ECLIPSE OF SUN

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 August 1936, Page 5

ECLIPSE OF SUN

NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION.

[PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

■WELLINGTON, August 14

A New Zealand expedition is to go to Phoenix Island, in the Ellice group, next year to observe a total eclipse of the sun on June 8. Dr. E. Marsden, secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said today. The expedition -will be a semiprivate one, led by Mr. C. W. B. Michie, an amateur astronomer, of Kaitai, but it will have the full co-operation and assistance of the department. On December 14 of this year, in certain parts of the Auckland province, there will be visible an annular eclipse of the sun, and observations of this will be made by the same party. The work done then will be in the nature of a rehearsal for the expedition which will later observe the Pacific eclipse-. Some instruments are being received on loan from the permanent eclipse committee of the Royal Astronomical Society, London, for the observation of these eclipses. One is a coronagraph, a camera with a focal length, of 14 feet and a lens four inches in diameter. This coronagraph was also used by the Now Zealand expedition which in 1930 went, to Niuafou Island for an eclipse observation. Mr. Michie took part in the 1930 expedition. Other members of next year’s expedition are likely to include Mr. I. L. Thomsen, of the Dominion Astronomical and Seismological Observatory, Wellington, with Dr. J. IT. Rule, superintendent of the Kaitai Memorial Hospital, as medical officer. A wireless telegraphist and other officers will accompany the expedition. Professor P. W. Burbridge, of the chair of physics at Auckland University College, is assisting in preparatory work, and will undertake the aluminising of the coelostat mirror for the coronagraph. This is a. new process developed in America in recent years. Arrangements are also in hand for the provision of theodolites, plfite holders, tents and tarpaulins, camp gear, and meteorological instruments.

The eclipse in December will be seen as an annular one in a zone of which the southern limit is a line passing approximately through Piopio, near Te Kuiti, Wairakei, Lake Waikaremoana, and Morere Hot Springs, south of Gisborne, and the northern limit a line approximately through Dargaville and Great. Barrier Island. In all other parts of New Zealand it will be seen as a partial eclipse. The expedition’s observations are likely to bo made from Pukekohe. The. Now Zealand scientist, Dr. L. .1. Comrie, now director of the British Admiralty “Nautical Almanac,” has made all the calculations for the eclipse as it will be observed from Pukekohe.

An annular eclipse is one in which the moon does not appear to be large enough to obscure the whole of the sun’s disc, and it leaves a thin ring of the sun visible. It i's almost as rare an event, as a. total eclipse.