SOLAR ECLIPSE

Hawera Star, Volume L, 28 August 1930, Page 4

SOLAR ECLIPSE

EXPEDITION TO NIAUFOU

ELTHAM RESIDENT INVITED

Mr F. Gawitli, of Eltham, who is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and Editor of the New Zealand Astronomical .Society’s Journal 3 lias been invited to accompany the New Zealand Eclipse Expedition under the leadership of Dr C. E. _ Adams, Dominion Astronomer, to Niaufou, which is in the .belt of totality of the sun s eclipse on October 22. . At the island the eclipse begins _at five minutes to eight on the morning of October 22. The sun will become more and more obscured until finally the whole sun will be (blocked) out _at eight minutes past nine. The period o.f totality lasts 94 seconds, and during that time the coelostat and camera will he carrying through an important job and will have to be functioning perfectly. Four photographs will be made of the corona, which is a flaming envelope surrounding the sun, and is normally lost to sight through the 1 brightness, of the mass of the sun inself, but when the whole disc of the sun is obscured the corona becomes visible. One with an exposure of two seconds, will be taken as totality begins; two, with exposures of 30 seconds each, will be taken while the sun remains blacked out; and the last, with an exposure of two seconds, will be taken just before the sun emerges. It sounds comparatively simple, but such is far from the case.

The New Zealanders will leave Auckland' by the Niagara probably on September 23 and will travel from Suva to Niaufou by the Laburnum, arriving at the beginning of October.