THE PREPARATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1937, Page 11

THE PREPARATIONS

PRINCIPAL FEATURES

SYDNEY, June 8.

A message from the leader of the New Zealand solar eclipse expedition, Mr. C. W. B. Michie, on" Canton Island, states that rehearsals were carried out in semi-darkness in th<* evening under eclipse conditions.

The American party has installed four loudspeakers at intervals along the line of instruments for counting the interval of the eclipse. The weather conditions appear to be good.

Observations will commence at midnight tonight and will be completed tomorrow evening. The main features being concentrated upon are the period of totality, the two hours prior to totality, and the two hours after it.

The New .Zealand party will probably embark on H.M.S. Wellington tomorrow evening. The ship is leaving to carry on her duties.

The observation and photographing of the sun's corona, observable only during a total eclipse, were among the main objects of both the New Zealand and the American eclipse expeditions. The Americans intended to take some photographs in colour, the first time that this has been attempted on a large scale. The spectrum.of the sun's corona was to be observed, and it was also intended to photograph the "flash spectrum," which becomes visible for a few seconds after the moon's disc completely covers the sun, and again immediately before the sun begins to emerge from behind the moon. The corona is a pearly white light scon surrounding the sun during a total eclipse. Not a great deal is known about it by astronomers, but this is not surprising seeing that it can so seldom be observed and studied. When that is possible, it is only for a minute or two at a time. It is known that the corona is a sort of highly-tenuous atmosphere extending millions of miles above the ordinary solrr surface, and that its form and brilliancy vary. The changes in shape have a relation to the activity of the sun, and it is from these changes, of which photographic records are made, that scientists deduce much about the sun. .

The American expedition was also intending to pay marked attention to the exact time of the contact of the two heavenly bodies, thereby gaining data for a check oh astronomical calculations. They were also to broadcast the eclipse—the first eclipse to be thus honoured.