The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse, Part 1

Observing the 8 April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse at the Arboretum of Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada) in Hamilton, Ontario.

The total solar eclipse of 8 April 2024 that swept across North America caused an enormous public and media sensation. Millions of people were able to take in this beautiful natural phenomenon.

Here at Pine River Observatory (which is both virtual and portable) I’m going to post a couple of blog entries about my experience with the 2024 eclipse. I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in preparation for and leading the programming of a visitor experience for the eclipse at Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada), in Hamilton, Ontario, where I serve as Director of Science. In this first blog post describe the preparations for the event, which was held in the Arboretum of Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada) on the afternoon of April 8th.

Preparations for the event actually began about three years ago. I had traveled to the United States to witness the 2017 total solar eclipse that was sometimes called the Great American Eclipse. I joined friends south of St. Louis, MO, and experienced my first total solar eclipse. I also had the honour to serve as interpreter and observation guide for the group, which included members of The Explorers Club, St. Louis Chapter.

Members of the St. Louis Chapter of the Explorers Club and my little telescope set-up watching the 2017 total solar eclipse in Missouri.

The 2017 eclipse was a chance to prepare solar observation telescopes and some camera equipment to record the event. That event went pretty well, and I was excited to capture a variety of images. I also demonstrated that my small telescope, a 5 inch Meade Terabeam Maksutov-Cassegrain OTA with a two inch Jim Weggat optical back, performed very well for visual observations and photography when equipped with a mylar solar filter from Kendrick.

One of my telephoto images of totality in 2017.

In 2021 I first started bringing the 2024 eclipse to the attention of the interpretive and planning staff at Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada), with information about the path of totality and its duration. The Arboretum at University of Guelph was just inside the path of totality, with eclipse websites indicating 87 seconds of totality could be expected there. It was not hard to work with online ephemeris sites and get the direction and the elevation expected for the sun and moon at totality. This would be just about southwest, at 45° elevation.

Serious planning for the event at the Arboretum began in mid 2023, when our director of business development and I started to discuss just what was practical and possible on the day. While the astronomical portion of the eclipse was very predictable, the wildcard in all of this was the weather. We were expecting a 60% probability of being clouded out on the day of the eclipse. Historical weather information, however, is proving to be somewhat unreliable in the era of climate change we are now experiencing. The two days before the eclipse the weather turned out to be cloudless and beautiful. Of course, we did not know this in our planning.

Prior to the eclipse itself RBG organized a presentation by eclipse chaser David Makepeace, of Toronto, a videographer who has identified himself as The Eclipse Guy. David has traveled the world many times to take in eclipses, and gave a wonderful presentation on eclipse chasing at RBG two weeks before the event itself.

We also teamed up with two other institutions in preparation for the eclipse. The Ontario Science Centre in Toronto included RBG in some of its own planning, and sent a team to RBG for the day of the eclipse. This was done in part because the Ontario Science Centre was to be outside of the path of totality. The other partner was McMaster University, which made the wonderful donation of several thousand eclipse glasses to RBG for distribution during our programming. In total McMaster University had over 600,000 pairs of eclipse glasses prepared and distributed free in Hamilton to give people a chance to observe the eclipse in safety.

To set up for the eclipse, it was decided that the Arboretum on the North Shore of Cootes Paradise Marsh would be the best place for an RBG eclipse viewing. It’s not that the Arboretum is anything particularly special, but it does present a large grassy area with a good view to the southwest. Our food services department set up a food truck, and our operations and events people set out chairs, tables, and even fire pits across the Arboretum so that visitors could relax and enjoy the event in style.

I decided to set up a couple of cameras and my five inch telescope 5 inch telescope so that people could take a look at the eclipse in its partial phases through the filtered telescope. On 7th of April, the day before the eclipse, I set up all of my equipment in the Arboretum and did a practice run with solar imaging, producing a decent visual light image of the solar disk.

The sun’s disk on the afternoon of 7 April 2024, just 24 hours before the total solar eclipse was to begin. Taken at the RBG Arboretum with the Terabeam telescope and a Nikon D5100 at prime focus.

