Desert Star Eclipse, 29th March 2006

Ken Jordan

We met with our fellow eclipse followers at Genoa, (Genova) Italy prior to embarkation onto the MSC cruise ship Sinfonia. In our group were: Kevin and Chris Flaherty and Frances Morland from Canberra, Pru Evans from Mount Martha Vic., Mick Wolf from Adelaide, my wife Lyn and myself from Kingscliff NSW.

After the check in process, we settled in to the hard life at sea in a five star hotel. Sky and Telescope were the main movers of this cruise and of the 1730 passengers, 1080 were affiliated. We attended lectures put on by various presenters, one of whom, Alan Dyer, a contributing editor of Sky and Telescope, was also a guest at our table each night for dinner. On the top deck of the ship an American fellow had a couple of telescopes set up to observe the Sun. No sun spots were visible in the Thousand Oaks filtered scope, but in the hydrogen-alpha filtered one, a number of small solar prominences were visible. The cruise was relaxed except for the never-ending deadline for meals. On the way to the eclipse site in the Libyan Desert we visited Naples, Syracuse, and Alexandria to make a quick excursion to see the Pyramids at Giza. This was spoilt by the short time frame available, along with peddlers and beggars, constantly harassing. The real excursion was to come. I wondered how the Libyans would cope with an influx of over 1000 people to move from the port of Tobruk into the desert, about 130 km to the southeast. It all worked. Buses arrived, and we were all assigned to a bus, and we left in a convoy. Police held up what little traffic there was as our convoy passed. We had just left town when we were engulfed in a thick fog, which persisted for nearly two hours. Were the Eclipse Gods not smiling? Just prior to arriving at the viewing site the fog lifted - perfect timing. The sign over the entrance to the site said, "Well come to Tobruk". Well, we did, and a beautiful clear day followed.

We arrived a little late to bag ourselves some chairs, but I managed to get a plastic table. Later, another truck arrived laden with plastic chairs, but not for us it seemed. A scene evolved akin to a mob of starving refugees meeting a food truck, in an effort to get some chairs. Kevin and I managed to get four, good enough. Prior to first contact we were met by Albert Brakel, Graeme Tapper and Steve Crouch who were on the tour with Journeys Worldwide.

The other comical situation was the line for the loos. They had thoughtfully provided five porta-loos for about 2000 people! A visit to the facility had to be a planned event, as it took good 45 mins to get to the head of the queue.
First contact came at 11:17 (approx), then the wait for 2nd contact. By 12:25 it was getting noticeably darker, the temperature had dropped a little and a slight breeze sprang up. Then rapid darkening as 2nd contact approached. The diamond ring, then totality at 12:34. Lots of corona was visible, up to at least 2.5 solar diameters either side of the Sun's equator, with polar streamers up to one solar diameter visible to the naked eye. In binoculars, prominences were visible near the top (south), and just above where the diamond ring disappeared. I took a number of images with my small digital camera at 10x zoom, hand held, and got some credible images, even the first diamond ring. A bright flash (3rd contact), and totality was over after just on four minutes. Much jubilation to have seen such an eclipse in such perfect conditions. The usual breaking out of the champagne had to wait a while, due to the strict no alcohol laws of Libya. We waited for 4th contact then made our way to a bus for the journey back to the ship and the remainder of our cruise. This included a trip to Leptis Magna, near Tripoli and a stop-off in Valetta (Malta) and Salerno (Italy), prior to returning to Genoa to conclude a most successful trip.

CONSTELLATIONS OF THE MONTH - Corvus & Crater

Albert Brakel

Corvus the Crow and Crater the Cup are two relatively small adjacent constellations between Hydra and Virgo. The stars of Corvus form a distinctive quadrilateral southwest of Spica, while Crater consists of fainter stars that have a recognizable shape as a goblet (though upside down), that is difficult to spot from light-polluted areas, but easy enough from Mt Stromlo. In mythology, the two constellations and Hydra are connected in a story that is so well-known that I hesitate to repeat it, but as some newer members may not have heard it, here goes. Apollo the Sun god sent the crow to get him a cup of water, but the bird, seeing a fig tree with fruit almost ripe by the stream, loitered until the figs ripened and he had his fill. Then grabbing a water snake in his claws, he returned to Apollo alleging that the snake was the cause of his delay. Whatever skills Apollo had, anger management wasn't one of them, and in a rage flung the crow, the cup and the snake into the sky.

