Total Solar Eclipse seen from Maname, Zimbabwe, 21^st June (midwinter day) 2001

The drive up from Harare to the eclipse site at Maname set off shortly after dawn. Planned as a 3-hour trip with no intermediate stops, we left the Jameson Hotel only a few minutes behind schedule. Since the eclipse was an afternoon event there was plenty of contingency. Police checkpoints were a regular feature of our drives around Zimbabwe, and on this drive there was but one. For over 2 and a half hours we were on normal tar roads, and entered some very scenic areas. The final half-hour or more was on dirt roads which had been recently graded. The coaches finally halted at Maname, beside the school there.

The skies were clear. We'd encountered clouds about an hour north of Harare and were concerned for a while, but they dissipated as we drove further north. Unlike Austria the result seemed to be a foregone conclusion, we'd see it.

The eclipse site was situated beside the Ruwe river (Shona for "sun" ironically). Being the dry season a lot of riverbed had been exposed (we weren't expecting sand, but we got it) together with some sculpted rock formations. I was a bit disappointed that we weren't in an elevated spot as we'd been in Austria, since an eclipse is definitely a "sensurround" experience in a visual sense even though the star of the show (heh heh) is actually a small point in the sky.

There was certainly a kind of mad colonial tea party atmosphere about the place. Another barbecue was laid, and which the local villagers later shared with us. People stood around, chose their spot to watch from, chatted, ate and waited. Anticipation rose at first contact and the moon started to make its appearance. I ran through my checklist of items, electing to shoot an entire roll of film just on the eclipse site itself. After finishing that film I left the camera empty while I practiced my shooting schedule. I was intending to use Kodak Elitechrome Extracolour film for the eclipse pictures, 100ISO, and had used Fred Espenak's exposure settings table to provide my list of exposures to take. During our "Austrian eclipse" (August 99) I'd elected to do a simple program of automated exposures and a lot of bracketing, mainly so that I could enjoy the actual event itself. On this occasion I was after specific details, Baily's Beads, prominences and various coronal exposures, plus the diamond ring. To this end I selected a fairly stopped-down aperture and slightly longer exposures (risking camera shake despite a tripod and cable-release) as a compromise. The routine was to have an aperture set at f16 and then adjust the exposure from 1/500 sec to 4 seconds, through 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 second, 2 seconds and thence to 4 seconds. Then stop and admire the eclipse for 2 minutes before heading back through the exposure trail as the sun came back out from eclipse. 4 seconds through to 1/500 sec, and then set 1/8 second for the diamond ring. The exposures that best capture the prominences (1/500, 1/250, 1/125) are thus taken close to the start and end of totality when the prominences are most visible, right at the edge of the moons covering disk.

As time wore on and the moon covered more of the sun, villagers started to wander into the site and take an interest in events. Many of the children wanted solar viewing glasses, which was sometimes difficult if they were the only ones people had, there were enough to go around though, so long as people shared. I never used mine, Alison did instead, my interest in the partial phases being mainly as an indicator of how far we were from totality!

With about 10 minutes left to run, the light started to take on an odd cast. I knew it was going to seem bluer, from previous experience, but the change this time seemed much more subtle. A few moments after this the local insect population struck up the band and the sounds of night rose upon the daytime air. Local birds seemed a little agitated, and a local dog was totally unconcerned.

With 5 minutes to run, the light was very odd. I loaded up my slide film, left the lens cap on and aligned the camera using the lens shadow on the body, with a brief sanity check (take off lens cap with hand shielding the lens, other hand behind eyepiece, move shielding hand aside, look for flash of light on hand below eyepiece, if so, then we're lined up, back on with lens cap!). Then back to watching the piercing arc of sun in the sky (with a lot of squinting). At this point I covered my left eye with the eyeshades provided by Virgin on the flight out to Johannesburg, in order to experiment with dark adaptation. About this time I also switched on my dictation machine to capture the human reaction to the imminent eclipse.

The light curve was starting to visibly drop, things were getting closer, and with less than a minute to totality it seemed as though there was definitely some huge hand on the cosmic dimmer switch as the levels smoothly plummeted and the scene at the riverside assumed a surreal look in moments. Since we didn't have the longer views around that we'd enjoyed so much in Austria, I had more time to dwell on the more local effects and the unreality of the way the light level plummets, than concentrating on the darkening of the western horizon. Next time I'll be higher again, I like the steamroller effect of the looming shadow too much.

