Observations of October 24, 1995 total solar eclipse from ground and from Canberra Aircraft at 40,000 ft. altitude

Abstract

Photographic observations were made of the total solar eclipse from the ground (near Agra-village Jajau) and from a height of 40,000 feet on board a Canberra aircraft of the Indian Air Force. For this purpose two identical 70mm format Hasselblad cameras with f/3.5 and 100 mm focal length were used. In front of the camera lens, a polaroid filter was mounted, which could be manually rotated to take photographs at three orientations of the polaroid, 60 degrees apart, to determine the degree of polarization of the outer corona. For the Canberra airplane, the camera was mounted on a special stand which could be held rigidly and pointed towards the Sun through the optical flat window available on the side of the plane