Total Solar Eclipse 04. December 2002 from Koolymilka, Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), Australia

Image data

Date: 04. December 2002
Time UT: 09:10:58, 09:11:02, 09:11:06, 09:11:08, 09:11:12, 09:11:14, 09:11:18 and 09:11:20 (19:40:58 Australia Central Summer Time UT + 10,5h)
Location: Koolimylka, Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), Australia. 
Altitude: Approx. 244m above sea level.
Latitude: 30°57'15"S
Longitude: 136°31'32"E
Seeing: 3/10
Transmission: 7/10
Temperature: 29°C
Wind: Very windy
Camera: Canon EOS-D60
Settings: ISO 800, ImageQuality RAW
Lens: Takahashi FS-60C w/Extender-Q (568mm f/9,5)
Filter: None
Exposure: 1/2000, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30 and 1/15 second
Guiding: None
Digital enhancements: 8 images (1/2000, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30 and 1/15 second) where combined together in order to show details in both inner and outer corona. A slightly enlarged silhouette of the moon was then pasted in to cover the slight blur caused by the Lunar motion over the Solar disc during the time it took to make the exposures. Finally the image was run through SBGNR to reduce the amount of noise in the fainter parts. 

The image was cropped and resized for presentation on the web.

The coronal work where done by Mikkel Steine and I'm very grateful to him for all the help he gave me processing this image!! 

Notes: The windy conditions caused severe amount of dust near the ground and I had to raise the tripod higher than originally planned for. This made the setup more unstable and more exposed to the wind causing strong vibrations. Because of this I made a last minute decission to use ISO 800, instead of the planned ISO 200, during the totality in attempt to minimize blurring caused by vibrations. I have later identified the Manfrotto 410 head as the weak link in this setup - especially when operating at low latitudes!

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Created 14. January 2003