But regardless, the main event was upon us! Off with the lens cap and a very fast check of alignment and as the beads started appearing it was off with the eyepatch (eye still closed) and behind the camera to run through the exposure sequence as totality fell across us. Trying to capture all the exposures took a bit of the emotional "hit" away from me as I was wrapped in concentration for 30 seconds or so, but nonetheless the effect was, as always, powerful. We were both awash in a sea of emotion as the magic of the moment worked on us, and that hole in the sky, blackest of blacks, stared down at us once again.

The corona was different to Europe 99, slightly more creamy coloured that the pearly look it had in Austria, presumably down to the atmospheric conditions. In Austria we'd been over 4000 feet up and clear of just about any haze, here we were in slightly more hazy conditions (although not significantly so). There was still that utter purity about the light which I cannot accurately describe and that a photograph only simulates, and amidst all the excitement the light quality could only be described as "calm", or better, "serene". Utterly beautiful, and something that will draw someone back for another look almost no matter what it takes. And I, likewise, felt as though I was lit from within. I reminded Alison to look around the site and try to take in the scene (we had an extra minute-and-a-half of totality here, a luxury!). I was also conscious that, compared to our Austrian success, this was a very bright eclipse! Austria was our first total solar eclipse and we had no frame of reference, but I never expected I'd think of totality as bright.

The eyepatch experiment had worked, although not as much as I'd expected. Certainly the left-eye view of the corona showed a more extensive picture than the right-eye view, but we were dark-adapting quickly anyway. The insects were still noisy, and there was a babble of voices from the various observers compared to the European eclipse when there'd been the initial huge reaction of joy, despair, almost apprehension followed by a reverent silence with few muted words breaking it. I think more people at the site knew what to expect, whereas in Europe the eclipse had been seen by more novices, me included.

To the upper right of the sun's disk there was a huge livid mauve-crimson prominence, easily visible to the camera and I suspected, to the naked eye. I looked straight up at the sun and it was easily a naked eye object, a huge "flame" 93 million miles away ... incredible! And the moon's outline was slowly moving across it, devouring the shape as it went.

And we stood, and we gazed, and the magic was all there at the end of a quarter-million-mile shadow.

And then there was a subtle shift of emphasis and the redness around the upper-right of the sun diminished as it became properly covered and only the corona remained visible. Meanwhile the lower-left (trailing) edge of the moon's disk was slowly revealing the prominences at the other side of the sun, and we knew that the return to the bright chromosphere was only moments away. I ran through the exposure sequence in reverse, 4 seconds to 1/500th and set the camera to 1/80 to catch the diamond ring. With a few seconds until the scheduled end of the eclipse a bead of sunlight shone through a valley on the moon and started to tone down the cosmic fireworks effects around the sun. Alison said "surely it can't be" in a tearful voice and at that moment a beautiful diamond ring shone forth from the night, now rapidly returning to day. A whoop of delight echoed around the gathering and the moment was passing away from us, never to return exactly this way ever again.

As seems to be usual after such an event, everything thereafter seems somewhat small, tiny things in an echoing emptiness, life itself seems almost incidental, almost just a means for seeing eclipses. But we must return to the world where everybody else lives and so there are adjustments to make, farewells to an event now only a memory. A desperate clawing-back of memories gathered quickly, in an attempt to give them some order, some substance. Difficult, with a mind numbed and awed.

We stood for what seemed an age, while the world picked up the pace again without us. Still spectators.

I'm not quite sure when we re-entered the realm of the ordinary, because the Maname villagers started to sing and chant Shona songs.

The sound of rejoicing helped to ease our way back to this ordinary realm, a happy sound of people, a whirl of dancing and life, while the moon slipped silently away.

When the sun sets on me for the last time, one of the things I will remember are these eclipses.

Any remarks, observations or other feedback, please feel free to contact email.

Eclipse photographic sequence

The following photographs were taken in three series. The first series commenced shortly after second contact (start of totality) and finished at the picture with the corona at its brightest (9^th in the series), running through a series of exposure settings for a given aperture. Images 6, 7, 8 & 9 are approximately what the eye sees at various stages of the eclipse, 6 at the very beginning, and then the corona appears to brighten as our eyes adapt to the darkness, and at its best usually looking somewhat as frame 9 shows it. Always bear in mind that even the best pictures just can’t show the delicacy of the real thing.

All pictures were taken using Kodak EliteChrome Extracolor, ISO100, with the Sigma 500mm lens being set at f16. Camera was a Nikon F70.

During the sequence the moon is passing across the sun from lower left to upper right (in the northern hemisphere it passes right-to-left).