SOLAR ECLIPSE.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20550, 19 May 1932, Page 9

SOLAR ECLIPSE.

BRITISH SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS. PREPARATIONS FOR AUGUST 31. (BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.) (Received May 18th, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY, May 17. The Royal Observatory at Greenwich intends sending two members of its scientific staff, Messrs Jackson and Davidson, to observe the solar eclipse on August 31st from the town of Parent, in Quebec province, where the totality will last about 100 seconds. Elaborate preparations are being made for taking telescopic photographs of the corona and spectrum. Use will bo made of the new Ilford infra-red sensitive plates, which by high speed have opened -out new possibilities in long-distance photography. [A total eclipse of the sun will occur about 7 o'clock in the evening of August 31st by Greenwich time. The eclipse will begin north of Siberia, and the track of totality, after passing the North Pole, will cross Hudson's Bay, Quebec province, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and will end in the Atlantic Ocean._ On the occasion of a total solar eclipse appendages or prominences, generally described as reddish coloured, but appeared white from aeroplanes, at the sun's eclipse on June 29th, 1927, are seen projecting from tho sun's edge. One of these is called the corona, which can be seen only at tho period of total eclipse. The lower portion of the corona consists of a pale green light containing hydrogon; tho upper portion is_ a beautiful mass of silvery white light, in the form of feather-liko plumes, with dark spaces between, which have been traced from tli© sun's edgo to a distance as great as the sun's diameter (864,000 miles.]