Mississauga Astronomical Society

                Twentysixth Meeting

                Speaker’s Night

Day:                Friday, Sept. 10, 2004

Speaker:     David Makepeace

Solar Eclipse Filming and the Antarctica Eclipse of 2003

David Makepeace is a professional filmmaker who became a passionate eclipse chaser in 1991 after witnessing the total eclipse in Baja California in 1991 of that year. He achieved his goal of observing a total eclipse of the sun from all 7 continents when he successfully saw the one in Antarctica in November of 2003. He was able to travel to Antarctica because one of his friends was involved in running cruises to the continent.

In order to share with the M.A.S. his zeal of eclipse chasing and the excitement involved, David showed his 22 minute film “Hooked on the Shadow” which was made in association with the Space Channel, and which has aired a number of times on television. The footage was shot in Aruba in 1998 and Turkey in 1999 during two eclipse expeditions that Davis was on. The passion of eclipse chasers and the thrill of seeing the sun’s corona and phenomena associated with totality were well illustrated.

In November 2003, David sailed on the Russian Icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnokov to Antarctica together with other eclipse enthusiasts such as Fred Espenak to witness the total solar eclipse. David is now working on a documentary of this expedition. He has created two pre-production sequences for a promotional video.

The first video shows what it was like on the ship, the cabins, kitchen, activities, experiments, eclipse lectures, eclipse t-shirt competitions, “trade show” with different passenger’s eclipse setups.  The icebreaker stopped at both Crozet and Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean.  David showed  footage of penguin rookeries, and the icy desolation of the sites.

The other video showed the ice experience and eclipse. There were wonderful views, shot from the ship’s helicopter, of the icebreaker pushing its way through pack ice.  For eclipse day, the constraints of the exact viewing site off the Shakelton Ice Shelf were determined by both the pack ice and by the weather. The Kapitan Khlebnokov initially moored in a favourable site with clear skies. Unfortunately, the pack here proved to be unstable and with only hours to go, the icebreaker had to move to a different location where clouds started to encroach. Despite this, totality was viewed successfully through cloud layers. The inner corona could be seen and the moon’s shadow was spectacular on the clouds and ice. 

David was also asked to give a live commentary for Discovery Channel during that station’s Antarctica eclipse coverage.

David spoke about and showed images from the other eclipse expedition which observed totality from other other side of the Antarctic continent, and from the flights that witnessed the eclipse from the air. 

Many questions were entertained after the presentation.  

Satellite predictions

Randy Attwood demonstrated the clear sky clock (to which there is a link from the M.A.S. site). Passes for the ISS and predictions were demonstrated as well as the ability to predict IRIDIUM satellite flashes.

 Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to M.A.S. meeting reports page
Mississauga Astronomical Society