Eclipse - Madagascar

by Matthew Marcus


OK, now that there's a report from Africa, here's a preliminary report from Madagascar. I was with a Travelquest group at the "eclipse village" on the beach 11km outside of the town of Morombe. Bradt's guide to Madagascar describes the townsfolk as 9000 people who spend their time walking slowly up and down the street talking about whether there will ever be a real road to the place, so you can imagine the impact of all these eclipse chasers descending (literally - you have to fly in) on the town.

The sun was 12deg above the horizon, which led to a different look for the eclipse than you get when the sun is higher. The shadow was centered near the sun's position and appeared as a darkening of the sky over maybe 20deg. I had a video camera set to record a wide-angle view and caught that effect. Another effect I caught was the coronal light reflecting off the water like moonlight. The sky went a beautiful dark blue towards the sun, with sunset colors elsewhere. This was perhaps the most beautiful eclipse I've seen, even if the low sun angle meant that the corona wasn't as wide as it might otherwise have appeared.

Nobody I talked to saw shadow bands either coming or going. I had a white towel laid out but didn't see anything.

There was a sunspot group near the part of the limb which was the last to be hidden by the moon. I predicted at the time that there might be a prominence there, and sure enough there was.

In addition to the video camera looking at the general scene, I had one piggybacked to my telescope and set for zoom. By twiddling the exposure I was able to record both corona and prominences.

After the eclipse, we got another treat in the form of the green flash. This was the first time I'd ever seen it. I was looking through my scope and saw the last, orange bit of sun dissolve into sparkles, then turn green before dissappearing. I think I got it on video.

I had printed out special logsheets for southern-sky observing and recorded several objects including Cen A, Omega Cen, the Coal Sack, the Carina nebula complex, the Jewel Box, and a couple of opens in Ara. I didn't manage to log them, but I did see the Tarantula nebula and 47 Tuc. I also saw both Magellanic clouds at about 4AM, when I had to get up to use the outdoor facilities. There's so little artificial light in Madagascar that the zodiacal light was obvious even from a position <20mi from the capital city of Tana. Omega Cen was naked-eye visible from a hotel room in Tana. I got some lovely binocular views from the Berenty preserve, which has dark sky. I didn't use my scope at the time because of the difficulty of packing and unpacking. The scope only came out of hiding during the two days and nights I was at the Morombe site.

The rest of the trip would have been worth it even if the eclipse had been clouded out, what with lemurs, strange spiny forest, etc. Madagascar is a unique place and worth visiting while there's still some green left on it.