A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » Science
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

UA Astronomer Helps Navigate Historic Solar Eclipse Flights Over Antarctica



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 20th 03, 07:19 PM
Ron Baalke
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default UA Astronomer Helps Navigate Historic Solar Eclipse Flights Over Antarctica


UA ASTRONOMER HELPS NAVIGATE HISTORIC SOLAR ECLIPSE FLIGHTS OVER ANTARCTICA
From Lori Stiles, UA News Services, 520-621-1877

November 20,2003

-----------------------
Contact Information
Glenn Schneider (after Nov. 25)
520-621-5865


Related Web sites
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/...CLIPSE_03.html
http://www.eclipses.info
---------------------------------

No one has ever seen a total solar eclipse from over the Antarctic. But next
Sunday, passengers on two separate chartered aircraft will get first-ever
views of a total solar eclipse from high over a small slice of the South
Polar continent.

University of Arizona astronomer Glenn Schneider helped plan the two
aircraft intercepts of the Nov. 23 total solar eclipse, which won't be
visible from land anywhere else on Earth.

Schneider will be in the navigator's seat on one of the aircraft, a
chartered Qantas Boeing 747-400. It will carry solar eclipse chasers,
scientists, photographers, amateur astronomers and tourists on a 14-hour,
nonstop roundtrip flight out of Melbourne, Australia. Schneider has worked
with Qantas pilots for the past several years in planning the special
flight, arranged through Croydon Travel of Melbourne. He will assist the
flight crew in navigating the plane through the moon's shadow during
"totality," when the moon entirely blocks the sun.

Passengers in the moving aircraft might see totality for as long as 2
minutes, 36 seconds, if there is little or no wind, compared to less than 2
minutes that totality will last at ground sites. The eclipse occurs at 22:40
Universal Time (5:40 p.m.Eastern time), which is 9:40 a.m. Monday, Nov. 24,
Melbourne time.

Schneider developed computer software called "EFLIGHT," a navigational
program specifically for flying aircraft into the path of total eclipses. It
helps pilots respond to real-time, in-flight conditions to get the best
possible "totality run." He used EFLIGHT in planning two previous airborne
missions that intercepted the total solar eclipses of Oct. 3, 1986, and June
30, 1992. He also planned to use EFLIGHT on the Concorde for a 2001 eclipse.
But that flight was canceled after Air France grounded its Concorde fleet
following a crash.

For the Nov. 23 eclipse, pilots on two aircraft will use EFLIGHT in their
flight management systems. Schneider and the Qantas pilots conducted a
dry-run test on the system last July in a 747 flight simulator. Meanwhile,
Sky and Telescope magazine and Travelquest International chartered a Lan
Chile Airbus A340 for the eclipse. That plane will fly out of Punta Arenas,
Chile. Sky and Telescope recruited Schneider to assist planning its flight,
too.

On the Qantas eclipse flight, Schneider will operate four cameras on a
gyro-stabilized platform suspended over the flight deck by bungee cords. The
cameras will be controlled by computer software that Schneider wrote, and a
Sony video camera will guide the platform by feeding images to the computer
system. Three still photo cameras will be used to photograph the eclipse: a
Pentax ZX-5n equipped with a 500 mm f/5.6 lens, a Nikon F5 equipped with
Nikon Vibration-Reduction 80-400 mm zoom, and a Santa Barbara Instrument
Group 1024 x 1024 CCD digital camera with a 300 mm lens and special green
filter. The filter is used to create better images of the sun's inner
corona.

The camera equipment was provided by collaborators including Jay M.
Pasachoff of Williams College. Pasachoff, who chairs the International
Astronomical Union's Working Group on Eclipses, will be on the Qantas
flight.

Schneider occasionally may have to blow on the camera platform if it begins
to drift away from the 16-by-27-inch window that the cameras peer through. A
breath of air is all that's needed * touching the platform would send it
swinging.

The B747-400 will fly at about 470 nautical mph at 38,000 feet. It will fly
within a kilometer of the center of the moonıs shadow, within 100 meters of
its target vertical position, and within a 6-second time margin.

The moonıs shadow, which is about 64 nautical miles across, moves at 2,200
nautical mph, or about 4-and-one-half times faster than the airplane. It
will overtake the plane from behind.

"The moonıs shadow will be projected down below us onto the cloud tops, so
the snow and ice will be dark," Schneider said. "There will be no reflected
sunlight coming back up. The sky will be black."

Scientists plan to make some unique light-scattering measurements on Earthıs
upper atmosphere during the flight, Schneider said. They will use the moonıs
shadow as an illumination probe to get information on particle distribution
that they canıt get with remote sensing or LIDAR.

Schneider is an associate astronomer at the UA Steward Observatory. He also
is the project instrument scientist for the NICMOS, the instrument that
gives the Hubble Space Telescope its infrared vision.

Schneider describes himself as an "umbraphile," literally a "shadow lover,"
one who is "addicted to the glory and majesty of total solar eclipses."
Umbraphillia "is not only an addiction, but an affliction, and a way of
life, the real raison dıetre for many of us," Schneider said. Umbraphiles
are commonly called "solar elipse chasers," people who once every 16 months
or so "will drop whatever they are doing and trek by plane, ship, train,
foot, and camel-back to gather along a narrow strip in some remote
God-forsaken corner of the globe."

Because Schneider is willing to travel, he has seen 23 eclipses since 1970
and been clouded out only three times.

But travel often entails killer jet lag. The 14-hour eclipse flight returns
to Melbourne at 3 p.m. local time. Schneider then will repack the cameras,
gryo platform, computers, inverters, power supplies, etc. into shipping
crates to catch an 8 a.m. flight the following morning -- the start of his
28-hour trip back to Tucson.

"I missed Thanksgiving last year because I was in the Australian outback for
the last eclipse, and I promised my wife Iıd be home for Thanksgiving this
year," he said.

Macintosh users can download Schneider's software for photographing a solar
eclipse, called "Umbraphile," from the Internet for free. Given the
particulars of an eclipse, the program computes an exposure sequence table
synced to Universal Time and automatically fires the camera at correct
exposures. The software is online at
http://balder.prohosting.com/stouch/UMBRAPHILE.html


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Scientists Report First-Ever 3D Observations of Solar Storms Using Ulysses Spacecraft Ron Baalke Science 0 November 17th 03 04:28 AM
Voyager Spacecraft Approaching Solar System's Final Frontier Ron Baalke Science 0 November 5th 03 07:56 PM
Voyager 1 Approaches Solar System's Outer Limits Ron Baalke Science 0 November 5th 03 07:53 PM
ESA Sees Stardust Storms Heading For Solar System Ron Baalke Science 0 August 20th 03 08:10 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 10:13 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright İ2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.