Total Eclipse of the Sun in Turkey - August 11 1999

by Julian Whiting

Until now I had never experienced a total eclipse of the Sun, and so when this one's path was going to be so (relatively) close to home, I thought the time had come to make the effort. Just over a year ago I got the Explorers Tours brochure, and I thought that going on an organised tour would take most of the worry out of the travelling and leave me free to enjoy the astronomical part. So then there was the question of which part of the path to aim for. Fred Espenak and co.'s excellent web sites at Goddard Space Flight Center had already published climate statistics for the path and cloud cover predications. I had memories of distinctly wintry holidays in Porthleven in August as a child, so Cornwall did not appeal. I'm all too familiar with northern France's weather also, from having to make so many trips there for my work. On the other hand, Iran seemed a little too adventuresome, for a timid soul like me.

I had never been to Turkey before, its weather statistics were much better than northern Europe's (even though afternoon thunderstorms were said to be an occasional feature in the mountains near the eclipse site) and to see even a little of the history and archaeology would be a bonus, so Turkey it was going to be - for a very hectic four days, as it turned out to.

Towards the end of last year I down-loaded all the relevant bits from NASA report RP1398 (and a good deal more) from sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse and umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/eclipse.
The Kandilli Observatory / Bogaziçi University site at web.boun.edu.tr/~eclips99, and the Istanbul University site at www.istanbul.edu.tr/fen/astronomy/Eclipse/English/EnglishMainPage.htm, also provided useful background. I decided that I wouldn't try to take photos of the eclipse at totality. I reckoned others would make a much better job of it than me, and as totality was going to be relatively short and it would be my first experience of a total solar eclipse, I was just going to concentrate on taking in as much as possible of the event as it happened.

And so, eventually, to Manchester Airport on Sunday 8th August. And who should be just in front in the check-in queue? - Steve and Helen Hodgkinson! Well, not too much of a surprise really, but nice to see some familiar faces. Dennis Jones and his mother were also there, although they were going to be on a different itinerary, and I wouldn't see them again until the day of the eclipse. All told there were 31 of us in the Explorers T1 group flying from Manchester.

Arrival in Turkey

The first two days, Monday and Tuesday, were spent sight-seeing in Istanbul. Brilliant blue skies and clear from dawn to dusk. These two days were very interesting, especially a boat trip on the Bosphorus, but not 'astronomical', so I'll skip the travelogue. Except that, in the gardens of the Topkapi Palace, there was a rather unusual sundial - maybe a subject for another time. There were various minor adventures - such as me getting back to the hotel at the end of a long hot day completely whacked, stripping off and leaving my clothes in a heap in the middle of the bedroom floor, jumping under the shower to cool off, padding round the room afterwards - and then realising that I wasn't actually in my own room. However, since Current Notes is a family publication, we'll draw a veil over the proceedings ...

Our full-time guide was a super fellow called Orhan. He was first-class, and worked very hard on our behalf, but some things were beyond even his control. On Tuesday night, we were due to fly from Istanbul to Kayseri. We duly arrived at the airport, only to find that the flight had been grossly over-booked. Turkish Airlines were going to fly a second, extra plane to Kayseri five minutes after the scheduled one, but even that was over-booked. Anyway, Orhan did some hard negotiating behind the scenes (he seemed to have cousins, brothers, uncles, working in some very useful places!) and half of us flew on the first plane and half on the second.

There was an hour and a quarter's drive from the airfield to the hotel, during which Orhan confessed that he wasn't looking forward to the travelling the next day, eclipse day, to the observation site. We had steeled ourselves for a 5:30 start, but Orhan broke the news that in his estimation that wasn't going to give us enough time for the journey, and reveille was going to have to be at 4:30. We got to the hotel at about 22:00, a quick meal, and so to bed.

Eclipse Day

Eclipse day dawned with a really beautiful clear sky (all told, we saw rather too many dawns on this trip!), cool and dewy. First priority, as always, was to buy in 1½ - 2 litres of bottled water. Our group of 31 set off in our own bus (the hotel seemed to be empty apart from our group - the hotel is another, non-astronomical, story,) and (eventually) joined up with a further eight buses. We drove in convoy, first to Kayseri and then to Sivas. On the southern outskirts of Sivas, we were stopped briefly at a police road-block at the entrance to the university campus, who had their own observation site, but soon we continued on, and about 16km to the east beyond Sivas, we turned off onto a minor road towards the tiny village of Guydun, and after about 1km the convoy of buses pulled onto an area which had been cleared of scrub at the base of a low hill. We arrived just before midday - an hour and some minutes before First Contact.

Looking N towards the observation hill.

The observation site was excellent. We were on a rise of ground in the middle of a wide valley, with low hills to the west about 3-4km away and higher mountains to the north and east, farther away. A small river wound through the valley, passing 100m or so from the buses. Some of the site was arable farmland, and the crop had been cut, but most was low scrub; no shade from the hot sun!

Looking S from the bottom of the hill.

