March 29 solar eclipse, blogging from Egypt

I'm in Marsa-Matrouh on a 4x4 expedition to Sallum/Egypt. I'm updating
my progress with these Blogs:

http://eclipsechaser.blogspot.com/

http://solareclipse.textamerica.com/
[ mobile-blog ]

Here is my general website for 2006 eclipse:

http://www.comet-track.com/eclipse/secl06/secl06.html
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Our 4x4 (Toyota Landcruiser) had an interesting "equipment malfunction"
80 clicks out of Alexandria (20 clicks from El Alamein). Man, the
caliper came loose & creamed the backing-plate. The 2ndary brake line
was torn off, brake fluid all over the place. The upper-bearing for
the spindle was damaged. Omar (my 4x4 tour operator) is
well-connected, & he dispatched 2 teams of mechanics:

1) team #1 to dismantle the damaged parts
2) team #2 with spare parts to fix it

Unfortunately, team #2 was going well until the brake-caliper was tried
to be re-attached. The dang bolts didn't fit! So, we plugged the
brake-line for the left-front, & limped to Marsa-Matrouch (on only
right-front brakes). We stayed at a Condo (Omar's ex-Navy friend knew
a Condo owner, who gave us a reservation. Silly Season prices for
eclipses are driving motel prices thru the roof!). I blogged for about
30 minutes Sat night, until the dang 220VAC - 120VAC converter blew
up! I called it a night.

This morning, I dragged in the spare 12v car battery (to power my
eclipse equipment) into the condo w/12v inverter. Which, is how I'm
blogging now & posting to sci.astro.amateur.

4x4 is currently being repaired, we leave soon for Sallum to visit Dr.
Serge Koutchmy/IAP (Paris, France) who has assisted me in my
expeiditon. I have a reservation at the scientist-area on the plateau
west of Sallum, but that is my backup site. We plan to do a recon run
south of Sallum, to find an isolated spot for nice scenic eclipse
pictures. Camp under the stars. The area is heavily mined from WWII,
so we have to rely on local Bedouin guides (Omar's dad is Bedouin) to
tell us where to go & where NOT to go.

The weather forecasts are GREAT..clear skies are predicted. Some
chance of morning fog (& possibly fog for pre-totality cooling), as
emailed to me by Jay Anderson (official NASA eclipse forecaster). He
will be in Sallum for eclipse.

With any luck (hopefully no further problems), I should get some nice
eclipse pictures. Hopefully, a few posted via blog after eclipse.

Met some interesting eclipse-chasers on the way here..see above blogs.

Car problems suck. I had to fix a flat tire this afternoon before
coming to the observatory.
Equipment problems are a bummer, too, especially if you are going to
record a once in a lifetime event.
Here at Mt. Wilson's 16 inch telescope dome, My notebook PC battery
will not charge, and my digital camera broke.
The telescope control software has a few glitches, but for that I found
workarounds.

Best of luck to your eclipse imaging efforts, hope you have backups
and/or workarounds to any potential problems.

Matthew Ota
waiting for sunrise at Mt.Wilson Observatory, California

I updated the blogs:

http://eclipsechaser.blogspot.com
[ stories & photos ]

http://solareclipse.textamerica.com
[ bunch of images ]

The weather by Jay Anderson (before I left on Mar 23) was
optimistic..prevalent high-pressure area, no cloud interference.
However, we ran into significant clouds driving west to Sallum. It
actually drizzled lightly in the evening. There were 2 different
weather forecasts, the one by Univ of Athens/Greece predicted clear
skies for Wed (Mar 29). The one by UKNet predicted rain on E-day!

We'll see what happens, we're trying really hard to plan a
strong-strategy. We're really limited by the Egypt/Libya border
(closed a few days before E-day, to prevent chaos in case of
weather-issues..like we are having!). Also, Egyptian army has presence
on border & we simply can't do any 4x4'ing in the area south of
Sallum..our main goal!

Hopefully, the skies will cooperate. I have a strong eclipse-program,
& can really deliver some interesting images/video.