The Solar Eclipse 1999 From Hungary
EurAstro Team Szeged I (Manfred Rudolf, Alfred Jakoblich, Franz Michlmayer, Carmen Ortega)
Introduction
One EurAstro team observed the eclipse from southeast Hungary, near the village of Kecskemet. This location was chosen because
of favourable weather prospects, and because it is still readily accessible from Germany by car.
(Originally we planned to lodge in Szeged and access the totality zone from there - therefore the name EurAstro Team Szeged I - , but later we changed our mind...)
We spent months for the preparations and planning of the experiments to be performed during the eclipse. Inter alia, an equatorially mounted and
guided platform carrying three cameras was constructed, the cameras automatically operated by a DCF-time-controlled microprocessor
so that we could dedicate more time to other experiments which require special attention.
Tuesday, 10 August
The day before the eclipse was extremely hot, 38° centigrade, and slightly hazy. We explored
the region along the central line to find a suitable place for setting up our stuff. There were many
fine observation sites, finally we found a place close to the village of Soltvadkert, approximately 40 kms south of Kecskemet,
most suitable to erect our "eclipse camp". It was on the border of a harvested field and allowed free view
to the south and east. A shady restplace was found under some nearby trees, which was quite important since we
expected to stay several hours in full sunlight on eclipse day (apart from that, trees are always useful for eclipse
hunters since they may act as natural pinhole cameras to produce sun sickles on the ground).
The position of our observation site was 19°24'18" eastern longitude, and 46°32'20" northern latitude
(determined with GPS). Later, in the hotel, we calculated the contact times T1-T4 for that location. It turned out that
it was only about 100 meters from the central line, with a duration of totality of 142 seconds!
In the late evening, our colleague Franz arrived directly from Vienna and brought bad news: rain on all the way from
Vienna to Budapest, and the weather forecasts were even worse. We could not believe this since in Kecskemet
the sky was still perfectly clear and we had a nice view of the stars.
Wednesday, 11 August
In the morning we awoke at about 5:30 because of a heavy thunderstorm. It was raining cats and dogs, and
one could not even think to set up our instruments outside. The rain continued for hours, and you may imagine
our mood when we met for breakfast: almost one year of preparations, and now....
At about nine thirty, it stopped raining, but it was still so cloudy that the Sun was not even visible. We decided
to collect all our gear and drive towards south, maybe we could rest in a csarda and, while having some cups of Hungarian wine,
see the sky darken even more.
When driving southwards, we noticed that the sky cleared up near the western horizon. Some tiny patches of blue
sky were visible, although the Sun was still hidden behind thick clouds. So there was still a chance to see the eclipse!
We continued to drive to the observation site which we had selected the day before, and we hoped that the ground would not
be too moody because of the rain.
One more unexpected obstacle arose: heavy traffic! Lots of tractors, carts and other agricultural vehicles were on the narrow roads.
Obviously also the local farmers appreciated that the rain had finally stopped, and were now driving to their fields.
Thus it took about twice the time to reach our observation site, and we arrived only short before the time of first contact.
Fortunately, the ground was not as wet as we had feared, but there was very little time left
to set up our instruments.
Finally, the sky cleared, and there were only few intermittent clouds during the
partial phases. We could observe totality in its entire beauty!
Not all of our experiments succeeded as planned, mainly because of the bad weather which did not allow for sufficient time to set up and check our
instruments properly. Nevertheless we obtained a wealth of good results and fine pictures, as you can
see on the following pages.
Needless to say that the rest of the day - and also the following days in Vienna - were
sunny and cloudless!
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