Got back yesterday afternoon from Vegas, but finally able to post now. We ended up in Hurricane, UT for the eclipse, on an overlook of the town where highway 9 and 59 meet. I thought I could take some pics from my 8MP smartphone looking through my 8" Dob, but that was too much of a challenge to get a steady shot…but I did enjoy (and shared!) great views through my telescope, which included the 3 sunspot groups on the Sun’s surface which kind of helped with gauging the speed of the Moon covering the Sun, but I got a little greedy and hogged my scope when the Bailey Beads showed up on Contact II and III. My wife and kids really got the WOW! effect there just before, during and just after mid-eclipse and were thoroughly glad that they came with me to watch it…my middle son (15yro) said that this was on his “bucket list”…the joker. He also wanted me to drive by to see the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Downtown Vegas (where Pawnstars is filmed), so that was another bucket list item crossed off for him. Didn’t win in Vegas, but didn’t blow all my cash either, so the trip was a successful one.
We saw the eclipse on a lookout in El Malpais, west of Albuquerque. I looked very carefully but did not see the Baileys Beads. The location was great, suggested to us by a very helpful forest ranger.
I heard later that Sandia Peak was mobbed.
It was crowded, but not nearly as mobbed as I was expecting. Maybe 200 people.
Here are a few more:
The wedding ring: DSC_2256 | beowulff | Flickr
Queue the Jaws music - Shark sunset: Shark_sunset | beowulff | Flickr
Unless you have a great pair of binoculars (with solar filters of course), or a decent telescope (again, with a solar filter), it’s harder for the eye to detect Baily’s Beads. Also, the closer you are to the Graze Line (Northern or Southern Limit of the Total/Annular Eclipse Line), the longer the Beads are present, but you can see them for just a few short seconds just before Contact II and just after Contact III). It’s the first time I have ever saw them live with my own eyes…pretty cool.
I tried to pull up a youtube video with them, but none of them did any justice to what I saw…the videos are still too digitized even on HD.
Ah, that was my problem, then. We were very close to the center line.
Actually, there are a few decent videos of Bailey’s Beads, just not from this particular eclipse. Notice the videos have magnified views of the Moon covering the Sun. The unaided eye (with a solar filter, of course) would be limited in detecting this. You can still be near the center line and see the beads, just that the length of time you would see them would be dramatically shorter…just a few seconds, while it could be a minute or two on a graze line.
Are these the beads you are looking for?
I didn’t think you could really see Bailly’s Beads in an annular eclipse, nor the diamond ring, because the sky never darkens nearly as much as it does during a total eclipse.
Some details from Sydney Observatory’s blog of the visibility of the transit from Australia and New Zealand.
Okay, I can’t find my darn GOOD solar filter for my telesope. And too late to get one now. So, I’ve been playing around with the welders glass stuff and its okay for viewing the sun with just the eyes. But, not surprisingly when used on the telescope the image is unacceptably blurry.
It occured to me that I have a small telescope mirror and some random optical bits laying around. And I could strip the aluminum coatings off the mirror and the diaganol. Would the reflections from TWO bare glass surfaces be enough attenuation to be safe? I could probably rig up three bare glass reflections before hitting the eyepiece without too much trouble.
I think just projecting the Sun’s image onto a white sheet of paper would be your safest and best bet. Back in 2002, I took my 8" Dob to work and showed the partial eclipse to my employees at work by projecting the unfiltered image down onto a large white piece of construction paper that was shaded from the direct sunlight. My optics where quite good enough to project the distinct sunspot groups with decent focus while creating a satisfying 12" image of the solar disc onto the paper. Give it a try today or tomorrow to see if that will work.
Otherwise, you could build this if you have the welder’s glass, if this is different than the setup you tried. Maybe there is a photography/astronomy shop near you?
Thanks for that info Yeticus Rex.
Went to a party yesterday. The kids had one of those supper elcheapo telescopes. I showed the kids and the parents how to do the solar projection thing. The parents will be home at the time of the transit, so with a little luck with the weather they will get to see it. And I guess with some not so earthshattering medical advances there is an outside chance those kids might live to see the next one as well . Even with that crappy scope a fair number of sunspots were visible. So, it lookes like the ole solar projection method is better than I recall it being. I"ll have to spend a few hours over the next couple days rigging something up for myself. I’ve got several different optics laying around to do something pretty workable I guess.
Thanks again.
Good luck and clear skies!
There’s quite a lot of patchy cloud this afternoon. It may be a bit difficult to see tonight’s partial lunar eclipse.
The clouds dispersed and we had crystal clear views of the partial lunar eclipse last night. It was a bit chilly watching it.
Unfortunately the forecast for tomorrow’s transit is showery. I’ll still go to the observatory though. It’s open from 7.30am, with the transit starting in Sydney at 8.16am.
Hope the weather is good in everyone’s location…at least the transit spans quite a few hours so you can catch a break in the clouds.
A little more than 4 hours to go!
Also, you can view the event live. It also has a video on how to set up the sunviewer that I had linked earlier.
Half hour to go…going home now…enjoy all!
Looks like I’m likely to be clouded out here in Pittsburgh 
So when is the external ingress thing supposed to happen, exactly?