Evening star., 1947-03-30
Eclipse Party Leaving
tuesday With Latest
Data Collecting Aids
By w. H. Shippen, Jr.

y
The scientific expedition leaving
here for Brazil Tuesday will have
the finest equipment ever brought
to bear on solar eclipse.
In brief, dramatic moments when
the moons dark shadow sweeps
across the earth at jet plane speed
the phenomenon will be recorded
from ground stations and high -alti-
Itude bombers by many devices de-
veloped during the war.
These were expected to help the
Army Air Forcss-National Geogra-
Iphic Society group reconstruct q
more complete picture than that OBJ
tanned by the society and Bureau OF
Standards in Brazil in 1910.
Cloud Layer Mars Results.
At that time a slight cloud layer
marred some results. The current
expedition, however, will have Fly
ing Fortress and a high-altitude
B-29 laboratory to climb above any
cloud distractions which may de-
velop on May 20.
Thirteen scientists, many of them
from Washington, compose the main
body of astronomers and physicists
in charge of observations. The first
group will leave Tuesday in an Air
Transport Command C-54, flying by
way of Rio de Janerio to a newly
built airstripi near the village OF
Bocayuva, in the rolling highlands
some 400 miles to the North and
1900 feet above Rio.
The remote site is near the center
of the path of total eclipse. 1t was
chosen last fall by reconnaissance
party from path stretching be-
tween Santiago. Chile, and Kenya
Colony, on the East Coast of Africa.
The probability of clear weather in
late May and other factors entered
into the choice.
AAF personnel already has set
up a tent city at the site where
scientists soon will be mounting
some 10 tons Of telescopes, cameras
and other equipment to gather data
on a dozen different phases OF the
eclipse.
AS at Bikini Lagoon before the
atomic bomb tests last summer,
every detail is being planned in ad-
vance to bring the greatest possible
array of instruments to bear in the
short period permitted the observers
lin this case only 3 minutes and 4S
seconds of total eclipse.
Cosmic ray intensities will be
measured from the Superfortress
laboratory, and high-frequency ra-
dio impulses are to probe the iono-
sphere from so to $50 miles above
the earth during the phenomenon.
AAF meteorologists will explore the
effects of the eclipse on the weather.
Many Cameras Taken.
Many cameras will photograph all
stages of the eclipse and the dark
ened suns corona, while giant
camera with a 20-foot focus will pic
ture stars appearing near the edge
of the blacked-out sun although
millions of light years distant. These
films will be used to check Einstein' S
theory regarding the bending Of
light rays.
The eclipse will begin at 9:34 am,
Brazil time, and 7:34 am, Eastern
Standard time.
Washingtonians in the party leav-
ing Tuesday, many of them veterans
of the previous expedition, include
Drs. Francis j. Heyden and Law
renee c. McHugh of Georgetown
University Observatory; DR.. Carl c.
Kiess, James NJ. Watts, Franklin
Kral, Leo w. Scott and F. Oliver
Westfall of the Bureau of Stand
ards; DR.. E. o. Hubert Of the Naval
Research Laboratory, and F. Bar
rows Cotton, science writer for the
Geographic.
Following them later will be DR.
Lyman J. Briggs, scientific leader
of the expedition, chairman Of the
society's research committee and re-
tired director of the Bureau Of
Standards, and DR.. Irvive c. Gard.
ner, Bureau of Standards physicist
who led the previous expedition tc
Brazil.