Landon Noll's target field and 2 cameras

As previously stated:

The following image shows my target field of view relative to the Sun during the 29 March 2006 Eclipse 80 km south of the Jalu Oasis in Libya near 28º17’53.5”N (28.2982ºN) - 21º34’10.9”E (21.5697ºE):

The above chart shows stars down to the 12th magnitude.  (A 12th magnitude Vulcanoid could be between 3.5km and 10km in diameter).  The dashed red line running through the Sun/Moon and the center of the rectangle is the ecliptici.  Zenithi is up.  The VEq red plus marks the Vernal equinox: the place where the Ecliptic and the Equator (0 deg declination) meet.  The magnitude of the brighter stars are marked by 2 or 3 digit numbers.  To get the visual magnitude, divide the number by 10.

The rectangle above is 6.4º wide and 4.3º high.  The edge of the box that is closest to the Sun is 4.1° from the center of the Sun's disk.  The far edge of the box is 10.5° from the center of the Sun.

Here is information about my camera setup:

I will shoot the above field of view with a Canon EOS 20Da Red/almost-near-IR sensitive camera and a Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM lens operating at f/2.8.  I will be using a B+W 72mm Infracolor Orange 099 Infrared Glass Filter to filter out light shorter than 600 nm.

I am also planning to shoot with a Canon EOS-1D Mark II N in the visible wavelengths and a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM lens operating at f/5.6.  I will be using a standard B+W 58mm UV Haze 010 filter on this camera.

The lens will be zoomed to about 235mm to get a slightly larger (~4%) field of view.

Both cameras will be mounted on a Orion Sirius EQ-G GoTo Mount, setup and polar aligned during the previous evening.  Both cameras will have noise reduction turned off.  Both lenses will be on manual focus.

Both cameras will be automatically driven with a Canon TC-80N3 Timer Remote Controller device.  The timer will drive the cameras by taking a sequence of "N second" exposures separated by an internal 1 second.  The 1 second internal is forced due to the way the TC-80N3 operates, unfortunately.  I will start both cameras about 5 minuts before 2nd contact (start of totality) and let them run a few minutes after 3rd contact (end of totality). 

BTW: It is my practice to try and gain as much directly human sensory experience from the eclipse as I can. I want to be fully engaged to see, hear, feel, smell etc. as much as possible during the eclipse.  Thus I never operate with equipment during totality.  My eclipse experiments are designed to run by themselves so that I directly experience as much as I can from the event. 

To help calibrate the images and because the camera will operate during totalty with noise reduction off, I will take a few dark frame exposures with noise reduction on followed by a few exposures taken with noise reduction off before the start  and after the end of the exposure sequence.

I plan to establish the "N second" optimal exposure value by performing a zenith test during the next 2-3 weeks, weather permitting.    Because we are near the solar minimum I expect to see a large, bright and well formed corona.  Because of high altitude dust that is frequenttly found over the Sahara, I expect a somewhat greater than average amount of light scattering.  Both of these might produce a somewhat brighter than average sky during totality.  On the other hand 4m 3s is a longer than average eclipse, and we will be obseving near local noon where the moon's shadow will be nice and round offering a optimal shadow during the middle of totality.  For these reasons I believe that a zenith test where the Sun's disk is 5.4° below the ideal horizoni might serve as a good model for the 2006 totality conditions.  (The typical eclipse is equiavalent to about 5.5° below the ideal horizon.)

I have not determined an optimal ISO setting for either camera.