Carolyn and Mark's German Eclipse Adventure
European Southern Observatory

Carolyn speaking at ESO Carolyn's symposium began on Sunday, so after a day of touring Munich and meeting friends for lunch (with the obligatory Weisswurst!) on Saturday, her "work" began. The meeting itself, titled "Research Amateur Astronomy in the VLT Era", was organized by a group called Vereinigung der Sternfreunde, and hosted by the European Southern Observatory. It attracted about 125 amateur and professional astronomers from mainland Europe, the U.S., and the United Kingdom. The purpose was to share ideas for collaborative research between amateur astronomers and their professional counterparts. About 80 papers were given over a 2 1/2 day period -- including Carolyn's, titled "New Models for Professional-Amateur Cooperation."

The sessions lasted all day, and then many of us would meet for dinner in the village in the evenings. Our favorites tended to be the Greek restaurant Poseidon, and the Italian bistro Cafe Roma, both just a few meters from our hotel.

Paranal Teleconference "Hello Paranal, is that you?"

One of the highlights of the meeting was a teleconference with astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile. It was 4:30 in the morning for them, 10:30 for us. The session lasted about an hour. The astronomers were taking spectra of several galaxies in the southern hemisphere skies, although when Carolyn raised her hand to ask, they weren't quite sure in which constellation the galaxies were to be found!

Weather satellite image Weather satellite image
Weather briefing at ESO

Of course, the weather was an ever-present topic of interest during the symposium. Clouds generally don't go too well with total solar eclipses (we know -- we've been clouded out of two of the five we've been to see since 1979) and most of Europe was plagued with recurring storms during eclipse week. ESO had plenty of live satellite imagery for us.

Here astronomer Mark Kidger from the Canary Islands expresses his growing apprehension, since he was trying to break a string of unsuccessful attempts to experience totality (he was 0 for 2). As eclipse day approached, his tension level, along with everyone else's, slowly rose.