Location: Playa Coronado, Panama
Coordinates: 08° 31' 41.5" N and 79° 53' 02.4" W (GPS GARMIN 45)
Timings: I 20h56m50s alt 37°
II 22h12m05s alt 18°
m 22h12m13s alt 18° 16s annularity
III 22h12m21s alt 18°
IV 23h18m14s alt 02°
Pictures of the sun taken through C90 telescope equipped with a Thousand-Oates filter. The pictures of the sun objective were taken with a Sony camera, un-mounted. Local time is UT minus 5h – so it was in the late afternoon.
Joanne and Patrick took a private taxi and drove from Barcelo, Playa Blanca to the Coronado area. It was an approx. 30 minutes drive. A small walkway to the beach, part of the richer Coronado village area, was found by Andrez, our driver. The beach area was small, but enough for our two Celestron C90 telescopes. During eclipse we had to move due to the tree and bush altitudes. We first saw the start of partial phase at 20h57m, only 10 seconds after predicted first contact.
The days before were clouded and most of the time windy and rainy. Today was different. The whole day it was clear and sunny. It was really hot. There were clouds low at the horizon. We moved spot at 21h32m due to the trees and the altitude of the sun. At 21h36m there is a cloud darkening the sky, though he eclipse darkens the sky obviously. The sun has magnitude 0.50 at this stage.
The clouds and the position of the eclipse made it stressful. It would be tight… At 22h00, only 12,5 minutes before maximum, there is a thin haze in front of the sun. Though the sun is very clear and bright. The sky is airy and quite darkened due to the eclipse. The palm trees created a slight crescent effect on the salt and pepper sand beach. At 22h08m there is a small cloud under the sun, though does not disturb.
Maximum is very fast. Only 16 seconds. It seems, visual in the C90 with TO filters, that the annulus is never complete though always somewhere broken. No corona, no prominences and no chromosphere. The sun is too bright to view with the naked eye. Or was the sky too clear …
At 22h24m, the sun slowly disappears in the trees and we pack our telescopes and go. We see a sundog from the car at 22h44. There are more and more clouds. Not far on the road and it starts raining… It was 22h57m. Contact IV to be at 2318m and sunset foreseen at 23h28m. Ready to prepare the next eclipse in October.
Picture by Patrick Poitevin
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