[APML]: Today's eclipse from Costa Rica

["C. Hernandez" <herdel@sol.racsa.co.cr>]

Hi lists:

Hi to my new pals of Ecuatorian Belt Astronomers list and to my old
buddies of Astro and Astro-Photo lists.

I just want to make a few comments on today's eclipse as viewed from my
city.

The day started overcast and chances were dim of observing anything. TV
channels stared broadcasting from the high volcanoes over the cloud
layers and at least we were able to see first contact at around 9:55 am
local time (UT -6) on the TV sets. 

Despite the grim chances, I set up my telescope and camera, using
Sunscreen Mylar filter over the primary and Kodak Pro 400 and Kodak Gold
100 as my films. Thank God I did.

At around 11:00 am LT clouds started to open and I was able to take my
first shots when coverage was about 40 to 50%. 

Lucky us, by maximum coverage (84% at 11:32 am LT) the sky opened
completely and I was able to take some more shots, both with and without
red filtering. I also captured some nice shots of miriads of crescents
on my patio floor and some close-ups of a projection of the sun in my
kitchen wall made by projecting the image of a regular mirror through a
hole. The mirror was situated about 30 feet from the wall, so I got a
fairly decent size and sharp image of the Sun, about 15 cm of diameter.
I also shot a pretty arrangement of six Sun images projected over the
same wall, made with a sheet of carton with six 2 mm holes.

I will let you all know how my photographs come out of the photo lab.

Ambient temperature started to drop steadily from 25 C to about 21 C at
11:50 am, when the eclipse was 20 minutes past maximum. Some funny
effects were noticeable on some animals. Pigeons went to their huts to
sleep and our geese beacme odly wild, running all over. No effects were
noted on chicken or dogs, in oposition to the 1991 eclipse where mostly
all the animals became disoriented.

I could not get any web-cast on the Internet. I tried ARVAL's, the
Japanese and some of the URL's listed in the Sunmill index but to no
avail. Most sites returned a 'web site not able to answer' or something
like that. I assume these URL's became saturated by all of us trying to
get a peek at totality in Venezuela or the Caribbean. Did anybody had
any success? How about you Paul Goelz? At least David Teoh did, from
what I can read of his posting.

Enough for now. I will start reading the lists to catch other people's
experiences. That goes for you Arnaldo, and for you Luis Fernando.

By the way as soon as you start browsing the Web, I will appreciate if
you post nice sites to see data and pictures of totality. Will be
waiting!!!

Carlos Hernandez
Heredia, Costa Rica