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November 24 2003 Parramatta High School 150°59'44"East 33°49'15"South |
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 The view to the east from the IA quad, 8:03am. |
At 8:03am Daylight Savings Time, it was looking a bit grim.
This was the predicted time of "first contact".
Convinced it was a washout, I gazed eastward anyway. |
| These are the two 'scopes used on the day. Originally, the intention was to use the 80mm with the webcam, and keep the 102mm for visual use, but I wasn't about to bring the computer out in this weather... |
 The 80mm short-tube piggy-backed on the 102mm |
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It took a while, half an hour or so, before the clouds split apart long enough
for me to bring the camera to the eyepiece. Here, at about one minute before maximum eclipse, the clouds obliged and the untested camera / telescope combination didn't perform too shabby neither!
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 The scene: The IA quad, the IA block, the famous deco air-cooling tower, the units across Pitt Street, the cloud cover to the east, and the fool on the hill. |
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Clouds determined the view. Even the best shots were taken through a thin layer of cloud, and this one struggled though a heavy layer. |
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One unexpected bonus of the day was the splendid display of sunspots. Sunspot 488 is clearly visible in both this and the above shot, almost dead-centre on the solar disk 484 and 486 can just be seen in the photo, but were as clear as... day(!) ...through the eyepiece. |
 This is the el-cheapo digital camera used to take these shots. |
It has an 8.5mm f/3 lens - almost a pinhole - which makes it useful for afocal photography, such as this. |
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