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Ever since my first eclipse at Hawaii in 1991, I've been interested in these spectacular events, but the money it takes
to go on such sojourns limits my options. Also, after the first one, I wanted to go only to those locations I found
interesting.
Click on the images to see them full size.
In 1991 I went to the big island of Hawaii to see my first total.
I've seen partial eclipses before, but never a total. It wound up to be quite an adventure on the west coast of Hawaii
around Kona. Four of us picked a sie near the Kona airport, but the clouds never cleared, and the time to totality was
little more than thirty minutes away. I urge my companions to take a chance and drive to Captain Cook's Landing south
of Kona. Tossing the equipment into the rental car, I drove through several stop signs and stop lights to reach the
site! Fortunately, very little traffic was present, and most fortunately no cop cars! Finally with less than ten
minutes to spare we reached Captain Cook's Landing and it was partially clear. We quickly got the equipment set up again
with just five minutes to spare.
I remember when totality came all sounds around me ceased for many long moments; people, birds,
insects, even one guy playing bongo drums!
This image is a combination of a short exposure one to "see" the large prominences close to
the limb and a long one to bring out the coronal streamers. Due to dust from the eruption of Pinatubo much farther west,
the sky was bright enough during totality to dimthe streamers, so we didn't see them as long as the observers in Baja California
did just an hour or so later. It was taken on regular color film using a Minolta SLR with a 1,000 mm telephoto lens.
On January 4th 1992, a little less than six months since the 1991
eclipse, the Sunset on the California coast produced an annular eclipse, a ring of firery light. Unfortunately for anyone
north of Oceanside, the event was blocked by clouds.
I went to Torrey Pines State Park three weeks earlier to scout out a place ahead of time, high
up on the bluff many hundreds of feet above the ocean to see the event.
Taken with a regular SLR camera and a 250 mm lens, this image shows the darkened sillouette
of the Torrey Pines, the sunlight shining off the sea, the dark backside of the clouds, and the ring of fire of the Sun.
This spectacular image shows the total eclipse of the Sun, setting
against the Australian Outback. The dark shadow hanging from the sky is the Moon's shadow. I remember seeing it
reaching down to touch the Earth, like the finger of God. The corona is the bright but small ring of light near the
center.
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