The Total Solar Eclipse of 1995 Oct 24th from Fatehpur Sikri, India --------------------------------------------------------------------- On the night of Friday October 20th I boarded Indian airlines flight AI 128 (Heathrow to Delhi) for my third Total Solar Eclipse (and hopefully my second successful one). I was on Explorers Tours itinerary AI1, the shortest of the trips available and the one which best suited me. (A Concorde flight straight to the eclipse and straight back would suit me even better as I am essentially an astronomer NOT a traveller!) As with all the Explorers trips people from past holidays kept appearing and disappearing, even those on the same itinerary as they are often in different hotels! Of the 310 eclipse chasers bound for India, 90 were on my AI 128 flight. John Mason, Richard McKim and Maurice Gavin met me at the airport check-in desk (have 3 consecutive BAA Presidents ever travelled in the same plane before I wondered?) In addition, just prior to boarding the flight, Nick Hewitt, Pam Spence and Don Miles appeared. The unmistakeable figure of Queen guitarist Brian May also materialised at this point heading for the more sumptuous business class seats! Following the nine hour flight, we proceeded to our Delhi Hotels in an unforgettable bus ride through the Delhi traffic. It is one thing seeing a third-world country on TV; it is another thing seeing it before your eyes. All of the Indian cities we visited (Delhi, Agra and Jaipur) were teeming with thousands of people, all of whom seemed to want to be going somewhere. The city roads were a teeming madhouse of scooters, motorised rickshaws, motorbikes and 1960s style cars. Every vehicle had four times the recommended capacity of people on it or in it. In addition, cows roamed the city streets eating newspapers and dung! We wondered where the milk for our cornflakes had come from! Car horn blowing was permanent and it is a mystery to me why the horns are not simply wired to come on as soon as the engine is started! The roads in Peru and Chile in '94 were positively deserted compared to Indian roads. Seeing this mass of humanity certainly made me appreciate who I am and where I was born. We were told that the best paid workers in India were Government employees who could earn 1000 pounds a year. But most Indians earn only a fraction of this. The city streets were littered with dirt, rubbish, dung and junk and I wondered what day the bin men called. I can only assume they called every day, but to empty the hotel rubbish INTO the streets! As soon as we stepped off the buses the locals would rush up to us trying to sell us faded boxes of film, batteries and trinkets, and constantly lowering the price every few yards! To guarantee our trade, the vendors guessed our nationality and then proceeded to say things like "Rule Brittania" or "John Major, good man"!! During the next few days we visited various tombs, forts and monuments and tried to grapple with the various religions and rulers of the past. We were also herded into various 'Carpet Emporiums' and told that our homes in England would be sadly incomplete without a stock of Kashmir Carpets. However, if I had purchased a Kashmir carpet I would not be able to afford the next Eclipse trip!! The Taj Mahal was, predictably, the showpiece of the trip but it came nowhere near the unforgettable visit to Machu Picchu of the previous year. Having said this my most memorable event (apart from Totality) was when Richard McKim showed me the TV schedule in Delhi for that evening. As we read the highlights we screamed with laughter at the programs and the chronic spelling......"Bitch Cassardy and the Samdance Kid, Ravange of the Kaller Tomatoe and to round the evening off....Groege and Mildred" These were not the only amusements in the hotels either....my Television was wired into the wall using matchsticks to wedge the flex in, and working out which light switches controlled which lights would have stretched the intellect of Gauss. Fellow travellers who were housed in the 'President' hotel switched their room water heater on which promptly blew up in an explosion which made Krakatoa look like a chip-pan fire. By the morning of the Eclipse, Richard McKim and I were still in the same hotel in Agra, but the others (John, Nick, Don and Maurice) were at other hotels. We had though, met most of our group at the barbeque in Agra the night before the eclipse, when roughly half of the 310 travellers going clockwise round the 'Golden Triangle' of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, had assembled. On Eclipse morning we arose at around 5am and assembled in the hotel reception. Those of us with stomach upsets had overdosed on the appropriate medication the night before!! (Luckily I was unaffected!) We were headed for Fatehpur Sikri, an ancient deserted city some 40km to the WSW of Agra and the Taj Mahal and slightly north of the eclipse centre-line. The inability of the Indian drivers to ever arrive on time was causing me some concern by now; what if they did'nt turn up on time today? We had been told not to expect anything to run to time in India, but it was obviously essential on this day. The coaches were due to depart at 5.30 am (0h UT) and arrive at the Eclipse site well before 1st contact (around 7.20 am). Amazingly, the buses, for the first time ever, arrived on time. But, there was a frightening delay of 15 minutes while the coach drivers waited in the hotel car park, apparently for no reason. The Indian drivers seemed remarkably uncommunicative despite the fact that they all spoke English and we were generally at a loss to know what was going on unless one of the British Tour guides was present. Nevertheless, the 40km drive from Agra to the eclipse site at Fatephur Sikri went without a hitch and the roads were surprisingly clear considering we were heading for the centerline. At 6.45 am (1.15 UT) we arrived at the deserted historical city gates. The Indian official told us it was 100 rupees to bring a video camera onto the site and 50 rupees for a 'still' camera (1 pound = 55 rupees). He also told us that tripods were not allowed!!! As there were hundreds of us and only one of him he was ignored! The 310 Explorers Tours people followed Brian McGee and John Mason to our allotted place in the corner of an abandoned courtyard. A large contingent of Japanese astronomers were already assembled there, complete with loud hailer and a loudspeaker/time-signal! However when we tried to take up our agreed position the Indian army guards said we could not proceed any further and started handling their rifles in a disturbing manner. After a furious argument between the Indian army guards versus Brian McGee, John