Posts Made By: Ken Fiscus

A friend and I are flying in his 3-seater from Minnesota to somewhere in the northeast U.S.. I am planning to videotape the transit with the same equipment I used for the 1999 Mercury transit. That was my Astroscan with camcorder attached viewing through a glass filter. The scope was at 25x and the camcorder at 16x, yielding a beautiful, clear 400x. I also hope to tape the transit through my Meade electronic eyepiece, TV/VCR, and the new Coronado PST (if I can get the PST in time). None of this is as nice as the stuff you mentioned, but it'll do fine. I'm mainly worried about the weather.

This just makes me appreciate Astromart more and more. I'm very monogamous in my astrodealings. I only use Astromart and get in enough trouble with my wife getting my fix here. The only good thing I've gotten from the E-place is hearing the funny postings others refer to like the guy selling a 12.5" scope as the largest privately-owned scope in the country. I haven't been burned yet on Astromart.

We used to do this with cans from vegetables to make great potato/tennis ball guns. We even mounted them to our bike handlebars with hose clamps. I wouldn't recommend our duct taping method for supporting optics, though. This idea sounds cool and would make a great crowd grabber for sidewalk astronomy. Good luck.
Ken

Good thinking! Can anybody think of a way that the word could be given to law enforcement across the country-not "hit-or-miss" (pun intended)? Something along the lines of some photos or sillouettes of people with a variety of scopes. Being out in the dark was already suspicious...
Ken

I'll come bug you if you'll throw a Nagler at me!
Ken

Congratulations! We were completely clouded out in southern Minnesota.

Congratulations! Now if your weather will stay nice and clear tonight, wait until you look at Saturn when it has climbed higher and your scope has adjusted to the temps! You might get lost in the beauty.

Very nice setup. You can't have too large a finder (to a point). I can't stand tiny pinhole finders like 6x26, 6x30, etc. The idea is "finding" not looking for.

Have you always preferred right angle? My neck is still young enough (today is my 38th birthday) to allow me straight-through finding. I keep both eyes open and they automatically cross as my target area approaches the intersection of the crosshairs. When the finder tube obscures the area to my naked left eye, I'm right where I wanted to be. Sorry for the ramble...I liked your whole setup.
Ken

Ivan, I've been meaning to try it for the first time ever and I was pleased to see your thread. I'll keep checking in to see how you and others do. I found the separation that someone else asked for. It's around 6.5" this year. My source for this information was the 1994 Astronomical Calendar. Gotta love that calendar!
Ken

Robert, I'm a VERY amateur eclipse photographer but I've had good luck at two totals ('91 & '98) and one annular ('94). I think your reference to a recent Central America annular meant THE Central America. Mine was midwestern America. Anyway, I primarily used video equipment to capture human reactions and to tell the eclipses' stories. Both totals were shot from moving cruise ships because we had cloud issues to put it mildly. I had good luck shooting a roll of 100 ASA slide film through a homemade photo-grade mylar filter at the '98 total using a Pentax K1000 and a cheapo 300mm telephoto lens on a heavy tripod. The 35mm and video cameras were both on the same tripod, mounted side-by-side. I shot all of the partial phases at the same exposure and during totality used every exposure available up to 1 second. All 24-plus totality slides came out great with the exception of the 1-second exposures because they smeared because of the gentle rolling of the deck. I had about 4.5 minutes of totality and managed to see a little of it and shoot video and slides. I didn't bother scripting my time too much since I'd heard (correctly) your brain goes to mush during totality.
I know you're working with an annular this time and working up to a Med cruise for the total. Everybody that has seen my slides and videos (hundreds of students) found the videos much more engaging. The crowd favorites are the images of perfect rings projected by gaps in tree leaves. I'll end this rambling post with an attached digital photo of a video frame showing the 1994 annular from Jefferson City, Missouri. I hope something I've written helps you.
Ken