(1)About the choice of an observation place
Because the greatest width of an existing obi passes a part of a continent, all this time is limited to an observation place, but amount duration is after a long absence with about 4 minutes, and it is a total eclipse of the sun of a running start. I wanted to originally observe it in long Colombia of duration from Venezuela, but gave it up in an only tour doing not reach little. A hotel to stay in before a total eclipse of the sun later is the Maracaibo city. The area that faced the Caribbean Sea is Venezuela territory, and Guahira Peninsula in the northern part is Colombia territory other than it. |
A total eclipse of the sun zone course figure of Febr /uary 26, 1998 |
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| So that the South America northern part whole area distinguishes the dry season until from December to April from summer in winter by wet season of from May to November; with rain there is no it, and sort a season. Because this total eclipse of the sun is Febr /uary 26, fine weather is guaranteed in the center of the dry season. The black sun will be certainly seen. Venezuela is a country in South America, but it is a country of the Northern Hemisphere because a southern limit of a country does not reach the equator. For steppe climate, there is not a sense of the seasons hotly all the time. I usually exceed 30 degrees Celsius, but do not feel much heat because the humidity dries low in the dry season. |
In Miami Airport |
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(2)I be charmed in the Caribbean Sea
A Colombian tour became no tour in a hurry after Febr /uary began this time and looked for the tour that still accepted a person elsewhere from a pamphlet and was taken care of by a-like tourist bureau cheap most in that. I pass the date line in a redeye special of Febr /uary 23 from Narita Airport and go by way of L.A and stay at a hotel adjacent to Miami Airport. A mustache has grown by the migration that I took Maruni day. I move from Miami to Venezuelan Caracas on the next morning. |
Venezuelan aviation |
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| I made a splendid present from nature a hit of eyes in a moving plane. The scenery which I jumped into from a window of an airplane via Miami → Bahama Islands was the gradation that was br /ighter than a thing of a color of the sea from the sea and a continental shelf of marine blue to the deep sea. An island and the sea of marine blue which were covered to white sand of the coral reef which bathed in a lot of sun. This scenery br /eathed in lets you forget time. Because, fortunately, I was able to sit down on a window side then, I take a photograph of an island. |
Commonwealth of the Bahamas / Bimini Islands |
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The island that resembled form of C which I jumped into first was impressive and took several pieces photographs, but br /oadcasted a special feature of the island when I watched NHK creature earth book of travel after going back.
An official name consists of it in an island of two north and south in Bimini Islands. Lobster fishing is prosperous in an island, and a fisherman uses water glasses from on board and inserts the-shaped stick which lengthened a point of lance aside in the rock shade where a lobster can stay slowly and makes living by a fishery to rescue a lobster sent a place to stay with a net. |
Islands and a continental shelf |
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| I touched it about ecosystem of a lobster, and a state I did a line to escape from various danger because I appeared in the open sea when a little lobster grew up and lived a life, and to march in the bottom of the sea was br /oadcasted. I go south, and Venezuelan aviation flies the West Indies to Venezuela. Did I see a continent on the way? To was Hispaniola Island when I thought. It is the quite big island where it holds the Republic of Haiti and the Commonwealth of Dominica, two nations. |
The cloud which floats on a cape |
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(3)It strikes Venezuela
It landed immediately when I approached land before long from the sea. Because there is it in a basin of meters above the sea level 1,000m, in Caracas, the 1,000m up seems to go to a higher place by buses if I think airport to be it to go to the city. Because an airport is low land, it is very hot. I stay at luxurious Caracas Hilton Hotels today from yesterday. I did constellation observation after a meal from a courtyard of a hotel. |
In Caracas Hilton Hotels |
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| Because Caracas was a Venezuelan capital in a basin, there was much traffic density, and the atmosphere gave up the cloud observation. As for the height that Canopus looked like, it cannot try to be surrounded a building and it was early and decided to sleep for tomorrow. I arrived at Maracaibo Airport by a flight of an early morning the next day. Because the flag which the picture which Bienvenido VENEZUELA and the sun and the moon which copied a Venezuelan national flag in colossalness on the way which faced an arrival lobby of an airport were piled up was pictured in was raised on a wall, I took a souvenir picture. |
Bienvenido VENEZUELA |
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| A perception death tour of a local local representative met us when I went out of an airport. I go for preliminary inspection of observation place by bus which a tour prepared. A place is northwest Carrasquereo town Don Bosco agriculture and industry school school grounds of Maracaibo City in about 50km. A position every tour was already decided and did our observation place in a neighborhood of a restroom and a henhouse in a corner of school grounds. A body cannot move me with bitterness and a temperature difference of movement as expected to here. Temperature when I left the parents' house of Aomori has -6 degrees Celsius, this one more than 35 degrees Celsius. |
Observation place Don Bosco agriculture and industry school |
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There was the place where a lot of observation machine parts was installed in, and it was raised to Slovak national flag when I went to the other side of school grounds. The two-pole banner of a neighboring tent was written as INDIAN EXPEDITION by a golden letter to blue fabr /ic. By a business trip from Institute for Indian astronomy (Bangalore City), a lot of observation machinery which I do not get used to put it there.
Local GPS
North latitude 11° 03´71" west longitude 72° 03´20"
I borrow GPS of Mr. Ryuji Fujii |
INDIAN EXPEDITION |
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(4)Preparations for observation machine parts
I came back to a hotel of Maracaibo and began confirmation of observation machine parts. Machine parts to use for photography of a solar eclipse are more agile than the person who is expert in the case of me slightly. Because they do not have an equatorial telescope, a camera and a tripod are fixed photography by 2. Decrease by the first of them; a light filter (D4):I photograph the partial solar eclipse that is ND10000 equivalency). This uses FILM of ISO100 that sensitivity is low. As for the use lens, partial solar eclipse 300mm adds tele-converter of 2 times to a telephoto lens of F5.6 and photographs focus distance 600mm |
A two-pole banner of a total eclipse of the sun |
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| I take off a telephoto lens at the time of total eclipse of the sun and take movement of an umbr /a gimlet of the all existing inside by a wide-angle lens of 24mm F3 .5s and aim at Mercury and Jupiter seen around a corona with a br /ight lens of 50mm F2.8. If a total eclipse of the sun is over, I photograph partial solar eclipse in 600mm sequentially. The second of them photographs only a moment of a total eclipse of the sun without using a filter. Because a lens is gloomy, this is sensitive to stabilize shutter speed
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I who observe the sun |
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| A subject moves slightly. 1/8-1/30 second hits are easy to move slightly, but can reduce in particular blurring when it is the high speed or low speed side than it. Muzzle opening and shutting method is effective to completely get rid of blurring. I fix this with having been able to cut a shutter of a camera open with a releaser earlier and I open the shutter board which closed a muzzle of a lens beforehand since rolling of a lens fits and expose an object and the subject that it is it. When I photograph a corona, open figures close a shutter board for one second and press the shutter of a releaser. An outside corona comes out in this sharply. |
Row of houses along a city street of observation place Carrasquereo town |