Mason and our Indian tour guide we were forced to choose another site, in the battlements to the West of the courtyard, above the Japanese group. We assembled in our position with 5 minutes to go to first contact, exactly the same timing margin as in Chile last year! With the bus ride and hassle over we looked around the sky and for the first time that morning were able to relax; we were on the track and the sky was crystal clear, without a cloud in sight!! As far as I was concerned Explorers Tours had fulfilled their part of the contract at this point; nothing else mattered; Brian McGee had delivered the goods. During the next hour I videoed the scene for the latest TA Eclipse video. John Mason was, as always, in excellent form in front of the camera. In addition, Richard McKim, Nick Hewitt and others described the scene. What looked disturbingly like a hotel bedsheet was strung up on a wall to capture any shadow band effects! My plan to keep my camera tripod as low down as possible, to avoid shutter vibration, was abandoned as we were packed quite densely and I wanted to avoid being blocked by people in front of me. So the tripod went up to its maximum height. This certainly caused my C90 photos to lose sharpness but I had already decided that with totality only 55 seconds long the priority here was to enjoy the visual spectacle. As totality neared (8:34 local time, 5:04 UT) the shadows became noticeably sharper and the illumination became very eerie. With one-and a half minutes to go, a part of the cusp near the Moon's South limb became detached indicating the presence of a massive lunar peak somewhere in that region. Also, the right hand (roughly South) cusp seemed to shrink far quicker than the left hand cusp in the last few seconds before totality. As in Chile, I found that as soon as the crescent sliver started to shrink in length we were only 30 seconds from totality and the mylar filters could come off the C90 and video camera plus 5x converter. As the time reached 3:04 UT, to whoops, cries and primordial screams the last remnants of the Sun disappeared in a most dramatic fashion. In the last few seconds before totality events happened so quickly that only the video has enabled me to recall the precise events correctly. Analysis of the tape shows that once the last sliver of the crescent Sun disappeared two main areas of brightness remained; a rapidly shrinking bead of light at the 6 o'clock position and the 'diamond ring' at the 7.30 position. As the diamond ring collapsed into at least 7 sparkling Bailly's Beads the corona glowed into view. The chromosphere was far brighter than in Chile, presumably due to the smaller size of the Moon, and the polar brushes, although obvious, were not as sharp as a year ago. A textbook solar minimum corona was now revealed with a long single Eastward streamer below the Sun and a slightly shorter Westward double horned streamer above the Sun. The Eastward streamer was some 1.5 degrees in length and the Westward streamer's longest (right-hand) horn slightly shorter. The left-hand horn of the Western streamer was less than a degree in length. As I studied the scene in 10 x 25 binoculars I was conscious that my automatic Canon T-70 Command Back (on the Celestron C90) was not operating. Fortunately I realised that I had left it in the wrong mode while checking the equipment the night before but a few button presses started the 1 second exposures going around mid-totality. Ten seconds later the top edge of the Sun was already brightening, surely the eclipse was not ending already? But it was; another 10 seconds and the diamond ring was emerging at the 11 o'clock position with a fainter 'bead' at the 1 o'clock position. As the diamond ring intensified a whole series of beads of light suddenley erupted from the 1 o'clock position to the 11 o'clock position and the intense red glow on the Moon's top edge soon became a brilliant white. The eclipse was over but it seemed even shorter than I had imagined, even allowing for the excitement. Escaping from the clutches of a 'Discovery' film crew, John Mason said he had timed totality as 45 seconds, 10 seconds shorter than expected. Analysis of the 2nd and 3rd contact 'diamond ring' positions on the video implies that we were some way North of the centre-line. We new this in advance although I think we were far further North than had been expected, maybe as much as 14 km. Admittedly, the Moon is not a perfect circle and deep valleys near the 2nd and 3rd contact diamonds can shorten eclipses. However, I would wager that we were certainly 10km North of the centre line, quite significant when the track is only 40km wide! Having said this, the site at Fatehpur Sikri was an ideal setting for the eclipse and there was nowhere particularly suitable nearer the centre-line; you can't string 310 people along a country road! Immediately after totality I rushed round to video the white bedsheet which had been hung up to record shadow bands; the lack of people around it indicated that none were observed....certainly I failed to video any. The post-totality scene was one of mutual congratulation & reliving the experience. Richard McKim produced a very impressive drawing of the Eclipse by memorising the corona during totality and rapidly sketching it the instant the Eclipse ended. No doubt his years of drawing Mars from memory paid dividends at the Eclipse. Compared to Chile, the chromosphere tended to drown some of the finer coronal detail, which was less intricate to my eye. The polar brushes also appeared less sharp to me. On the plus side though, the total lack of cloud and the fact that we were slightly off the centre resulted in a crystal clear view of the Diamond Rings and Bailly's beads which were slow and graceful due to the glancing second and third contacts. A crude wristwatch timing (probably accurate to a second or two) made totality last from 0304:06 - 0304:51 UT. Looking back on the events of a week ago it all seems like a dream; did I really travel 4200 miles for 45 seconds of totality....was it worth it ? I think the true value of these eclipse holidays is that they leave you with lasting memories of the most spectacular astronomical alignments that can be seen from the surface of the Earth. Memories you can recount with those who were with you at the time. They also give you something to look forward to during the most tedious days at work. How many civilised planets are there in the Universe where intelligent beings can witness their planet's Moon exactly eclipsing their Sun? Maybe this is the only one. In which case, if you have the opportunity to see a Total Solar Eclipse, GO FOR IT; weather permitting, you will not regret it. Martin Mobberley