The path of totality for the 09 March 2016 (UTC) total solar eclipse (TSE) began at sunrise southwest of Singapore, traversed many islands in Indonesia including several of those in northern ultara Maluku, then further east onto Woleai in Micronesia, and after a long traverse north eastward over the Pacific Ocean ended at sunset northeast of Hawaii.  For TSE 2016, wanting to have my feet firmly on the ground, I decided to head for the north Malukas. In particular for, logistical considerations, basing in Ternate, but observing the eclipse itself on nearby Tidore's southern coast from the village of Tomalou. There the orthographic cloud formation in the morning (eclipse time) was anticipated less often impacting than at many other volcanic island locations.  Duration of totality from our site: 3m 04.7s.



Ten of us left from the port on southeast Ternate by a chartered speedboat at 5 AM local time on March 9, for an appx one hour trip to Tomalou. Our eclipse observing site was directly adjacent to its boat dock by a sea wall, an excellent location we had scouted in situ on a prior day.


Most of the extremely friendly and helpful residents of this small village came out to meet and welcome us and throughout the morning shared with us the eclipse experience.  The trans-cultural camaraderie and interested excitement was an added bonus to the clear-blue skies that greeted us in the direction of the Sun over the water (azimuth 97°, altitude 48° at totality).

For imaging TSE2016 I used two two cameras.  The first, for high resolution imaging of the inner corona, a D810 on a Questar 3.5" telescope at its ~ 1.4 meter f/16 back focus.  This telescope was on a compact but very sturdy tracking mount constructed to accommodate specifically the alt/az of the Sun for this essentially equatorial location.  A second D3000 camera was used to image the mid/outer corona with a 400 mm camera lens with all refractive optics at f/6.3.  The operation of both cameras was fully automated using Xavier Jubier's 'Solar Eclipse Maestro' for MacOS X on a venerable MacBook Pro 17" laptop.


A single integrated  script was used (flexible to a range of different possible totality durations had alternate sites been needed).  In each case constant cadence images at fixed exptime were taken for a 20 s before and up to C2 and from C3 and beyond.  For the Questar, during totality exposures were ramped to longer exposure times from 5 ms to 2 s in appx log-normal steps and reversed from mid-eclipse to C3.  Similarly for the 400 mm camera but from 2.5 ms to 5 s. A few "extra" long exposures were taken mid-way through the up and down ramps in both cameras.  All exposures with the Questar f/16 were at ISO 200, and for the 400 mm f/6.3 were at ISO 800.  More details will be provided at a later date.  For anyone interested, CLICK HERE for the script.

On the morning of the eclipse, from our site on the south coast of Tidore, the weather could not have been more cooperative and the sky was perfectly clear toward the Sun for totality. The view was spectacular and the vista as the umbra approached (and later receded) breathtaking.

Here are, for now, just a few pictures...

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