Orwell Astronomical Society (Ipswich)

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Solar Partial Eclipse,
29 March 2025

A partial solar eclipse was visible in the UK on 29 March 2025. The weather was generally favourable, so the event was widely seen. Details were as follows (UT):

P1: 08:50:35
GE: 10:47:18
P4: 12:43:36

Several members of OASI observed from Newbourne Village Hall, using various observing techniques:

solar viewer filters,
a tablet connected to a Seestar S50 "smart" telescope,
a refractor fitted with a Herschel wedge,
Hα through a Lunt LS35 solar telescope.

Other members of OASI observed from their home locations. Observing reports are summarised below.

Neil Morley, Newbourne

The images below are as follows:

Observers enjoying the spectacle.
A sketch based on a freehand original produced between 11:00 and 11:05 UT using a Lunt LS35 and 20 mm Plössl eyepiece providing a magnification of 20x. Pat O'Mahoney spotted a slight uneveness in the lunar limb which I verified. I've seen this in other images, notably from the BBC website and Cloudynights solar observing forum. The uneveness is caused by topographical features (mountains and craters) on the lunar limb.
A rather poor photo taken at the eyepiece with a smartphone. It hints at uneveness on the lunar limb.
NASA's GONG (Global Oscillation Network Group) image for comparison purposes.

Observers enjoying the event.

Sketch.

Photo at the eyepiece.

NASA GONG image.

Andy Gibbs, Newbourne

The following video is a timelapse made with OASI's SeeStar S50 "smart" telescope. Patches of cloud at the start of the event make the video jumpy at the beginning.

Paul Whiting, FRAS, Lowestoft

The following image was taken from Lowestoft, Suffolk, with a SeeStar S50 "smart" telescope.

Nigel Evans, East Ipswich

The following video was made with two cameras: a Sony A7S set to 100 ISO, 3 ms exposures looking through a 200 mm EdgeHD telescope reduced to 85 mm aperture with a solar filter for the main view, and a GoPro 9 set to auto-exposure for the view of the weather. The latter shows that although there were a few clouds, the wether was mainly clear. The two cameras took frames every 10 s, but they were not synchronised.

A thing I got right: I realised that the telescope would try to cross the meridian just before the end of the eclipse, so I extended the meridian limit by a few degrees.

And two things that I should have got right but didn't:

the telescope was tracking at sidereal rate, not solar. During the course of two hours the Sun moves approximately 5 minutes of arc and this caused the solar disk to wander slightly to the left in the video.
I forgot to check both camera clocks, so lining up the two sequences in the video was more difficult than it should have been.

Alan Buttivant, Woodbridge

The following sequence of shots was captured on an iPad.

Steve McElvanney

Observations were taken with a Seestar S50 "smart" telescope. The LH image below was captured at 08:48 UT and the RH image at 10:11 UT.

08:48 UT.

10:11 UT.