

    • August 2017
    • June 2017
    • February 2017
    • December 2016
    • January 2016
    • September 2015
    • March 2015
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • March 2014
    • January 2014
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
  • Categories

    • Astronomy
    • Code
    • Data Analysis
    • Languages
    • Postdoc Life
    • Programming
    • Research
    • Science
    • Travel
  • Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org

Jump to...

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Contact me

Disclaimer

    All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The views presented here are personal and not necessarily those of my employer, and I make no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. (If you manage to injure yourself reading this page, my advice is to stay off the internet in future.)


    Find me on

View Facebook profile View Twitter feed View LinkedIn profile
View ResearchGate profile View ResearchGate profile View Vox Charta profile

Contact me

Address: Instituto de Física y Astronomía
         Universidad de Valparaíso
         Av. Gran Bretaña 1111
         Valparaíso, Chile

        

Telephone: +56 9 9901 3258
FAX: +56 32 2508230
Skype: txhughes
E-mail: thomas.hughes (at) uv.cl

Last update: 01/08/2017

© Copyright T. M. Hughes 2009-2017.