Over the past several months it has been my pleasure to
work with Russel Watson of the Pitcairn Islands Philatelic Bureau, assisting
in several design elements and providing technical information and graphics,
for a special three-stamp issue, and First Day Cover (FDC), commemorating
the 08 April 2005 total solar eclipse near Oeno Island. I understand
that Fred Espenak assisted in this effort as well. The Bureau has now finalized
the design of the stamps, and the cover, as shown above.
Click to view the:
I have been greatly impressed with the desire by Mr. Watson to both make
sure the issue is phenomeneologically and astronomically correct, but not
at the expense of a wonderful graphic depiction, which I believe they have
achieved. The stamps and FDC, according to information being released
by the Bureau, will be available for sale starting on the day of the eclipse.
You can see here a
COPY OF THE BUREAU's
RELEASE soon to be distributed (I have suggested a clarifying rewording
in the second sentence, but I am sure you will get the full intent). This,
unfortunately, will be too late for those on the two eclipse-chasing
cruise ships headed for Pitcairn before the eclipse. However, Mr. Watson
has advised me that he will endeavor to have stamps and covers available
on the ships for sale
after the eclipse, as he wrote in a very recent
correspondence:"I fully intend to try and get the stamps etc onto the
ships either when (or if) they call at Pitcairn or else by giving them to
the Captains who will be instructed to only sell them on Eclipse day and
not before. They will be available on April 8 if I can make this happen".
FYI - I have no connection with the distribution or sale of these stamps
or the First Day Cover, and those interested should contact the Pitcairn
Islands Philatelic Bureau at:
stamps@pitcairn.gov.pn.
I would hasten to offer my opinion, however, that I think they have
done a spectacular job.
Some may recognize the images on the stamps originating from my
TSE
2002/Australia imagery but geometrically corrected to remove the oblateness
which arose from the low altitude of that eclipse. The images selected
were taken just prior to and after Contact III from TSE2002/Australia, also
of small lunar angular size w.r.t. the Sun, to represent in approximation
the phenomena which would be seen off-shore from Oeno near the Southern
limit of the path of totality. With some artistic license, the stamp
graphic designer created a "hybrid image" (no pun intended) on the $3.00
stamp incorporating a depiction of prominences inspired by
Fred
Espenaks Baily's Bead sequence from TSE 1995 into the post 3rd contact
image of TSE 2002.
The image of Oeno island on the Cover is a wonderful graphical depiction
which you can see very closely matches orbital imagery obtained from
the International Space Station, as I have posted on my web site on, and
linked with additional imagery and information about Oeno on:
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/ECLIPSE_WEB/ECLIPSE_05/TSE2005.html.
Some may also be interested in (non-eclipse) stamps previously issued by
the Pitcairn Islands Philatelic Bureau depicting Oeno Island:
So, after TSE 2005, we'll not only have something to write home about -
but a great way to convey our correspondence about it!
Glenn Schneider, Last Update: 21 Feb 2005