I disassembled the equipment and packed it back up into my car for the overnight wait, and then arrived at the Arboretum around 11:30 on the morning of 8th April. It took a while to set up the equipment, but I decided to do a very simple thing with my telescope. Critical to any observed observations with a telescope is the telescope mount. In my case I have an old mount of about an EQ3 size (I’m not even certain), and I decided I was going to use it simply as a manually-moved German Equatorial manual mount. I made a rough north alignment, and then set up the optical tube assembly, the mylar solar filter, and eyepiece.

For camera equipment I had a Nikon D 7000 with a 150 to 500mm telephoto lens and yellow plastic solar filter. I used the handheld camera to take pictures of the sun and moon at various times. At totality, I removed the filter so that I could get photographs of the totality event.

And that was about it. I set up my relatively simple telescope, and during the day I was aided by several RBG volunteers, a wonderful group who come out to help at nearly every event. The wait was on to see if we would get an eclipse, because early on the morning of the 8th of April the weather forecast did not look very good. We had solid cloud until at least 1:00 PM, with totality scheduled for about 3:20 PM.

I’m going to pick up the story of the actual eclipse event in our next blog post. I’ll review the programming and experience of eclipse day, observations and the interactions with all of the public who joined us on the event, and share some photographs. We had at least 400 people attend. It’s not giving anything away at this stage to say that we did see a wonderful eclipse, the clouds cooperated in a rather dramatic fashion, and it was my impression everyone was very excited and satisfied that day.

An Homage to our Founder, Bill Galbraith

When this blog was started in 2012 it was long after someone important to it had died. Bill Galbraith, my father, passed away in the mid-1990s. Everything about the idea of observing the night sky at Pine River/Lurgan Beach can be traced back to him. Bill was a chemical engineer who had broad scientific and nature interests. In the 1960s he bought a 4.5 inch reflecting telescope for the family, in part to inspire me to be interested in science at the same time that the American Apollo program was pushing toward the 1969 moon landing.

William Galbraith as a student.

Bill Galbraith became well known to his neighbours at Lurgan Beach for bringing the telescope out for looking at the moon and the brightest planets. While not a great telescope it did a decent job on the moon, and even now, 50 years later, I often hear from friends in the area who recall dad and his “huge telescope.”

The telescope itself was a common model – a Tasco 4.5 inch. There’s a detailed review of this scope on line at: http://uncle-rods.blogspot.com/2008/07/good-tasco.html. I still have the telescope, in its original, somewhat beaten-up box.

Dad inspired me to follow science as a career, and I still love astronomy, although my career choice was biology. The idea of a Pine River (Virtual) Observatory and this blog are dedicated to his memory.

Astronomy at a Time of Pandemic

Since the outbreak of a new respiratory disease was first reported from Wuhan on 31 December 2019 the world has been beset with the effects of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Everyone is now regrouping, and if you have any concern at all for other people, you are taking on the social distancing model, restricting your voluntary travel, and following all the recommendations about sanitation, hand-washing, and keeping in touch with others who may have a hard time staying in for a while.

I can only extend my very best wishes to you in this difficult time, and hope that you are able to see this as an opportunity to regroup, look at everything afresh, and embrace positivity in this very difficult time.

As we are being encouraged to take things easy and stay inside, a bit of positive news is that it’s possible to do some interesting astronomy – and always learn more – on-line. In terms of connectivity we’ve never been in better shape to weather this storm by using the information tools now available.

In the coming weeks I will be looking into astronomy from the kitchen table once again. While our physical site on the shore of Lake Huron south of Kincardine remains closed up for the cold weather, Pine River Observatory will be working on what a “virtual observatory” can do.

The Ontario shore of Lake Huron looks west-north-west at Lurgan Beach, the site of Pine River Observatory’s physical base of operation. As of 21 March 2020 it’s still a pretty cold place! Photo by Andrea Becker of Toronto, ON.

 

Long Time, No Posts

I suppose it’s not really news to anyone, but I haven’t posted in a while. Too many reasons to try to explain it. I thought though that a note of acknowledgement was long over due. This blog has been by no means forgotten. To bring it back to life I need to do some homework. Stay tuned. Or not. Happy New Year!

A Visit to Meteor Crater

Five years ago today I visited one of the most spectacular landscapes on earth. It was the first crater on the surface of the earth unequivocally linked to an asteroid impact, and it’s billed as the best-preserved, too. And it’s big. Approximately 800 meters across. And it’s fairly old on our terms – about 50,000 years.

