Total Solar Eclipse – August 2, 2008
Sketch by Serge Vieillard
Serge Vieillard made this sketch of the total solar eclipse of 2008 from the Gobi Desert in China. In the minutes leading up to totality, clouds threatened to hide the event from his eyes. He raced 1000 meters from his initial location to find a clear spot, only to have the clouds drift there as well. In the final moments however, the clouds broke and he was able to spend an ecstatic 2 minutes drawing the view through his Kowa TSN-2 77 mm spotting scope at 20X. As the seconds passed and his eyes adapted, he crafted the increasingly complex, asymmetrical contours of the Solar corona and noted a bright star in Cancer. During the final few seconds of totality, the pink bloom of a prominence emerged and topped off an exciting and memorable observation.
Serge,
What an emotionally charged observation and brilliant sketch.
Frank