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“Climatology is what we expect, but the weather is what we get” a famous meteorogist once said, and is very accurate for eclipse chasing. The chances to have cristal clear skies from Mexico were almost 80%, from Texas (Mexican border) some 70% and on the other side of the umbral path, in Maine or Canada, 10-15% chances of clear sky. 10 days prior to the Eclipse-Day we had the first reliable forecast: Texas 10% chances and Maine 90%! The situation is real and stayed that way till the day of the eclipse. We had to change plans, not to chase the eclipse in Texas but to escape clouds in northern Arkansas. And we did just so, with the help of live satellite images and good last minute forecast (ICON, GFS and ECMWF, in this order).

This is a 10 seconds time-lapse from Clinton, Arkansas, from where we had good clear sky with a very thin layer of cirrus, visible only at C2 and C3 when I exposed the photographs for diamond rings.

The artist Alec Bartos won this stamps issue contest for “Astronomical Events” special Romanian Post stamps issues and I am honoured that he won using my images from several totality expeditions.

You can see images from 2016 – Indonesia in collaboration with astrophotographer Alson Wong, 2017 – USA in collaboration with CFF Telescopes owner Cătălin Fus, 2021 – Eclipse Flight near Antarctica and 2023 – Timor Leste.

It is my pleasure to present you my pics in … stamps :)). Enjoy!

This was my 14th total eclipse expedition. I chose East Timor for several reasons, but the most important, I must admit, was the budget. I studied the weather pattern well, using satellite images, and came to the conclusion that the chances of a clear sky for the time of the eclipse (not necessarily on the day of observation, so exactly at the minute of the eclipse) are actually sufficient for the success of the expedition (over 65% chances of clear skies). Obviously, the statistics are one thing and the reality on the day of the observation can be completely different. But this time, things worked out and we had a completely clear sky at the time of totality, on April 20, 2023.

I had two goals for this excursion: the first, obviously, to observe the eclipse on clear sky and the second, to give a presentation at a school in East Timor. The observation of the eclipse was successful, and I held the presentation for the children from the “CAFE Manatuto school”, at the invitation of the Portuguese Embassy in East Timor, through the educational program CAFE project – Centros de Aprendizagem e Formacao Escolar de Timor-Leste, a bilateral cooperation project between Portugal and East Timor.

I had the honor and privilege of talking to the children on that remote island about eclipses and astronomy for two hours. One thing is certain: children are the same all over the world, they are intelligent, curious and understand science if you explain it interactively.

Succes from 12.200m altitude, for my 13th umbra chase!

Here are some photographs from our flight adventure, over Antarctic Ocean, with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, some 1m 52s of totality (TBD). It was quite a difficult mission to reach the eclipse path due to pandemic travelling conditions in Chile, last minute airplanes changes by LATAM and so on. Nevertheless, unique experience at this almost impossible to reach total solar eclipse.

This was my 11th total solar eclipse and definitely one of the most beautiful I’ve seen due to low elevation of the eclipsed Sun.

My observing point was some 60km east of Punta Colorada, in a remote area, just south of Atacama region, at 1788m altitude with a great vista to the eclipse passage. From that point, we could actually see the ocean (well, covered by clouds) and the entire valley to the shore.

The corona was elongated, as expected, but washed out by the low atmosphere and low solar activity. The same with the 7-o’clock prominence witch was faint, the same elevation from chromosphere as 2017TSE, but fainter.

Nevertheless, the umbra was just fantastic, almost in conical shape from our vintage point and the colors of the horizon, shapes and tones cannot be resembled in pictures!

Here are some pictures from our trip to Atacama, images of the TSE and three videos with the passing umbra from two different locations. Before departure to my observing site, I set up a small camera on the balcony of our room and the images are spectacular, with the crowds enjoying the phenomenon, from the beach of La Serena.

Equipment: Camera – Panasonic Lumix S1R and Panasonic Lumix S1; Telescope – CFF Oil Spaced Triplet 80/6; Mount – Astrotrac 2, Tripod Heads Manfrotto, Carbon fiber tripod. This time, no software for the acquisition of the images.

It was a great opportunity for me and Catalin Fus to capture some fine images of the corona structure, using some of the finest refractors out there, a 160mm CFF Telescopes, f/6,5, oil spaced triplet apochromat. I know that such a high eclipse, in such part of the world with great infrastructure and so on, will not happen soon. But there came the clouds. Not dangerous ones for visual observations on the corona and chromosphere, but thick enough for good imaging data.

These are the resulting images from our expedition to totality, my 10th total solar eclipse to date. I’m already making plans for my next one in Chile 2019!

Photo credit:
Catalin Beldea, Catalin Fus / Stiinta&Tehnica Magazine Team / Romania
Instruments/cameras:
CFF Telescopes 160mm oil spaced triplet apo, f/6,5
CFF Telescopes 80 mm, f/6 oil spaced triplet apo, f/6
Canon 5DSR
Canon 6D
Samsung S8
Location: Meadow Acres, near Casper, Wy

This is how the corona of the Sun could be seen in perfectly clear skies, only at the time of a total solar eclipse. I observed the 2016 TSE from Tidore, a volcanic island in the eastern part of Indonesian archipelago. The totality lasted roughly 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Here are some pictures from my trip to this extraordinary Indonesian eclipse. The first image is made from a sequence of 12 frames I took, with a Nikon D7200 + CFF Telescopes 80mm f/6 apochromatic oil spaced triplet. It was processed by Alson Wong.

Wonder how was the sky during totality? Here is a short timelapse from my spot:

For September 28th TLE, I managed to organize, toghether with my colleagues from Stiinta&Tehnica, a small expedition to reach for clear sky, somewhere in Romania. We came to observe the eclipse in Dobrogea county, on a wind-turbine field, near Cogealac village, 250km east from Bucharest. In my opinion, this was a 2 on Danjon scale, deep red lunar eclipse. Here is my picture from our observing site.

On 20th of March 2015  I was on EFLIGHT B737-800 airplane, above Norwegian Sea, some 35,000 ft. altitude. It was the most beautiful corona I have ever seen. The streamers of the outer corona could be observed like the Sun was at minimum, eventhough it is still in maximum activity cycle! From my frosted window, high above the clouds, one could say that half of the Earth is eclipsed…

I had a very different experience at this eclipse than in my last ones. I was with Glenn Schneider’s group at eastern shore of lake Turkana, in NW Kenya. Some 40 minutes before totality we decided to fly behind a storm to observe 10 seconds of this short but very challenging total solar eclipse. Thanks to Glenn’s genius calculations for intercepting the umbra and the skils of the pilot, I was able to capture the entire sequence of the eclipse through the open door of the small Cessna airplaine. Video still to come. This project was powered by Samsung Romania.