| 8th of April 2024 |
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| Total Solar Eclipses |
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The only total solar eclipse this year occurs today and is visible
from part of North America. To mark this event, we reproduce (with
permission) the image used in the "From the Archives" section
of last month's NRAO eNews.
The photo shows radio-astronomy pioneer Grote Reber, bundled up against the late summer
Alaskan weather, during the Naval Research Laboratory's expedition to observe
of the solar eclipse of September 12th, 1950 from the island of Attu. The
weather was terrible on the day of the eclipse, but fortuntely NRL was
making radio observations. In a letter to Otto Struve, Reber wrote,
"The Attu eclipse was probably the first total eclipse of the sun
which was successfully observed in a pouring rain during a
hurricane. Good results were achieved at 3, 10, 67cm wavelength."
Results from the NRL observations
were published in the Astronomical Journal.
Attu Island (53N, 173E), part of the Aleutian Islands chain, is the westernmost point of the US state of Alaska. Despite its eastern longitude, the International Date Line passes to the west of Attu Island. Reber later moved to Tasmania and continued his research in low-frequency radio astronomy. (Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF. Thanks also to Ellen Bouton and Brian Kent) |