The path of the Total Solar Eclipse of June 2001 crossed central Africa during the dry season. Good weather conditions were expected, and we were not disappointed! Noongallas Tours (many thanks to John and Kay Line for a wonderful holiday) organised a group of about 50 people, based at a camp site near Lusaka in Zambia for almost 2 weeks, with many interesting activities available, including safaris and a visit to Victoria Falls. Photos of these activities can be seen here.

Note that all photographs are Copyright © Peter Vasey and must not be reproduced without permission. You can email me at the following (written out to help to avoid email browsers):

Peter at petevasey dot wanadoo dot co dot uk

The Eclipse itself was viewed from a site near Chisamba, about 30 miles North of Lusaka. This picture shows Eclipse specialist Patrick Poitevin (link opens in a new page) using a G.P.S. handset to determine the exact coordinates of the site. The view of the eclipse was over the lake, with excellent sight lines, and well worth the difficult drive in on a rough trail.

I set up on a small rise, using my 80 mm refractor and Olympus 2100 digital camera afocally with a 40 mm eyepiece to record the partial phases, and took a number of frames with the Baader Solar film filter in place, both before and after totality. There were some quite large sunspots visible, shown in this picture of first contact.

It was just possible to see detail in the profile of the Moon. Patrick and Joanne had a number of cameras set up, and showed us a pinhole pattern.

The farmer whose land we were on set up a bar and barbecue, using local materials - grass and sticks - to construct the shelters. He had never seen sunspots before and was most impressed!

When totality arrived, things got hectic to put it mildly. Although I'd practised various activities, the real thing showed up my inexperience. I spent too much time at the camera, wasted a number of shots, and didn't just stand and stare for long enough. Nevertheless, I experienced the ethereal beauty and majesty of this unique event. 

	Afocal with telescope	Prominences	Camera alone
Although I took most of the totality photos afocally, the shot which showed the corona to the best advantage was taken with the camera alone at full optical zoom. A cruel irony - much of the time lost was in aligning the telescope and using the remote control, whereas I could have just hand held the camera, relying on the anti-shake feature. But there are more eclipses to come, and I WILL be there! The prominences however were seen best through the telescope.	1/50 sec.	1/800 sec.	1/100 sec.

In the end, my efforts were not wasted - here is a montage of the full sequence, made up from individual photographs. A suitable memento of a wonderful eclipse. A variation of this was Photo of the Month in September 2001 Astronomy Now, and appears in the Astronomy Now 2003 Year Book.

I'm quite pleased with my pictures, but for some really awesome shots, visit Thierry Legault's eclipse page. He admirably succeeded in what I only aspired to.

The Group

Camera Control Software.

So that I can (weather permitting!) photograph the next eclipse I go to (Turkey 2006) and watch it at the same time, I've written a program to control my Olympus Digital Camera. A single button press on my laptop, and it will do the work while I stand and stare! Program description and download on my Astronomy site Software page.