The astronomers fanned out from the buses in all directions - some along the banks of the river, many on the hillside where it wasn't steep, or on the top of the hill, some further afield. The more organised ones set up sun-shades and put down ground-sheets; others, like me, made do with a broad-brimmed hat, and a fleece to lie on. There were small groups of soldiers all around the site - about 1km away and at 1km intervals, a reminder of the seriousness with which Turkey takes security in the eastern Anatolian region - and there was a field ambulance present to deal with any eventualities.

I set myself down at the top of the little hill, at 39°48'40"N, 37°12'32"E, and 1258m above sea level, according to my GPS receiver (±1" approx. in both latitude and longitude). The centre-line was about 4km to the north-east, according to the data in NASA RP1398. Maximum eclipse would be at 11h32m14s UT, by interpolation from RP1398, i.e. 14:32:14 local time, and the duration would be about 2 minutes 13 seconds.

On top of the hill looking SE.

There were some little lizards and a few large pale-yellow spiders on the rough ground, but no birds except for a solitary swallow; I wouldn't be able to hear if there was any reaction to the darkness in the birdsong. There were some thunder-clouds in the distance, which we had noticed even before we reached Sivas, but they were over the mountains some tens of km away to the north and east. Some smaller cumulus was forming over the forests on the hills to the west, but not growing.

Guydun in background; party from the Wirral in foreground.

First contact came at 13:06. A neighbour on the hill was the first to spot the encroaching moon, on the screen of his camcorder. A little later, at about 13:30, someone else got a phone call from Cornwall on his mobile (even where we were, there seemed to be good phone signals); the news of a grey skies and rain was greeted, I'm sorry to say, with schadenfreude!

I had a piece of no.14 welding glass with me, but rather than craning my neck (the sun was quite high in the sky - about 60°) I found it more comfortable to keep an eye on the partial phase by projecting an image with my binoculars.

By 14:00 everyone began to notice a change in the quality of the light. We remarked that the heat was perceptibly less intense too. I took off my hat. From around 14:20 the light started to fade rapidly; not exactly like a normal twilight, but with the colours seeming to drain out of the landscape.

There was a growing anticipation during the last few minutes. Those with cameras busied themselves with final checks. Then, in the north-west, a definite darkening of the sky, like a rapidly appearing thunderstorm; a rising, deep grey-purple darkness climbing up the sky.

I watched to see if I could see the umbral shadow coming over hills to west, but got only a fleeting impression of onrushing sweeping darkness.

Then, suddenly, enveloped in totality! A cheer and clapping from all round the hill-top, from those who weren't too busy with cameras.

Totality

My first impression was how large and bright the corona was. I had expected, I think, something more subtle. But the jet-black disc of the moon was surrounded completely by the white light of the corona, which was easily visible out to 3 or 4 diameters. The bright 'helmet' streamers of the corona came from all around the disc, with lots of finely-detailed rays in the streamers.

Venus was immediately obvious, shining brightly, but I looked in vain for Mercury or the brightest stars. After a few seconds, as my eyes became dark-adapted, I realised that I could still very easily see every-one around me. Some local Turkish lads from the village in the valley had come up to the hill-top, without knowing perhaps quite what these foreigners were making such a fuss about. They were as awe-struck as any!

Although the sky was a deep blue-black, the landscape now seemed surprisingly bright. All around the horizon were sunset colorations from the edge of totality 50 or 60 km away; perhaps more orange than red. A thunder-cloud far to the east over the mountains was still in sunlight after 30s, glowing pink, then rapidly turning grey and disappearing.

Now I lay back on the ground and had a good look at the sun through my binoculars. Bright pink prominences were visible around the disc, one in particular at the 4 o'clock position showing up very beautifully. There seemed to be at least six large prominences distributed all around the disc.

All too soon I noticed a brightening near the western edge of the disc, and dropped the binoculars to see the diamond ring. Another cheer went up, and more clapping. And then, very quickly, the light came back - seemingly, to my dark-adapted eyes, much more quickly than it had fallen.

Aftermath

There was the inevitable sense of anti-climax, but a great chatter as everyone compared their experiences. I hadn't seen any Bailey's Beads, and I didn't see any shadow bands. Some other people on the hill had laid out a white sheet, and reported a glimpse of shadow-bands, but on the rough ground where I was nothing was visible.

Returning to the buses, I met Orhan. He had been really rather sceptical about the whole outing; his interest was basically in archaeology and culture. He greeted me with a wide grin and a hug! "Wasn't that amazing! Just amazing!" - an instant convert to eclipse-chasing, I think.

And so, just before Fourth Contact, we set off back to Cappadocia. On the journey, camcorders were handed round, for instant replays of the event; but most people, like me, just couldn't keep awake. Meanwhile the thunderclouds over the mountains spread and the sun went behind a veil of cloud; perhaps we had been luckier with the weather than we realised!

On Thursday we had a hectic day of sightseeing in Cappadocia (underground churches, underground cities), but the temperature in the shade on the surface was 38°, and as fascinating as it was, by the end of the day everyone was exhausted. Kayseri airport is in reality a military airbase with a civilian airport tacked on, and rather basic facilities. A 90-minute delay there after a long hot day didn't pass quickly! We reached our hotel in Istanbul again at 02:00 on Friday morning, looking forward to a 05:30 wake-up call and the flight to Manchester.

A marvellous, fantastic experience - and not my last, I hope!

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