The Solar Eclipse Saga

Viewing The Eclipse - "The Riggs Method"

Star Date: August 21st, 2017

Location: Parking lot west of Riggs & Associates office

To view the eclipse, I used an old vernier reading theodolite - a Lietz TM6 - with a solar filter that fits over the eyepiece. We used this filter many moons ago to make solar observations to determine true north by the position of the sun. This was referred to as the hour/angle method and you used a "Timecube" to get the horizontal position of the sun at a specific UTC. With this filter attached, you can focus in on the sun and it will not damage your eyes or the instrument.

There was a problem though. When we performed solar observations, we had to do them in the early morning or  in the late afternoon. In the middle of the day, the scope had to transit so far vertically that we couldn't see through it. The base would be in the way. Well... the eclipse was at 1:17PM in West Plains and the sun was too high in the sky to use the instrument setting on the tripod.

Have I mentioned that I am a genius?

I put the instrument on the tripod, put it through the lowered back window of my truck, wadded up some padding on the top of the tripod so it would break the plastic rainguard and rolled the window up! Now the instrument was steady on the tripod and wouldn't move around and mess up my viewing.

All I had to do now was use the locator on top of the scope to site on sun and then use the motion knobs to fine tune it.

Then I used my old Fujifilm FinePix A340 digital camera, which fit snug, right up against the eyepiece, and started snapping pictures!!

You can't see it in these pictures but through the scope, you could actually see the mountains in profile of the edge of the moon! And you could see the sunspots on the sun very clearly.

Chris Webster, our draftsman, fixed up a pair of binoculars on a tripod and you can see the sun projected on the paper I'm holding. Just another method of viewing and it was pretty cool!