Eclipse 1999
Well. That was it. The Last Total Solar Eclipse of the second Millennium! We could have gone to Cornwall like most of the other people from these Isles that had an interest, but (luckily) we decided to head for France, and Experience totality the Continental way, that is, with croissants... It rained in the morning, and cloud cover was quite thick as we headed to our chosen field near the village of Monthois in the Champagne region of France...
I must admit that we were extremely lucky, we got good views of the partial phase before totality, when the clouds parted to give clear views, but ten minutes before totality we were under a thick black cloud. With just a few minutes to go, in the cooling air, and darkening atmosphere, the cloud passed, and we experienced a beautiful total eclipse for about 2 minutes in (a patch) of clear blue sky. That was it though, five minutes later a low black cloud the size of a Vogon constructor ship (big) obliterated any views at all of the second partial phase. So, here are my pictures, taken on my trusty Canon T90 with 400mm lens, they are my first attempts, so I am pretty happy with them. The partial photo was taken using a neutral density filter, no filter was used on the others. You can click on the image to view a bigger version. It really was an experience, we didn't expect it to get so cold before the eclipse, or at least we didn't think a degree or two of temperature would have us running for the coats. What surprised me most though was the brightness of the solar corona, visible on the total eclipse picture above, I was expecting something faint and more difficult to see. During totality Venus became clearly visible, though we didn't see Mercury, which was supposed to be near the sun. As the sun began to appear from behind the moon, we clearly saw the Diamond Ring Effect, shown in the above photo, though in this picture a ghost has appeared (in the bottom left) which is caused by an internal reflection in the lens. So, would we do it again? Certainly! When's the next one... Back to France 99 | David's Desires
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