Page 37 - WesternU View - Fall 2017
P. 37
ROBERT ELDER, Fourth-Year Osteopathic Medical Student – Lebanon campus.
“I am a hobby astronomer. Years ago I built a large dobsonian telescope and have been using
it to help encourage public enthusiasm about astronomical phenomena via star parties,
museum events, and much more informal ‘sidewalk astronomy.’
“For this eclipse I set up 3 telescopes (the homemade dobsonian modified to allow safe solar
viewing, a tiny telescope modified with a funnel and shower curtain to make a projector, and
a dedicated solar telescope previously purchased from Coronado). The homemade scope was
best for viewing detail on the sun, e.g. sun spots. The Coronado was best for viewing flares
along the rim, but harder to use for photography. The tiny projection scope was primarily
used to allow a group of people to safely see the eclipse and sunspots at the same time.”
DEBBIE HARVEY, Executive Assistant
for University Affairs – Pomona campus. JEFF MALET, Writer/Photographer,
WesternU Public Affairs – Pomona campus.
Debbie and her husband, Patrick,
traveled from Southern California to “My friend Dan made his own filter in
WesternU’s COMP-Northwest campus to advance of his trip to Idaho for the eclipse.
view the eclipse in totality. He had leftover material and gave it to me.
It included a solar filter sheet. I spent
“August 21, 2017 was my first about an hour crafting my own filter that
experience in viewing a total solar would fit over the end of my 70-200mm
eclipse. It was amazing; perhaps the lens.
most awesome experience of my life. At
totality the sky went completely dark, “I used my Nikon D600, the 70-200mm
the temperature dropped approximately f2.8 lens with a 1.4 teleconverter
15 degrees, and when I could look at on it. I bracketed my exposure a bit
the sun without any eye protection, with my starting point at f18.”
I teared up and said to myself, ‘how
beautiful and how insignificant we are
in this great universe.’ One could say it’s
like a spiritual experience. My husband,
an amateur astronomer who has viewed
four total eclipses in his life, said ‘You WesternU Pomona campus solar eclipse Facebook gallery: http://tinyurl.com/y9boovrh
cannot describe the experience in COMP-Northwest campus solar eclipse Facebook gallery: http://tinyurl.com/ycal4dro
photos or on television; you have to see
it with your own eyes. It’s just that
moving.’”
Photos by Patrick Harvey using the
following: Nikon D-3300 DSLR. 600mm
telephoto lens with doubler and Daystar
solar filter. Totality photo was taken
without filter - iso 800 f/5.6 @ 1/200s.
Diamond ring effect photo - iso 200
f/5.6 @ 1/160s
35
“I am a hobby astronomer. Years ago I built a large dobsonian telescope and have been using
it to help encourage public enthusiasm about astronomical phenomena via star parties,
museum events, and much more informal ‘sidewalk astronomy.’
“For this eclipse I set up 3 telescopes (the homemade dobsonian modified to allow safe solar
viewing, a tiny telescope modified with a funnel and shower curtain to make a projector, and
a dedicated solar telescope previously purchased from Coronado). The homemade scope was
best for viewing detail on the sun, e.g. sun spots. The Coronado was best for viewing flares
along the rim, but harder to use for photography. The tiny projection scope was primarily
used to allow a group of people to safely see the eclipse and sunspots at the same time.”
DEBBIE HARVEY, Executive Assistant
for University Affairs – Pomona campus. JEFF MALET, Writer/Photographer,
WesternU Public Affairs – Pomona campus.
Debbie and her husband, Patrick,
traveled from Southern California to “My friend Dan made his own filter in
WesternU’s COMP-Northwest campus to advance of his trip to Idaho for the eclipse.
view the eclipse in totality. He had leftover material and gave it to me.
It included a solar filter sheet. I spent
“August 21, 2017 was my first about an hour crafting my own filter that
experience in viewing a total solar would fit over the end of my 70-200mm
eclipse. It was amazing; perhaps the lens.
most awesome experience of my life. At
totality the sky went completely dark, “I used my Nikon D600, the 70-200mm
the temperature dropped approximately f2.8 lens with a 1.4 teleconverter
15 degrees, and when I could look at on it. I bracketed my exposure a bit
the sun without any eye protection, with my starting point at f18.”
I teared up and said to myself, ‘how
beautiful and how insignificant we are
in this great universe.’ One could say it’s
like a spiritual experience. My husband,
an amateur astronomer who has viewed
four total eclipses in his life, said ‘You WesternU Pomona campus solar eclipse Facebook gallery: http://tinyurl.com/y9boovrh
cannot describe the experience in COMP-Northwest campus solar eclipse Facebook gallery: http://tinyurl.com/ycal4dro
photos or on television; you have to see
it with your own eyes. It’s just that
moving.’”
Photos by Patrick Harvey using the
following: Nikon D-3300 DSLR. 600mm
telephoto lens with doubler and Daystar
solar filter. Totality photo was taken
without filter - iso 800 f/5.6 @ 1/200s.
Diamond ring effect photo - iso 200
f/5.6 @ 1/160s
35
