TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE NOVEMBER 14th 2012

[Stefan]

Hi Guys,

I have some photos to share with you of the weird and wonderful total solar eclipse of November 14th. As some of you know I travelled up to Northern Queensland to see this event. Apart from the humidity which absolutely killed me, I had an awesome time there.
I meet up with a group of astronomers at the lovely seaside town of Port Douglas where I stayed for 3 nights.
The weather for Port Douglas and Cairns was not looking promising with rain and cloudy conditions forecast. I ended up going to an eclipse viewing site about 2 hrs from Port Douglas near Mount Carbine with 3 other astronomers. We got to the viewing site about 10pm on Tuesday evening and began setting up our gear. The conditions were clear with not a cloud in the sky.
I ended up staying up till about 1am and watching in wonder at how clear it was. Being in far North Queensland, I got to see some new northern constellations like Cassiopeia.
Since I was out in the middle of nowhere we had to sleep in the car, not that I got much sleep anyway with other astronomers arriving at the viewing site with their car lights blazing.
I woke up about 5am and having no daylight savings it was pretty light at even that time of morning. More people had arrived sometime in the early morning and were setting up their equipment.
The sun was rose behind some nearby trees; unfortunately they blocked our view of first contact. (Where the moon first touches the limb of the Sun)
I certainly noticed a weird dullness to the sky when the sun was near half eclipsed by the moon.
Things really started to get interesting when the sun was near totality. The sky was very dull and Venus was now visible and shining brightly. The only way I can describe the colour of the landscape is it was brownish red, like being on the top of Ayers rock! Very eerie indeed.
The last bit of sunlight shone through the moons disk, the earth’s shadow was visible racing towards us from the western horizon and a weird gust of wind that seemed to have come out of nowhere blew past and was gone. The suns corona (atmosphere) was now visible as people started to cheer with totality finally happening. Shutters on cameras were franticly clicking away as we only had 2 minutes of totality.
The sky didn’t get as dark as I thought it would  and was similar to the darkness seen during dusk. The moon actually appeared a dark grey and not jet black as my images may suggest. The suns corona looked white and yellow in colour. To put it simply the eclipse looked like a ball with fire round it!
When totality ended a brilliant glint of sunlight known as the diamond ring appeared and totality was over and the eclipse became partial once again.
Never in my life have I seen such an amazing event such as this one. Unfortunately images cannot do full justice on what is seen during a total eclipse.
Below are some links to my images, they are too big to have as attachments so are on a separate internet link.
Enjoy!

Partial phase of eclipse: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Solar%20eclipse%20partial%20phase.JPG

Partial phase of eclipse: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Solar%20eclipse%20partial%20phase%202.JPG

Partial phase of eclipse: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Solar%20eclipse%20partial%20phase%203.JPG

Totality with solar prominences visible: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Solar%20eclipse%20promenices.JPG

Totality with solar prominences and corona visible: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Solar%20eclipse%20promenices%20and%20corona.JPG

Totality with solar corona: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Solar%20eclipse%20outter%20corona.JPG

Totality, enhanced solar corona: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Eclipse%20copy%20-%20Copy.jpg

Diamond Ring: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Solar%20eclipse%20diamond%20ring.JPG

Viewing site pics.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Tablelands%20eclipse%20site%20edit.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/eclipse%20site%20edit.jpg

Termite mound: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Australia%20tablelands%20edit.jpg

Just before totality: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Total%20eclipse%20just%20before.jpg

Totality: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/Eclipse%20totality.jpg

Totality: Note, Venus is visible as a white dot at the top left from the sun: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92701108/eclipse%20site%20totality.jpg

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[Rwood]

Excellent, very well done!

[Suezy]

What a great well written article you have done - very informative - and see you have had a great time, even though little sleep at times.  Certainly a great day and also being your 21st too.  Thank you Stefan for this and the photos are fantastic too.

[bett]

Fantastic, beautiful photos.  We enjoyed clear skies here in Norfolk Island 98.5%. 
so pleased you got clear skies.  We had friends from Napier at Mt Carbine.  Gary Sparks and Graham Palmer from Hawke's Bay Astronomy Group
Thank you for sharing your experience, a wonderful read and amazing photos

[Deano]

Great write-up Stefan.
Wonderful photos & an experience of a lifetime!

[Weather Display]

wow!
those are the best pictures I have seen!