Hello all,
After reading Olaf Greeve's report on his eclips experiece I had to share my
experience.
I decided I wanted to see and eventually photograph the eclips more than one
year ago whe I firts heard the next total eclips would be visible from a region
close to where I live. I decided to go to Austria for our hollidays and combine
that with the eclips. Well, my wife had other ideas. Because we are in the
proces of building a house she wanted to stay closer to home to save us some
money, so whe went to Winterswijk in the Netherlands for two weeks and combined
that with one week in Waldfischbach Burgalben. A small place close to
Kaiserslautern the the German Pfalz.
In the last year I have bought eclips glasse for all of us, an eclips-disk
showing the times of the eclips at different points in the path and a book on
the eclips, from which I learned that the first eclips-experience is so intense
one should not bother to make too many pictures but enjoy the moment instead.
This and the price were the reasons I did not buy the 72mm Vivitar filter for my
300mm zuiko which I wanted to use. I decided that if I would make pictures it
would only be during totality and close to that.
The two weeks in the Netherlands we had beatifull weather and enjoyed swimming
and fishing most of the time. From Winterswijk to Waldfischbach was a drive of
about 400km which we had to travel witch our caravan coupled behind the car.
Before we leave we allway check the lights and of course one was not working at
that time so we were delayed in repairing that (Obviously is was a loose contact
somewhere in the caravan and not a defective light-bulb, so it took us quite
some time to find it. So far Nostradamus could have been right after all).
Because of the delay we were driving in the heat of the day, which was no fun at
all ( the next car should have airco!)
The camping "Clausensee" where we had booked in advance is situated beatifully
at a lake between the mountains and offers a good starting point for hiking and
cycling. The bathrooms however are not up to the standards we are used too, so
we spend the next day trying to find a better campground. Because of all the
SoFi-Fans (Sonnen finsternis is German for Eclips) there was simply no
alternative so we diceded to ignore the dirty bathrooms. Here too we had some
beatifulle days hiking, fishing and swimming in the lake. On some days we have
had rain, but allways early in the morning or late in the evening, so that was
not a problem at all. We followed the weather reports on German radio every day
and up to tuesday the reports said that the furter southeast in Germany you were
the more risk there was on clouds, so we decided to stay at the place.
In the last days before the eclips many more campers filled the site. There were
so many that the campground became overcrowded. Even the area designated for
swiming and sunbathing was filled with over 40 tents for one or two nights and
flat surfaces outside the campground were also filled with tents caravans and
campers.
In the night before the eclips it rained and in the morning it was still
clouded, but we had seen that before and did not bother. I set up my heavy
tripod with the 300mm and my OM-1 and Fuji slide film and waited for things to
happen. at 11:10 the eclips started and at 11:20 the clouds broke open.
Everyone rushed out to get their eclips glasses and was oohing and aahing at the
sun. There allready was a considerable chunk out of the sun and I still find it
strange that it was virtually impossible to see the moon at all, but only the
coverage of the moon over the sun. For the next 20 minutes the spectacle was
visible for most of the time bot at about 11:40 more and more clouds covered the
sky. at about noon it started to rain too and just before totlity set in the was
thunder. It slowly became darker and darker, but it was not obvious that this
was caused by the eclips in stead of the clouds. But then at 12:30 suddenly
someone turned the dimmer and it became allmost as dark as in a clear full-moon
night. At that time the clouds turned into some strange orange looking colours
and after what seemend like less tha a minite the light was suddenly turned on
again.
In a nearby camper we could still see the TV-coverage of the totality in Munich.
They had a beatifull clear sky there during totality while the forecasts had
been that it would rain over there. Lucky people in Munich and Austria. Austria?
wasn't that where I wanted to go in the first place? well better luck next time.
The clouds stayed in the sky for most of the day but the rain soon stopped and
we broke up most of our stuff so we could leave early the next day. Good thing
that we did not decide to leave the same day because traffic jams lasted till
after midnight. The next day was mostly overcast too, so it was not only on
eclips day that we did not see the sun.
I hope my story will lessen Olaf;'s dissapointment because he now knows he is
not the only one who did not see the spectacular things one is supposed to see
You wish you were there too, Siddiq ? ;-)
Wiliam Wagenaar
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