My Stardust Observatory
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • Astro Blog
  • Education
    • NASA's Saturn Observation Campaign
    • Stardust Astronomy Club
  • Space Lego
  • Astro Links
  • Astro Events
  • Contact Me

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

5/6/2013

 
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 :-))



Picture
Canon 40D SLR and 100-400mm lens with Orion Solar Filter attached to take images of the Annular Eclipse
Picture
Image of the Sun on the 11th April 2013 with the above set-up for taking images of the Annular Eclipse.
Image on Spaceweather.com web site
Spaceweather.com

Comments are closed.

    Author

    I just love being under the heavens, come on a journey with me and I’ll share some of the amazing wonders of the Universe with you. Noeleen :-)

    Picture

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Annular Eclipse
    Astronomy Event
    Canon Camera And Lens
    Comets
    Deep Sky Object
    Education
    Equipment
    Lunar Eclipse
    Moon
    Observatory
    Planets
    Seestar S50
    Seestar Sun
    Sky Phenomena
    Software
    Solar Filter And Camera Lens
    Solar Telescope
    Sun And Sunspots
    Total Solar Eclipse
    Travel

Picture
For all current observations of the night sky please go to my Astro Blog:
http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog

​
​Copyright information: 

You are welcome to use my images for educational and private use, please credit me.
If you need higher resolution images then please contact me on my contact page, thank you.