2008 Expedition Plans

Williams College—Hopkins Observatory

Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, to Akademgorodok, outside Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia

Jay Pasachoff, Bryce Babcock, William Wagner, Paul Rosenthal (Williams College); John Seiradakis and colleagues (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece); Robert Lucas (University of Sydney, Australia) in collaboration with Allya Nestorenko (State University of Novosibirsk) and Igor Nestorenko (Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Akademgorodok)

  1. high-cadence (5 Hz) observations of oscillations in the coronal red and green emission lines
  2. high-resolution white-light coronal photography, meant for post-processing by Druckmüller
  3. coronal green-line photography on and off band

“All observations were successful.” — Jay Pasachoff

Institut d’Astrophysique, Paris

in Biysk, the Altaï, Siberia (south of Novosibirsk)

Serge Koutchmy, Luc Damé, and a large team

Solar total eclipse observations in China supported by NSFC and CAS grants:

  • National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing and Yunnan):
    1. Coronal spectral observations at near-IR and other wavelengths
    2. Low coronal images with high spatial resolutions
    3. Radio dynamic spectral observations at 2-5.5 GHz of the solar corona.
  • Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Nanjing):
    1. Flash spectra near D3 line using a spectrograph fed with heliostat.
    2. High time cadence imaging of solar inner corona at 5303 A.
    3. Observing K-corona spectra in the range of 3700-4700 A.
    4. Vulcanoids are a hypothesized population of small asteroid-like bodies in orbits
    5. interior to that of Mercury. During the total Solar Eclipse in China, the search limiting
    6. magnitude will be extended to more than 12.0 mag.
    7. Radio observations at 8.6mm and 2.5cm wavelengths.
  • Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing):
    1. Radio observations of Ionosphere during solar total eclipse, etc.

“All groups of Chinese Solar Physics community have successfully recorded observing data during the Eclipse Expedition in Jinta, Jiuquan, China on 1 August 2008. The participants of an ‘International Workshop on Solar Magnetism, Corona and Space Weather — Chinese Space Solar Telescope Science’ visited the observing site. The weather was very clear that day and people were excited in experiencing the wonderful moment. Detailed analysis of these data will be presented later.” — Yihua Yan

Observatory Upice, Czech Republic

From: Marcel Belik, Observatory Upice
Organization: Observatory Upice, Czech Republic
Participants: Eva Markova (chief), Marcel Belik, Ladislav Krivsky, Hana Druckmüllerová (Institute of Mathematics, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology) and Hynek Bulir (Czech Radio)
Place: Novosibirsk (Russia)
Programme: White-light corona with 1875/100 mm telescope (6×9 classical film), MTO1000 telescope (24×36 classical film), MTO500 (Canon EOS 20D), Pentacon 200 mm (Canon EOS 350D), Pentacon 200 mm (classical film) and Canon 1D Mark II with MC 3M-5CA 8/500 mm

All observations are carried out within the MMT (Mathematical Methods of Visualization of Solar Corona) project framework of Miloslav Druckmüller: http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/

Astronomical Institute of the Slovakian Academy of Sciences

Vojtech Rusin, Tatranska Lomnica in Mongolia – Bor Udzuur camp (V. Rusin and 2 colleagues). We will stay together with Mongolian collegaues from Center of Astronomy and Geophysics (Prof. D. Batmunkh is a responsible person) and with Mr. Peter Aniol (Germany) and Prof. M. Druckmüller (Czech Republic).
Program
: ‘Study of fine structures on the white light corona’. Several telescopes will be used, max. 1200 mm, equipped with a digital cameras.

  1. The white-light corona with  similar lenses and cameras similarly to the way they were photographed by Aniol and Druckmuller in Libya.
  2. The green corona (530.3 nm) and ‘background’ in its vicinity. Both filters have transmissions 0.03 nm); telephoto lens 500 mm.
  3. comparison of the eclipse green corona with SECCHI/EUVI corona

“White-light corona, 530,3 nm (3 A passband filter) a H-alpha region succesfully observed very close to Altay region, nearly 100 km northern as Jen Winter. Weather was excellent. Just returned to Ulaan Baatar. The journey was very hard. More informations later.” — Vojtech Rusin

Glenn Schneider

Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, in collaboration with Jay Pasachoff, Joel Moskowitz, Jay Friedland from an airplane at latitude 83° over the Arctic.
nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/ECLIPSE_WEB/ECLIPSE_08/TSE2008_EFLIGHT.html
including still and video photography from a gyro-stabilized platform

University of Hawaii

Shadia Habbal, Jeff Kuhn in the Gobi desert as of July 16, 2008.

“I was going to be in the Xinjiang province along the Mongolian border, but this year the weather over there appears to be quite different than the last two years. We have set up a camp for NASA and UH Institute for Astronomy but are now likely going to relocate to our secondary viewing site in the Gansu province a thousand miles to the southeast, in the vicinity of the Chinese Space Center, where the weather has been quite good lately.” — Xavier Jubier

Xavier Jubier

xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_20080801_pg01.html

Mongolian blog

from [email protected]
ontheroad.destinationtbd.com

diameter measurements near the edge

Paul Maley: www.eclipsetours.com/edge.html
From David Dunham: “An American expedition (Ring of Fire Expedition from Houston, TX) plans to observe from 2 locations near the southern limit near Hami, China, while German and Spanish observers (from the European Section of IOTA) plan to observe from locations near both limits near Novosibirsk.”

Ron Dantowitz, Dexter-Southfield Schools

infrared airplane observations

Partial Solar Eclipse – 15 January 2010

View eclipse: SolarEclipse_KSU15Jan2010.mov

King Saud University Astronomical Observatory
Latitude: 24°  43′ North;  Longitude: 46° 37′  South

Work Team:
Drs. Abouazza Elmhamdi; Ayman Kordi; Husein Altrabulsy; Ahmed Ibrahim; M. S. Alnawawi; Khalid Almusabih
(Astronomy Unit-Physics Department, College of Science; King Saud University Riyadh; Saudi Arabia)

Eclipse details:
Start:  7:59 (UT+3h)
Maximum (33%): 09:18 (UT+3h)
End: 10:51 (UT+3h)

Photographers:
Taken by A.Elmhamdi, H. Altarabulsy, A. Kordi, A. Ibrahim, M. S. Alnawawi and K. Almosabah; King Saud University Astronomical Observatory

Camera Properties:
Nikon D3 mounted on a 15cm codee’ Telescope
Lens:  DX-Af-S NIKKOR 18-200mm
Solar filter UG2

Image details:
Exposure time: 1/1250 s   F/: 9
Taken from 8:31 a.m. to 10:52 a.m (UT +3h)