It was all very exciting to get on a plane in Brisbane, fly to Perth and board a cruise ship just to get under the shadow of the Moon, I think Graham and I are now true eclipse chasers along with a couple of our fellow SAS members.
 
The ship provided plenty of excellent astronomy presentations from members of the Australian Society of Australia (ASA) but what we really wanted to see would happen on the morning of the 20th April if the weather stayed nice and clear. Kelly Beatty from Sky & Telescope was working with the Captain to find us a safe anchorage so the ship would be stable enough for all on board to view and take pictures of the event.
 
The Captain did a wonderful job of positioning the ship and anchored in the Exmouth Gulf just off the mainland, being on a moving surface did present its own set of problems, but excuse the pun…we were all in the same boat!
 
Cheesy brought along his telescope to image the event and spend days worrying about how he was going to take his images, but in the end he got some amazing photos of the eclipse. Belinda and Warren also set up on the ships deck not far away from me and got some awesome images.
 
You never know what’s going to happen on the day, I was all set up with my gear on the back deck and was really getting carried away with the atmosphere of the event. I left my setup a few times to go exploring to see what other people were doing, what I saw were so many families waiting patiently and excitingly to see the eclipse with all sorts of equipment to capture some pictures.
 
I came across sunlight breaking through tiny holes in the banisters of the ship that produced little crescent Suns on the deck, I also saw this weird shimmering effect in front of me just before totality and was so thrilled to be seeing what’s known as shadow bands, I took a small movie as it’s quite rare to capture, Yay!
 
I got back to my camera just a few minutes before totality and that’s when somebody called out look at the Moons shadow path!!! I looked behind me and saw this shadow race over us and across the water, it was so fast, when I looked back in front of me and up…there was this incredible diamond ring flash on the limb of the Sun it was just AMAZING! I was bedazzled by it and that’s when it happened…I looked down at my viewfinder and it was black, I thought I had knocked the camera and could not believe I could not see the Sun. (Oh dear!)
 
I picked up my little Canon G7X camera and took a picture and then another incredible diamond ring flashed and that was it, it was all over…only 58 seconds, but ‘Oh Boy’ it was just awesome, and I didn’t get any pictures of totality except the one with my point and shoot Canon camera!!!
 
I could not believe it, what I’d done in all the excitement was to forget to remove the solar filter off the lens :-o Cheesy was so excited he got the whole of totality through his telescope and Belinda got some awesome pictures as well, everyone was just so excited. Lynn a past member of SAS was also on board and she captured a lovely picture too.
 
I was very conflicted, on one hand I was so upset with myself, but on the other hand I saw and experienced the whole event with my eyes, but I can tell you 58 seconds goes so fast and it was worth every second of it :-)
 
Please see a photomontage of the solar event; I took photos every 10 minutes of the partials right up until the end of the eclipse. I’ve put in my one and only picture of totality that I took with the Canon point and shoot camera. My friends (including Tel) have offered to give me one of there images of totality which was very kind of them, but I’ve gone with my own image to let me know that sometimes things are just the way they are…. are we going overseas for the 2024 eclipse next year, you bet we are!
 
Please see a slideshow of my pictures from our adventure, would we go on board a cruise ship again for an eclipse…Yes, we definitely would, as it’s lots of fun and the atmosphere was just awesome!

Have you ever wanted to learn the night sky?
Join Noeleen from the Southern Astronomical Society to see how easy it is to find the constellations, planets and other beautiful celestial objects in the night sky, even from your own back garden.
 
Please scan the QR code on the poster below to book or go to GC Libraries What’s on at:
https://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libraries/Whats-on?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D160827310

Noeleen Lowndes is the former president of the Southern Astronomical Society on the Gold Coast and is now a lifetime member. She has actively been involved with astronomy and space education for over 25 years and has supported Gold Coast Libraries with astronomy events since 2003.
 
Noeleen has been a member with NASA’s Saturn Observation Campaign (SOC) for the past 20 years where she educates the public on NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn, then shows the real planet through her large telescope to everyone’s delight.

While I was away in April on our cruise the ABC aired Stargazing Live at the Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, and I’m very proud to say that my image and another member of SAS had our photographs showcased on the show :-)
 
Dylan O’Donnell had his stunning image of the Rosette Nebula shown with Brian Cox pointing out just what a beautiful image it was, and my photomontage of the rare Annular Solar Eclipse in Australia (which won a David Malin award in 2013) was shown and talked about by the whole panel of astronomers…how exciting was that :-)

If you still want to catch this unique live astronomy program, please go to the ABC iview website at: http://iview.abc.net.au/

The Central West Astronomical Society at Parkes in NSW held their prestigious Astrophotography Competition last weekend where all the category winners and finalist were presented with their awards. Dr David Malin presented all the stunning images and gave an outline on why he thought each image was exceptional. I found Dr Malin to be ever so friendly and approachable and his eye for the beauty of the night sky is quite astounding.

This year I was honored and very proud to have been an award winner in the section called Solar System - Wide Field for my collage of images from the magnificent Annular Solar Eclipse that happened on the 10th May at Banka Banka Station in the Northern Territory in central Australia.

All the winning images have been beautifully framed and one full set will remain at the Parkes Radio Telescope visitor centre and the other full set will travel around Australia to all the different science centers and observatories for the public to view and enjoy.

Thank you to all the members of the CWAS especially John Sarkissian for his dedication in making this the premier astronomical photography event in Australia. Thank you also to Canon for my lovely prize of a Canon S110 camera.

