This page is dedicated to an expedition to Hungary to see 11th August 1999 total solar eclipse that was undertaken by Borek Lupoměský, Jiří Fišer and Pavel Dvořák together.
Expedition members
Jiří Fišer - navigator; otherwise assistant at Department
of Computers at Pedagogical Faculty of University of J. E. Purkyně
in Ústí nad Labem.
Borek Lupoměský - driver; otherwise network administrator
at University of J. E. Purkyně.
Pavel Dvořák - member; otherwise student
Place Of Observation
As a country of observation we chose Hungary, because weather forecast for it was statistically the most favorable. This decision of ours was strenghtened by overly bad forecast for Western and Central Europe. Another decision was to go to a place near central line rather than to the edges of the path of totality. After mild peripetias the definitive location become a meadow near Akasztó village about 7 km north from city of Kiskőrös. On this map the place is marked as “B”, while “A” is a place of our overnight stay. Our location in the path of totality (about 10–15 km to the north from centre line) can be seen on this map.
Coordinates of observation location were:
19o 14' 17" eastern longitude ±15" 46o 40' 8" northern latitude ±10"
How did we see the eclipse
How saw the eclipse Jirka Fišer (Czech only).
How saw the eclipse Borek Lupoměský.
Meteorological Snapshots
On these two takes from Eumetsat satellite can well be seen Moon's shadow on Eearth surface in Europe: 12:30, 13:00.
Takes of Central Europe at 12:00 a 14:00. One can see, that Hungary happened to be the only reasonable place of observation.
Video Recording
I (BL) successfully managed to videotape the total phase of the eclipse with Sony Hi8 camera with 8× zoom. Indeed I did not count with it turning out so well. So here is 50 MB MPEG (4 minutes).
Gallery Of Photographs
We only photographed only things surrounding the eclipse, not the eclipse itself. Understandably: with our equipment (Praktica cameras, only up to 135 mm lens etc.) there was no sense in trying to compete with well-equipped both amateurs and professionals. Moreover, none of us was willing to sacrifice precious seconds of the totality for handling cameras.
Photo © 1999 Jiří Fišer
Shortly after our arrival to the observation place (Borek and Pavel)
Projecting the Sun's disc onto a sheet of paper (Borek)
Watching the Sun through filters (Borek and Pavel)
Overview of our observation locality
The Great Event is approaching; note visibly darker tint of the sky
Unfortunately, these are all snapshots we have. By a fatal mistake when I was loading film into my (BL) camera it happened that none of my takes were exposed. Such thing happened to me for the first time in my life. And is only another reaffirmation of the Murphy's Law that such thing happened at occasion so rare like total solar eclipse.
Links
Reports
of the 1999 Total Solar Eclipse
Eclipse
1999 in Turkey - recording of one-hour programme with
direct relays from Amasyia, Turkey
Recording of TV relay from Szeged, Hungary - the first
TV relay over the Internet from abroad.