Dimensions friends -
The following are a post and an e-mail exchange. I did the post, then shared it with a friend in the Duluth astronomy club. I decided to share it with you too for whatever interest it may have.
Ho Ho Tai
Eric, et al -
Up late tonight (well, what's a former astronomer supposed to do when sleepless?) and found your post. I believe we will be in Duluth in time for your meeting. The comment on solar eclipses had me ruminating on my experiences and decided to do a search for the June 1954 eclipse. I ran into a website in England where someone of years nearly equal to my own had posted a memory of that eclipse. I decided to register and offered the following for their (I hope) entertainment.
I almost contacted you for your Astronomy Day event. I mentioned to you a while back that I still had this poster on sunspots that we created for a similar event when I was at UMD. I still have my old 'scope with the solar diagonal too. Maybe I'll lend both to you for a future event.
(signature)
The East Dulwich Forum
Re: Solar eclipse 1954
Posted by: Ho Ho Tai
Date: 06/05/2012 08:00
Hello, All -
I hope you don't mind someone from Across The Pond butting into your forum. I was on-line, searching out something which triggered a memory of that eclipse. I decided to enter it as a search term and wound up in your forum.
Yes, as I approach 75 y.o., I am PLENTY old enough to remember it. I was a high school jr. at the time in Duluth, MN. I was very much into astronomy then and had a pal (Richard) who was equally into photography - in fact, was the official photographer for our school. It was a good fit. I had a nice, solid 3" f/15 refractor and a tiny SLR which I fitted to the prime focus. I didn't have a drive so was limited to shooting bright objects. (Incidentally, I still have this scope and find it useful to amuse the grand kids.)
Dick and I were aware of the approaching eclipse several years earlier. The city of Minneapolis, some 150 miles to the south, was very near mid path. We decided to mount an expedition to the Big City. We made all sorts of careful preparations. I had a solar diagonal which diverted about 96% of the light and reflected the rest through a heavy filter. (This is a very safe way to go. If anything fails, nearly all the light spills out the back and the rest is not enough to damage sight if you back off fast enough.) We practiced exposures on various kinds of film by shooting endless pictures of sunspots.
A week before the event, we were checking weather very carefully and figured we had a good chance. We hung around with a science prof. at a near-by college who, of course, had plans for the eclipse also. He had seen several before, but this was a first for us. He advised us to leave all of our telescopes and cameras at home and just go down and enjoy it. Humpf! How could he say a thing like that? We packed up our gear anyway and headed down the day before. We had picked out a nice observing site on a golf course with a clear eastern view. The sun would rise partially eclipsed with mid-totality occurring when the sun was about 5 deg. above the horizon.
The morning of the eclipse dawned bright and clear - as nice a day as we get in Minnesota. We raced for the golf course a good hour before sunrise, set up our gear and waited . . . and waited . . . and finally, there it was, rising as a fat crescent. We started winding off the shots, being careful to save enough film for mid-eclipse. Then things started happening fast, just as in the textbooks. The diamond ring effect, the shadow bands moving over the open golf course and finally . . . TOTALITY!
My god, what an awesome sight! I think we caught a bit of buck fever at that point, shooting between glimpses at the real thing. I think someone (probably me) kicked one leg of the telescope tripod and we had to line it up again. Luckily, this was a long-duration eclipse (a bit like my post, eh?) and we had time. But finally, we had the wisdom to take our mentor's advice, abandon the scope, and just take it all in. When the sun 'finally' broke out on the other side, it was very obvious to us that we had experienced magic - perhaps becoming one, briefly, with 'primitive' ancestors who had their own explanations for what was happening. It felt like there should be some closing music, and credits rolling across the screen of the sky. The Producer, the Director, the Gaffer? All the same (if that is where your head is at.)
With a whole day remaining to reflect on the experience, we started by having breakfast at Rick's uncle's house, where we had stayed the night before. I don't think his uncle had even bothered to get out of bed to see it. Then we borrowed uncle's golf clubs and went back to the golf course. Richard was a fine golfer. I had never held a club in my hand before. I managed a 56 for five holes and decided that I had better find another sport. I never held a club in my hand again.
Many years later, married and with two young boys, we debated flying to Winnipeg, Canada to view another solar eclipse. The weather was dicey, but we decided to go and jumped on a plane at 10 pm the night before. We did manage to see it - the only one my sons have ever seen (both in their forties now) but it was not nearly as spectacular as that of 1954.
I think that the main memory my kids took away from it was the indoor rooftop swimming pool at the hotel.
Thanks for 'listening' folks. It was fun resurrecting this old memory.
