Date   : Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:13:47 +0100
From   : jgh@... (Jonathan Graham Harston)
Subject: Eclipse

I know this is way, way off-topic, but...
 
Wow!  Wonderful!
 
I got up early today and set up my equipment.
 
I filled a washing bowl with water to observe the reflection.  I got a
sheet of card and put a pin-hole in it.  I also stuck some tracing paper
over the end of a tube and put a pin-hole in that.
 
I covered up the view-finder on my camera.  I marked spots on the ground
that were lined up so I could place my camera on a pole on the spots and
take pictures without using my eyes to line up the camera.
 
The light cloud cover meant that there was no glare and I could take clear
pictures showing the progress of the eclipse without being washed out by
too great light levels
 
Sheffield got about 92% totality.  At totality it got noticably colder and
darker.  It was like a wierd dusk - half-light, but shadows were still
short.
 
I couldn't get the pin-hole sheet to work, but the tube worked - sort of. 
It cast a tiny image, barely big enough to see.
 
I got some wonderful photos in the water reflection; some of the light
effects were just impossible to see if observed directly.  Some of them
had really wierd colours, probably caused by refractions through the
clouds.
 
When I get them developed, I'll scan them in and put them on the website.
 
I'm also going to scan and convert them into BBC images so they can be
displayed on the Beeb!
 
My neighbour's mother saw the 1927 eclipse when Sheffield was in the line
of totality.  All she can remember of it is climbing up to the top of the
hill at Greystones with a group of friends.  She'll have been 13 then.
 
-- 
J.G.Harston (JGH BBC PD Library) 70 Camm Street, Walkley, SHEFFIELD S6 3TR
jgh@...                - Running on BBCs & Masters with SJ MDFS FileServer
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