Solar eclipse and tribute to an old friend

I woke up early to a bright sunny day, and joined the nation, waiting to see the promised eclipse of the sun. The media reportage was a little incohate, in that one was left with the impression it started all over Britain around twenty past eight. In Cardiff it started around twenty past nine. Both are true, if you're listening and watching the skies out in the Orkneys, the moon will be seen to pass that much earlier in front of the sun. But this point was not re-iterated clearly enough. 

Anyway, the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and best way I could find to view it was to dig out a strip of photo negative with a completely darkened frame at the end, and use just one eye. It worked fine, but best of all, I found that holding it up in front of a camera to take a picture also worked with a little practice and a lot of luck. This was my best shot, not long before maximum cover was reached, and the air noticeably chilled for a few minutes.

Several neighbours were out in their gardens watching, and discussing quietly what they were seeing. Then, just as the eclipse was ending, I received a phone call from Cocqueline Bell, daughter of my old friend Michael Bell from Geneva days, who died aged 90 in France-voisine last weekend. She asked if I could attend his funeral next Tuesday in Holy Trinity Geneva and speak about him. Such an honour to be asked, but impossible to do, as next week I'm already booked to do a Mass and a funeral on both Tuesday and Wednesday. But I promised that I'd write something for the occasion. 

This I was able to do before going into the CBS office for the afternoon. It was a pleasant task, as I had lovely memories of discussions with Michael, also waiting on school dinner tables with the Geneva Cuisine Scholaire, officiating at his marriage (aged 80) to his second wife Barbara, plus some lovely meals and lively conversation, fuelled by a variety of the best French wines available at any price, low or high. He was a conoisseur of value as well as taste, as buyer for a local wine buffs' co-operative organised by international civil servants.

The evening edition of 'Stargazing Live', with its images of the sun taken at different light wavelengths, as well as of the eclipse itself was an absorbing watch. Little time-lapse videos and still pictures of the moon's shadow crossing the planet, as seen from the space station were shown, most impressive.

The detailed composite image of the Orion constellation produced since yesterday's programme was also revealed. One of the presenters pointed out that every pixel of recorded light, received from the 75,000 photos received contributed to building the big picture, no matter how humble the equipment used. Prof Stephen Hawking contributed an image. They showed a photo of him at home with his telescope, a nice touch.

   

Happy encounters

Clare should have had her operation today, but postponement until next week means normal routine continues, and there are still office tasks to complete to ensure I can continue to do a few things from home that others won't need to pick up or worry about. On the way into the office I was greeted on St Mary Street by a Zimbabwean man who attended St John's when I was there. He was a refugee from the Mugabe regime who had a road accident and lost his memory, compounding his many problems. 

During the period when his identity and right to stay in Britain was being established, he was homeless and living on the streets, but still attended church, grateful for the fellowship and after service refreshments. Now he's settled with a room of his own in a community, possibly some kind of sheltered accommodation, although he didn't explain where. His English is limited, and I suspect he still suffers from those injuries of some seven years ago. He was cheerful, clean, well dressed, and remembered my name. Such a pleasant surprise.

On the way home, going in the reverse direction up St Mary Street, I bumped into Glenys and Bethan her grand daughter, lifelong St John's attenders, whom I haven't seen for eighteen months. Although I work next door to St John's I seldom have time or opportunity to go in there and meet people these days. I'd like to do that when I have a duty-free Sunday.

My attention was grabbed during an evening of otherwise dull and repetitive TV offerings by the BBC 2 Stargazing Live 2015 programme with Brian Cox and Dara O'Brien. It's like one of those 'Springwatch' natural history programmes that also make the most of the opportunity to open the eyes of TV watchers in a new way. It was superbly interesting and entertaining, and covered several astronomical subjects of current interest with enthusiasm and great clarity - a wonderful showcase for modern scientific adventures. It was as engaging a programme as editions of 'Tomorrow's World' were when I was a teenager.

I was taken with the appeal to viewers to send in digital photos of the constellation of Orion, which would then be processed using advanced photo stacking software into a composite hi-def image of that region of stars, to see what new information could be gleaned from the result. I remember Peter Hammond at St Andrews Fuengirola telling me about his use of photo stacking software to produce a quality image of the moon and Saturn, but crowd sourcing image data from TV viewers takes this concept to a completely different level. Must watch again tomorrow night, post eclipse.