Hello from sunny Cairns in North Queensland!

If you didn’t know it – this week, on the 14th of November, the moon will find it’s way between the Earth and the Sun and cast it’s shadow across a small area of northern Queensland.

Although I’ve seen a few partial eclipses, I haven’t see a full eclipse. So Wednesday is the day, starting from about 0545!! It’s very exciting. There are quite a few fellow astronomers, stargazers and eclipse junkies in town. It’s quite the astro-geek convention.

Unfortunately I don’t have my telescope here, but we do have a pair of binoculars and a DSLR (and associated filters) so I’m hoping to catch a few photos of the event. Today I took a test shot – to make sure that we could capture the event from our hotel room balcony. I’m using a Canon EOS400D, 300mm lens. I’ve posted the test shot here….

I’ll keep you all posted on Wednesday via Twitter. Mean time in the next few days before the eclipse I’ll be enjoying a snorkelling tour of the reef, a trip to the Daintree forrest…. and quite a bit of lazing about the hotel pool.

Sharon