Ho Ho Tai
The following are a post and an e-mail exchange. I did the post, then shared it with a friend in the Duluth astronomy club. I decided to share it with you too for whatever interest it may have.
Ho Ho Tai
Eric, et al -
Up late tonight (well, what's a former astronomer supposed to do when sleepless?) and found your post. I believe we will be in Duluth in time for your meeting. The comment on solar eclipses had me ruminating on my experiences and decided to do a search for the June 1954 eclipse. I ran into a website in England where someone of years nearly equal to my own had posted a memory of that eclipse. I decided to register and offered the following for their (I hope) entertainment.
I almost contacted you for your Astronomy Day event. I mentioned to you a while back that I still had this poster on sunspots that we created for a similar event when I was at UMD. I still have my old 'scope with the solar diagonal too. Maybe I'll lend both to you for a future event.
(signature)
The East Dulwich Forum
Re: Solar eclipse 1954
Posted by: Ho Ho Tai
Date: 06/05/2012 08:00
Hello, All -
I hope you don't mind someone from Across The Pond butting into your forum. I was on-line, searching out something which triggered a memory of that eclipse. I decided to enter it as a search term and wound up in your forum.
Yes, as I approach 75 y.o., I am PLENTY old enough to remember it. I was a high school jr. at the time in Duluth, MN. I was very much into astronomy then and had a pal (Richard) who was equally into photography - in fact, was the official photographer for our school. It was a good fit. I had a nice, solid 3" f/15 refractor and a tiny SLR which I fitted to the prime focus. I didn't have a drive so was limited to shooting bright objects. (Incidentally, I still have this scope and find it useful to amuse the grand kids.)
Dick and I were aware of the approaching eclipse several years earlier. The city of Minneapolis, some 150 miles to the south, was very near mid path. We decided to mount an expedition to the Big City. We made all sorts of careful preparations. I had a solar diagonal which diverted about 96% of the light and reflected the rest through a heavy filter. (This is a very safe way to go. If anything fails, nearly all the light spills out the back and the rest is not enough to damage sight if you back off fast enough.) We practiced exposures on various kinds of film by shooting endless pictures of sunspots.
A week before the event, we were checking weather very carefully and figured we had a good chance. We hung around with a science prof. at a near-by college who, of course, had plans for the eclipse also. He had seen several before, but this was a first for us. He advised us to leave all of our telescopes and cameras at home and just go down and enjoy it. Humpf! How could he say a thing like that? We packed up our gear anyway and headed down the day before. We had picked out a nice observing site on a golf course with a clear eastern view. The sun would rise partially eclipsed with mid-totality occurring when the sun was about 5 deg. above the horizon.
The morning of the eclipse dawned bright and clear - as nice a day as we get in Minnesota. We raced for the golf course a good hour before sunrise, set up our gear and waited . . . and waited . . . and finally, there it was, rising as a fat crescent. We started winding off the shots, being careful to save enough film for mid-eclipse. Then things started happening fast, just as in the textbooks. The diamond ring effect, the shadow bands moving over the open golf course and finally . . . TOTALITY!
My god, what an awesome sight! I think we caught a bit of buck fever at that point, shooting between glimpses at the real thing. I think someone (probably me) kicked one leg of the telescope tripod and we had to line it up again. Luckily, this was a long-duration eclipse (a bit like my post, eh?) and we had time. But finally, we had the wisdom to take our mentor's advice, abandon the scope, and just take it all in. When the sun 'finally' broke out on the other side, it was very obvious to us that we had experienced magic - perhaps becoming one, briefly, with 'primitive' ancestors who had their own explanations for what was happening. It felt like there should be some closing music, and credits rolling across the screen of the sky. The Producer, the Director, the Gaffer? All the same (if that is where your head is at.)
With a whole day remaining to reflect on the experience, we started by having breakfast at Rick's uncle's house, where we had stayed the night before. I don't think his uncle had even bothered to get out of bed to see it. Then we borrowed uncle's golf clubs and went back to the golf course. Richard was a fine golfer. I had never held a club in my hand before. I managed a 56 for five holes and decided that I had better find another sport. I never held a club in my hand again.
Many years later, married and with two young boys, we debated flying to Winnipeg, Canada to view another solar eclipse. The weather was dicey, but we decided to go and jumped on a plane at 10 pm the night before. We did manage to see it - the only one my sons have ever seen (both in their forties now) but it was not nearly as spectacular as that of 1954.
I think that the main memory my kids took away from it was the indoor rooftop swimming pool at the hotel.
Thanks for 'listening' folks. It was fun resurrecting this old memory.
Ho Ho Tai