Corvus contains a planetary nebula, and both constellations have a suite of not-too-bright galaxies; and then there are the ever-present double stars. I observed the diffuse objects using the Society's 14" Meade SCT at Mt Stromlo, and looked at the double stars from Downer with my 8" SCT when the clouds finally relented briefly (although the seeing was below average).

Corvus

Planetary Nebula
NGC 4361 (12h 24.5m, -18? 48') appeared round, whitish and with a fuzzy faint outer halo surrounding an inner brighter disk. The mag. 13 central star was visible with direct vision. OIII and UHC filters produced noticeable improvements. On a previous occasion I observed the object from Downer with my 8", and the main differences were that it was grey rather than whitish, the central star needed averted vision, and too high a magnification reduced the surface brightness too much (117x was best). The inner disk is a bit smaller than the apparent size of Jupiter, but the outer halo takes the diameter to about 80".

Galaxies
NGC 4038/39 (12 01.9, -18? 53'), known as the Antennae (or Ring-tail) Galaxies, at mag. 10.5 comprise the most easily-observable colliding galaxy pair. Two hazy ellipses about 2.5' long (one dim, one medium bright) are joined at their eastern ends to form a V-shape with a 40? angle. Some mottling was detectable with care at 237x. The collision is throwing out narrow arcs of material 15' from tip to tip, which give the object its popular names. These arcs show well on photos (I don't think I've seen them on amateur CCD images yet), but I couldn't see them by eye. A broad-band deep sky filter did not help.

NGC 4782/83 (12 54.5, -12? 34') are another pair of interacting galaxies. At mag. 11.7 they are more than a magnitude fainter than the Antennae, but well within the capability of the 14-inch. With 237x, they were closely adjacent, round similar galaxies with bright nuclei, the pair being enveloped in a dim glow.

Double Stars
Delta (?) Corvi (12 29.9, -16? 31') is a mag. 2.9 and 8.4 white and dim orange-yellow pair. If the stars were close, such a big magnitude difference would make them difficult to resolve, but the components are so far apart at the considerable distance of 24.2" that splitting them is easy in any telescope.

Struve 1669 (12 41.3, -13? 01'): equal mag. 6.0 and 6.1 at 5.4", pale yellow. Split with 50x power.

Burnham 28 (12 30.1, -13? 24'): very unequal m.6.4 and 9.1 at 1.9", yellow and white. I couldn't resolve this one at any power, probably because of the less-than-average seeing combined with the large magnitude difference.

Burnham 920 (12 15.8, -23? 21'): m.6.8 and 7.9 at 1.7", yellow and white. Only just resolved with 235x, but lower powers would be able to do it in better conditions.

Burnham 605 (12 20.2, -22? 11'): I throw this one in as a bit of a challenge. The mag. 6.2 and 8.0 stars were 1.3" apart when discovered in 1878, since when the separation has decreased. In 1961 and 1984 they were irresolvable. They still were for me, but in the circumstances that doesn't prove anything. When you get good seeing, check to see if the companion has become visible again. The primary is yellow.

Crater

Galaxies
The galaxies of Crater are all fairly faint, but with a 14" scope at my command, I decided to try the brightest two. I was pleasantly surprised.

NGC 3672 (11 25.0, -09? 48'), a highly-inclined mag. 11.8 spiral, is a dim, smooth, very elongated glow, with a brighter centre. It measures 3.5' x 1.4'.

NGC 3887 (11 47.1, -16? 52') is a roundish 2.8' x 2.0' glow. Though dim rising to a brighter centre, it was obvious enough. The integrated magnitude is 11.6.

Double Stars
Gamma (?) Crateris (11 24.9, -17? 41'): very unequal mag. 4.1 and 9.6, separated by 5.3", white, and was widely resolved even with 50x. Good for small scopes.

Jacob 16 (11 29.8, -24? 29'): unequal 5.8 and 8.8, sep. 8.2", pale yellow and grey. Split with 50x, and easy with 77x. At first the primary appeared blue-green as an after-effect of the red light I was using to read the chart, but after a few minutes became pale yellow when my color vision settled down - an example of how careful you have to be with colors when using a red light.

h4456 (11 36.7, -24? 27'): unequal m.7.5 and 11, sep. 15.2" given by Burnham, but decreasing. The primary is yellow, and the secondary ashen. I resolved them with 77x, but the secondary was very faint in the light of the nearby Moon, and I had to use averted vision.