Annular Eclipse on January 26, 2009 at Indonesia
Summary of 2009 expedition; comment on 2018 tsunami
Wed Dec 26, 2018 11:28 am (PST) . Posted by: “Jay Pasachoff”
I am especially upset by the ~500 people killed or missing by the recent tsunami on the west coast of Java because I viewed the annular eclipse of January 2009 from there, including “Xavier Jubier (France), Rob Lucas (Australia), Bernt Hallenberg (Germany), Matthias Gruner (Germany), and Ray Brooks (USA).” Here is an old email I found from the time; pictures are posted at https://sites.williams.edu/eclipse/2009-indonesia/:
I am glad to report pretty much success in our observations of yesterday’s annular solar eclipse. We drove west from Jakarta for three-hour drives to Anyer, as far west as possible on Java so that we were looking out over the sea in the direction of Krakatoa, hidden by haze. The morning’s light rain gave way to haze and cloudiness in the late morning. By an hour before eclipse time, the sky was clearing. We saw (and photographed) the first half of the eclipse moderately well, through haze. The thickest haze and some clouds occurred during the 3 minutes 41 seconds of annularity itself, lengthening our exposure times and making it difficult to see the sun through our solar filters, while still being transparent enough to make it marginal to photograph the eclipse with the fastest (i.e., 1/4000 or 1/8000 s at f/8 or so) exposures. Still, some of these short exposures, viewed on my colleagues’ computer or video playback, did show annularity.
So we did as well or better than expected during this stormy season in Indonesia, and we are all happy with our observations of today. I downloaded my photos from Nikons D90, D200, and S1 as well as from a backup N90; I used 800 mm f/11, 500 mm f/8, 400 mm f/5.6, and wider lenses.
I traveled to Anyer with Xavier Jubier (France), Rob Lucas (Australia), Bernt Hallenberg (Germany), Matthias Gruner (Germany), and Ray Brooks (USA). We had a good time together. We were aided by Indonesian astronomers Emanuel Sungging and Wicak Soegijoko, with whom I was put in touch by Bambang Hidayat. Mangoloi Siahaan, a tv researcher, traveled with us and Wicak took his family in a simultaneous car. At Anyer, we met not only Mr. Sunggung but also Wei Loon Chin and his team of about 50 people from Malaysia. Some of us climbed the lighthouse that was a meeting point; I counted 278 steps going up and 279 steps going down.
This was my 48th solar eclipse.
Jay Pasachoff
Wed Dec 26, 2018 12:27 pm (PST) . Posted by: “Xavier Jubier” xjubier
Me too Jay and back in January 2009 the Krakatau volcano was still the Anak Krakatau, aka the child of Krakatau. Looks like the baby grows quickly although we’re still far from what it was when it exploded in 1883.
A few eclipse pics
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/ASE_20090126_pg02.html
Xavier
Wed Dec 26, 2018 1:10 pm (PST) . Posted by: “Stephen Bedingfield” stephenbedingfield
Likewise Jay… Remembering Anak Krakatau from our TSE 2016 trip when we climbed up the volcano as far as the east side ridge just below the summit. We could not go higher as it was off-limits due to noxious gases and possible, though unlikely, eruptive activity with tephra.
Stephen
Thu Dec 27, 2018 6:14 am (PST) . Posted by: “Matthias Graner” matthiasgraner
News about this tsunami hit close to home since I do feel familar with the area because of the 2009 eclipse trip. I sincerely hope that Anak Krakatau will not erupt again as long as rescue operations are under way.
A few pictures here:
https://hidrive.ionos.com/share/8x1zxcjg7b
Matthias
Eclipse Images
Eclipse Team Images
