Bulletin No. 08 (October 11 , 1996)

This is a Special Issue of the Astronomy On-Line Bulletin which will help participants to get an overview of the various activities in connection with the Partial Solar Eclipse on October 12, 1996.

List of documents

You will find on the Astronomy On-Line Webpages a number of texts with images that explain the various possibilities for making observations of the Solar Eclipse. The direct links to these follow below:

Solar Eclipse on October 12, 1996

This is the main file with explanations about the event and links to all other pages on the main Astronomy On-Line site. Here you will learn about the specific possibilities for observations.

Solar Eclipses: Some Historical Notes

Read about some historical events, connected to eclipses.

Mathematics of Solar Eclipses (2-D method)

This area contains the mathemathics, necessary for the use of the comparative simple 2-dimensional method, explained in the main document, cited above.

Determining the Earth-Moon Distance

There exists another, more demanding way of observing the solar eclipse. It gives you the opportunity to determine, with good accuracy, the distance to the Moon.

Software for Solar Eclipse (3-D)

Here is the PC-compatible software, needed for the above 3-D method.

Live images!

Several sites will attempt to provide live images on the WWW during the solar eclipse. This is probably one of the first times a major astronomical event like this is placed live on the Net.

Tycho Brahe Planetarium (Denmark)

This project is described in detail in the Astronomy On-Line Newspaper No. 2 (A very special project for the Solar Eclipse). The `live site' (http://www.astro.ku.dk/astronomyonline/solar.html) is linked above.

Public Observatory "Sonnenborgh" (The Netherlands)

Barring technical and meteorological problems, the Public Observatory "Sonnenborgh" in Utrecht (The Netherlands) will put a live image of the partial solar eclipse of October 12 on the Internet. The solar eclipse will occur Saturday from 13:05h to 15:34 UT, locally in the afternoon. By using a webcam and a 300mm photo telelens connected to a computer the image is placed on the address which is linked above (http://www.uwp.nl/eclipse). The image of the sun will be captured once in every few minutes. More information on the solar eclipse (in Dutch) on http://www.dru.nl/onderwijs/sonnenborgh/kijkers/eclips.htm.

Public Observatory Mira (Belgium)

The Public Observatory Mira plans to place live pictures on the Internet (http://www.ping.be/Mira/) if the weather permits. The other pages are in the Dutch language, but they will try to bring the eclipse-page in English.

Society for Popular Astronomy (UK)

This Society in Manchester also plans to place live pictures on the Internet. Update will take place every 2 minutes.

Other sites

October's Partial Eclipse of the Sun

A very useful, general article by Alan MacRobert, adapted from Sky & Telescope, October 1996. With charts, etc.