Please find below some images from the presentation evening on the 13th of July and at the opening of the exhibition at the Parkes Radio Telescope on Sunday the 14th July. I am very happy and proud to be part of this amazing exhibition and I’m sure everyone who sees our images will be truly stunned at the awesome beauty of the universe that we all live in :-)

http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/astrofest/awards/
http://www.abc.net.au/science/photos/2013/07/15/3800170.htm

Opening of the astrophotography exhibition at the Parkes Radio Telescope Visitors Centre  
Sunday 14th July 2013 by Dr David Marlin 

Annular Eclipse in Central Australia on the 10th May 2013

This solar eclipse was a lot harder to get to than the Total Eclipse near Cairns last year, but I was determined to go and it’s amazing what you can do when you really want to see something so special.

Because of time restraints with work driving was out of the question, so Graham and I flew to Alice Springs and hired a motor home and drove up the Stuart Highway for nearly 600kms pass Tennant Creek and Churchill Rock to a place called Banka Banka Station.

Banka Banka Station was about 20 kilometres off the central line of the shadow path but I could live with that to be somewhere safe. We had to climb up a rocky ridge behind the campground before dawn to see the Sun come up and best of all there were only four other people there to enjoy this amazing event.

At sunrise there was a huge band of cloud on the horizon and wispy cirrus cloud spreading out all over the sky, we were extremely lucky to have seen any clear sky at all, because the night before it was completely clouded out. After a while of willing the cloud to go away, out came the Sun and for over two incredible hours I clicked away and watched every single moment of this awesome eclipse.

Because we had to fly I could only take minimal equipment, and for weeks before the eclipse I tried all sorts of imaging set-ups, in the end I decided on my Canon D40 camera and Canon 100-400mm lens with a 2x telecoverter with an Orion glass solar filter attached, this gave me an effective focal length of 1280mm but the drawback was I was working at f11. I was just hoping that the Sun was bright
enough at eclipse so my times were not too slow….and they were fine!

I also found this great tool called a Sol-Searcher by Tele-Vue that I got from Bintel that Velcro’s to the top of your lens to find the Sun…it was just fantastic. I also brought a new tripod head for my Manfrotto tripod that has micro adjustments knobs called a 410 Junior Geared Head, this was just perfect but I had to manually track the sun and keep my eye on it all the time…and that was half the fun as my eye was completely on the task of viewing the event.

After the eclipse we had some time to see other beautiful areas around Alice Springs, it’s such a pretty place the colours of the landscape and rocks are a photographers dream. I now know why so many people go eclipse chasing, it’s just so much fun and it’s a fantastic adventure.

Please see below a montage of three of my images when the Moon nearly covered the disc of the Sun. This type of solar eclipse is called an Annular because the Moon is further away from the Earth in its orbit and its apparent size is smaller than the Sun. That is why the Sun appears to have a bright ring of light around it, an Annulus surrounding the dark disc of the Moon.

Upcoming Annular Eclipse on the 10th May 2013 at Tennant Creek in Australia

Australia has truly been blessed for astronomical events in the past 10 months; first we had the rare Transit of Venus in June 2012, then the Total Eclipse of the Sun in November 2012 and now a beautiful Annular Eclipse of the Sun on the 10th May 2013. It’s all been just so exciting!!!

But this Annular Eclipse is a lot harder to reach than the other two events; the path of the eclipse runs right across from Western Australia to the top of Northern Queensland and out into the Pacific Ocean. The shadow track is in some very hard to access places, except around the Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek or around the coastal town of Cooktown in Northern Queensland. There is an excellent map of the Eclipse track on Jay Anderson’s web page and more information on the eclipse on Joe Cali web page.

We’ve decided to go near Tennant Creek and this time we are flying not driving because it’s just too far away, so we’ll be flying into Alice Springs and hiring a motor home for the week to travel to the shadow path…’O’ it’s so exciting, I really feel like an eclipse chaser now :-)

Because we are flying I’ll not be using the same equipment as I used for the Transit of Venus and Solar Eclipse, as it would be quite impossible to take a heavy Meade 8inch Schmidt-Cassergrain telescope on the plane. I’m really going to miss the tracking and the beautiful big image, but the main thing is, I’m going to see the event and that’s all that matters…yeah!!

I have been trying out all of my other equipment and have finally decided to use my Canon 100-400mm lens with a 2X Kenko teleconverter with an Orion glass solar filter fitted to the lens. I did need to buy a new Manfrotto tripod head (Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head) so I could make micro adjustments without jolting the camera every time I wanted to adjust the filed of view. You will be amazed how quickly the Sun moves in the sky, and I’m use to using a tracking mount. You can buy Solar Filters for your camera lenses and telescopes at Sirius Optics near Brisbane or at Bintel  (The Binocular and Telescope Shop) in Sydney and Melbourne.

There is also a fantastic little item that helps you find the Sun called a Sol-Searcher by Tele Vue, it’s obtainable at the astronomy shops mentioned above. With it, you just Velcro it onto the top of the camera lens and line up the dot of light from the Sun without looking through the lens and there it is…simple and easy…it’s great! BUT PLEASE…NEVER LOOK AT THER SUN WITHOUT PROPER SOLAR FILTERS ON LENSES AND TELESCOPES… EYE DAMAGE WILL LAST FOREVER!!!

I’ve been practicing and I feel that this is a great set-up because even though the Sun will be 95% covered by the Moon there is more than enough light to compensate for the focal length of the set-up. Using the 2x telecoverter will take the lens to f11 and that will be fine with the bright light still coming from the Sun.  Here is a picture of the set-up and an image that was captured below…so all should be fine on the day…I hope!!!  I’ll let you know how I did and will post some images soon :-))