Solar Eclipse 1999 Near Baden-Baden Germany

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1999 Solar Eclipse

August 11, 1999 was the last eclipse of the century. Joe Vargo and I set out on Tuesday to find a spot in the path of totality down near Baden-Baden. We planned on traffic being bad but after 2 hours we hadn't even gotten out of Cologne. In fact, we had only gone 17 kilometers. Once we cleared out of Cologne the traffic wasn't too bad and we made it to our destination in another 2 1/2 hours. Upon arriving at the campground we were told that there was no more room for us and that we had to go elsewhere. This was infuriating since we had made reservations five minutes before we walked out the door. Fortunately Joe was able to convince them (after 15 minutes of persistance) that they did have enough room for one more tent. Without Joe we probably wouldn't have caught any of the eclipse because we would have been somewhere else and not where a hole in the clouds would develop at just the right time. Thanks Joe!

Our campground was packed full of people and resembled a Kosovar refugee camp. We were actually outside the normal campground and located in an adjoining horse pasture surrounded by electrified fences. We set up camp around 8:30 and started dinner whereupon it started raining and blowing. We retreated under the canopy and ate dinner with a bad feeling that the weather for the eclipse wasn't going to be good.

That night was uneventful except for a late night visit from the Mole From Hell. It appears we decided to camp right on top of his base camp and he wasn't too happy about it. He spent the night trying to open up the tunnels that we were laying on top of. His insistant nudging was driving us nuts but I suppose that's what you expect when you sleep in a horse pasture.

The next morning our worst fears were realized. The skies were totally overcast with no break in sight. Most of the people in the campground packed up and took off for Stuttgart where there was a huge gathering of people waiting to view the eclipse. While we waited for the action to start a couple of reporters from a local radio station started to interview people. When they came to us we told them that we flew in from Chicago just for the eclipse (it made a good story). They thought this was pretty cool and they asked us a few questions and we responded in our best german. We never heard if we got played on the air but we figured that they did and we just missed it. After that we set up the telescope and boy did we get strange looks from all the other campers. People were taking pictures of us and everything. They were always disappointed to look through the scope though because the sun was behind the clouds 95% of the time prior to the eclipse but they wanted to look anyway.

Well, the overcast continued for the first hour of the eclipse. I was able to take a limited number of photos through the telescope during this time. When the sun was about 40% eclipsed it started getting noticibly colder. People all over the campground started to put on jackets and coats. It wasn't noticibly darker yet because of the cloud cover but we did notice that the quality of light was starting to change. It had more of a mid-winter feel about it than a summer feel. Anyway, about 5 minutes before totality most of the clouds thinned out in front of the sun and we got a great view. I started up the video camera and started the film rolling. As totality approached we collected a crowd of observers around the telescope all wanting to get a look. I took pictures as often as was feasible and otherwise stayed at the video camera tripod switching filters as the clouds came and went. Then, about 1 minute before totality it started to RAIN on us! Gack! There were clouds raining on us from directly above but miraculously out to the South near the sun was still clear. Joe slapped a garbage bag over the telescope and then held an umbrella over my head as I took video.

Anyway, here are the pictures.

These are shots of Joe and I and the gear.

Here are a few shot at near totality with my digital camera.

These I cheated on. I took video with my camcorder of the whole event but I can't post directly from the video to the internet. I had to play this back on my television and then take pictures of my tv screen. Not great but better than nothing. I guarantee these images are MINE and not from the discovery channel or elsewhere. The first two pictures give a good view of the corona. The third shot is of the "diamond ring".

These pictures show a little bit of the "Bailey's beads". This is light that shines through craters on the surface of the moon.

For the above shots I used my camcorder without any filters at all. When the sun wasn't at totality I had to use a combination of filters on the lens so that the image wasn't over exposed. I've already copied the DAT to VHS and it's ready to roll.

The shot on the right shows a sunspot.

The shot on the left is a closeup of the sunspot.