Located in north-central Arizona, Meteor Crater, also known as the Barringer Crater, was on my list of “like to sees” during a recent trip to the Canyon State. Another of my trip targets was the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, and the crater is just an hour’s drive further east.

Craters like this, or astroblemes, are tangible reminders that Earth is just one body in our solar system. We are shielded by our amazing atmosphere, but still susceptible to chance encounters with our fellow travellers.

I took many photos but have not yet put together a decent set for the blog.

The scale of the crater is evident on the drive to the visitor centre, perched high on the rim, on the outside.

For more information on the Barringer Crater, visit their web site at: http://meteorcrater.com/

Copyright © 2013 David Allan Galbraith

 

Updates on Pine River Observatory

The summer of 2018 is, and I realize I haven’t gotten many things posted to the blog for a long time. This has been a busy year, and I do intend to provide additional updates. In particular I need to post the results from last year’s expedition to Missouri to watch the 2017 Solar Eclipse. So have faith! This site is not abandoned. It just has to occupy a low priority for the time being.

Working On The Details

The perigee moon of November 2016 once again found me out with a camera. I took frames to make this image at Spencer Smith Park in Burlington, Ontario. 

I was very pleased that SkyNews Magazine selected this as their Image of the Week coming out of the Perigee Moon event. 

In the coming days I intend to post a detailed “how this was done” column. 

Hail and Farewell Geoff Gaherty

Astronomy in Canada has lost one of its most interesting voices. Dr. Geoff Gaherty, of Coldwater, Ontario, passed away on Thursday 7 July 2016 of complications following surgery.

I’d known Geoff since about 1992. During my post-doctoral work at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England, I was invited to come to Canada and consider taking up the post of Executive Director and Curator of the Centre for Endangered Reptiles. This was a non-profit conservation breeding and research centre founded by Geoff. He was a many of many interests. In my time with the CER from 1993 to 1995, he was always helpful, interested, and a lot of fun to talk to. A true gentleman with a lot of interests and skills.

As an amateur astronomer Geoff was extremely active in the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. He wrote for the highly-regarded RASC Observer’s Handbook, and he maintained his own blog and social media outlets for information for astronomers.

I’m very saddened by Geoff’s passing and wish the very best to his wife Louise and son David. Ad Astra, my friend.

Planning my 2015 Calendar

It’s still just in the concept stage, but I’m thinking of producing a calendar form 2015 of photos of the moon that I’ve taken over the past several years. Other things would be in there too. I’ve done my own calendars of other photographic subjects in 2012 and 2013, and in 2014 two of my photos were selected for inclusion in the Hamilton Amateur Astronomer’s calendar. I think I have enough material for an interesting moon calendar this year! Here’s a concept for the cover.

 

Copyright © 2014 David Allan Galbraith

 

 

A Newsletter Article on the Sierra Stars Observatory Network

Included in the January 2014 issue of Event Horizon, the newsletter of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers, is a short article I wrote on my experiences in 2013 with the Sierra Stars Observatory Network (http://sierrastars.com/).

You can download the PDF newsletter here: http://www.amateurastronomy.org/EH/January2014.pdf

Back issues of Event Horizon are available here: http://www.amateurastronomy.org/newslett.php

I was very happy with the article, and that the editor chose to use one of my photos (of Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)) as the masthead for the issue.

Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) imaged with the Sierra Stars Observatory Network. The image is described below.

The above image of Comet C2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) was taken with the Schulman 0.81 m Mt. Lemmon SkyCentre telescope in southern Arizona early on the morning of 19 June 2013, on-line with the Sierra Stars Observatory Network. This was a simple stack of four images (one each, L, R, G, B) of 90 seconds each. The default setting for the camera is a 2×2 binning.

The Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter 0.81 meter is an f/7 Ritchey–Chrétien equipped with an SBIG STX KAF-16803 camera. The image covers 22.5 x 22.5 arc minutes: a bit more than a third of a degree across the sky (for comparison, the disk of the full moon covers about a half a degree, or around 30 arc minutes).

Copyright © 2014 David Allan Galbraith