Observed Baily's Beads at
the Total Solar Eclipse 2006 March 29
Analysis of a series of frame captures
from my video taken onboard MV Ocean Monarch at Sea
Theodore Lunar
Observatory, Australia
Frame 0009 is
34:34.47/0:38.40.00 or 10h 51m 55.84s (UT)
Frame 0010 is
34:35.11/0:38.40.00 or 10h 51m 56.48s (UT)
Frame 0011 is
34:36.63/0:38.40.00 or 10h 51m 58.00s (UT)
Frame 0012 is
34:37.67/0:38.40.00 or 10h 51m 59.04s (UT)
Frame 0013 is
34:38.63/0:38.40.00 or 10h 52m 00.00s (UT)
Correlation with WINOccult and
the Ship's True Position
The predictions from WINOccult when the
ship was in position at 10h52m are illustrated below:
The First Recorded Baily's Bead:
As can be seen the first beads were
predicted at 10h52m12.90s, around 17.06s after my first recorded bead
(0009) at 10h 51m
55.84s. This suggests that the ship's
position used may be inaccurate, as it was moving at around 3 knots
northward during the eclipse.
The Last Recorded Baily's Bead:
This is the last bead from the program,
some 15 seconds after my last
recorded bead (0013) at 10h
52m 00.00s
Conclusions
The Beads still do not exactly agree with the
predictions, as my first recorded bead is 17 seconds earlier and my
last is 15 seconds earlier.
However there is some
consistency here. The solution given by the program for change in the
Sun's diameter is around 2.7 arc seconds, a reasonable value for this
eclipse.
Produced by the Theodore
Lunar Observatory, Australia 2006 May
1