My Eclipse story & why I feel like the luckiest man in world.

[neilhooper]

In May last year I managed to break my ankle and was in plaster for a while and then in a 'boot' to support it while recovering. 

Having a mobile setup made it impossible for me to setup everything as my ankle couldn't take the weight.  The pain didn't go away and in late July I had an MRI scan which showed damage to 2 of the 3 ligaments and intense physiotherapy was started.  This made it better but not perfect but at least I could setup now and start observing again.  In January surgery was decided upon which wouldn't take place until after Easter. Great !!!  The eclipse was in March so everything would be OK, or so I thought.

I started making my preparations for the eclipse viewing as I wanted to 'try' and record it and make a video, had to change plans for location when I ran a simulation and found that the sun would be behind one of our neighbours' house for the whole duration.  New location found, disk space problems solved (new laptop, old one nearly dead).  Finally I had a plan. 

The only thing that wasn't sorted was getting my new eqdir cable based on the FTDI chipset rather than using my Prolific one.  Sorry Prolific but despite offering a 'work around' to use it with Windows 8 it's 'flaky' at best.  I've found that the handset in PC Direct mode using an old FTDI USB to Serial adapter has worked flawlessly but it's extra cables and connections.

Then disaster struck. My appointment letter for the surgery arrived;  March 16th.  I knew that I would be in plaster for a month, on crutches and previously being told that I'm not to put any weight on it under any circumstances.  This meant no driving, no observing and no eclipse capturing. 

Everything was put on hold, I didn't even get my new cable.

Then disaster reverted.  Two days before the surgery it gets cancelled until April.

Plans had been made for 'visitors' on Monday and Tuesday which left Wednesday and Thursday evening to set up new laptop with Eqmod, APT, PHD etc etc.  Didn't have time to get the new cable as I'm going to make one as I'm frivolous with money (SWMBO calls it tight !!!) and I'm not paying over £45 for something I can do for less than £20.  All installs went perfectly, indoor testing took place but we all know you can test and test but it doesn't mean it'll all work on the night or in this case the day.  

I found out about a local event on Thursday that offered better conditions than my planned site but I wanted to set up during the dark to get good alignment. 

My original plan was to set off to my site at about 3.30 am to get set up and wait but this site is some 40 minutes away, the new site is less than 10 minutes away and lower, 74m as opposed to 484m hence warmer and less wind.  I'd made some phone calls to see if I could arrive there very early but was told due to security concerns I had to get there by 8pm on Thursday evening  to meet up with some BT engineers and stay overnight with the kit. 

As forecast here was looking favourable I decided to go for it. The only problem was I wouldn't get home until 6.15 and everything was setup at home for testing from the previous night.  No time for final testing, so kit packed up, no tea, have to grab something on the way when I get fuel.  I got to the site a little late as it wasn't particularly easy to find the gate from the instructions  to meet with the engineers who were also staying on site and somewhat better prepared than I was !!!  They were all interested in what I was doing and invariably had lots of questions which delayed setup for a while.  At this time it was a lovely clear night.  

I eventually went to find my spot, it's a BIG site, and started setting up; everything was going ok and I was using Astrotortilla to get good Polar alignment, a feature that I didn't know about before and had never used.  Then another disaster struck, all my power went off.  The way that we (there are usually two of us) supply our power is to plug an inverter into the cigar lighter socket on the car then run an extension out to the scopes to a 10A power adaptor to get everything back to twelve volts.  The reason that we do this is down to the physics of electricity. We both have NEQ6's which can take up to 2A each and other various bits an pieces as you all know.  We hope not to ever need 10A and we allow for 6.  When calculated, running 6A at 12V over say 20m requires a 10mm cable, a bit difficult to wire into a cigar lighter plug !!! Using an inverter we can plug an ordinary extension lead into it and get the power where we want without voltage drop. We run the inverter for a maximum of two hours and then plug a power tank into my little power distribution box and disconnect the inverter and start the car for 20 minutes to make sure we can get back home.  

You'll notice that I said we start the car up.  The problem was I wasn't using the car as SWMBO needed it for work on Friday morning so I had to take my Van which we've never done before.  This is how I found about the great feature that turns everything off after 20 minutes and the power tank, although fully charged, wasn't going to last for the time that I needed it to.  That's when the BT engineers came to the rescue.  They had generators on site so I was hoping to run some long extension leads to them . However the general public were attending the event on Friday so running the leads didn't seem like a good idea.  What they suggested was that they get me a little generator the next morning that they would have access to which they did at 6am.   

  

I reset everything and ran off the power tank to get the alignment done,  just after I'd got the Altitude sorted the inevitable cloud arrived so that put an end to that.  Time for bed of a fashion.  Freezing cold, -2 but warming because of the clouds and ill prepared as I was never planning to stay out all night and even less, sleep.  I didn't get much sleep, too busy trying to keep warm but was up at 5 to a toasty 1 degree temperature.

Anyway the cloud was still around at 6.30 and I was starting to get worried, then it started clearing and clearing rather quickly to a beautiful clear blue sky and everything (almost) went to plan.  The event was well attended by the public and a lot of people arrived with various setups including a few who were staying at Lucksall with SGL10.  

So, one eclipse later and 840 images taken I managed to make a video of it which everybody is welcome to look at here http://1drv.ms/1CGgIcg

Sorry about the wobble in the middle as I had to make some adjustments and the long story.

..... and that's why I feel like the luckiest man on earth at the moment.

 - Neil

[Guest]

Fantastic.Here in Hertfordshire was cloudy.

[neilhooper]

Gad you liked it. I'm now looking forward to the Lunar in September.

 - Neil

[Leveye]

Thank you for sharing. Glad you stuck to your guns and stayed the course!

[Pete Presland]

Excellent animation and journal of the days events!