Sky conditions in the Montreal area

ASTRONOMY

I practice that hobby since I have 5 years old. I remember very well that my professors and classmates laughted of me when I spoke of that science on a regular basis.

I own a 10" Meade LX200 GPS but I can't use it very often because it's very heavy. I dream to buy a terrain somewhre outside the town to build a rooftop observatory like builded by Skyshed

I like to observe the planets from my balcony or deepsky when I go observing with my local astro club collegues.

Despite I had to fight light pollution in my neibourhood I patiently observed that celestial treat , comet Hale-Bopp from my balcony. You can recover one of the pictures I took by cliking here.

I'm a devoted total solar eclipse chaser who carried it tired body in remote parts of the Earth to observe them. I succeded to observe 13 eclipses including 11 totals (cumulating 39 m 18 sec) over a possibility of 18.

I observed the following eclipses :

Click on the dates to see some of my pictures

Be patient !!! Pictures loading may be long on slower connections but it's worth waiting.

You can also visit that page where I collected funny but useless statistics about all these eclipses.

DATES TYPES
(T-A)		 DUR.
m:ss		 SITES COUNTRIES DIST
(Km) 		KIND OF
SITE		 VIEWED AUDIO
CLIPS
July 20th 1963 T 0:55 Becancour,
QC		 Canada
 115 Hay field No
0/5)		 No
July 10th1972 T 2:15 Cap-Chat.
QC		 Canada
 641 Hill face to the sea No
(0/5)		 No
Oct. 12th 1977 T 0:53 Aguazul Colombia
 4477 Savana No
(0/5)		 No
Feb. 26th 1979 T 2:54 Melita,
Man		 Canada
 2104 Motel parking Yes
(3/5)		 No
Feb. 16th 1980 T 2:51 Ankola India
 12,582 College backyard Yes
(5/5)		 Yes
June 11th 1983 T 5:10 Borobudur Indonesia
 15,769 Dry rice field Yes
(5/5)		 Yes
May 30th1984 A 0:07 Chase City,
Virginia		 USA
 1055 Service station No
(0/5)		 Yes
July 11th 1991 T 6:41 Los Corchos,
Nayarit		 Mexico
 3920 Beach Yes
(5/5)		 Yes
May 10th 1994 A 6:12 Chestertown
NY		 USA
 213 B&B Lawn Yes
(5/5)		 No
Nov. 3th 1994 T 3:10 Sevrayuro Bolivia
 6191 Altiplano Yes
(4/5)		 Yes
Feb. 26th 1998 T 3:00 Grande Vigie Guadeloupe
 3407 Cliff Yes
(5/5)		 Yes
August 11th 1999 T 2:15 Noyon France
 5502 Park No
(0/5)		 Yes
June 21th 2001 T 3:37 Kamilonga Zambia
 12,080 Farm Yes
5/5)		 Yes
June 10th 2002 A 1:00 La Cruz
de Loreto,
Jalisco		 Mexico
 4069 Hill near
the sea		 Yes
(1/5)		  
March 29th 2006 T 4:04s Eclipse City
(Jalu)		 Libya
 8189 Sahara desert Yes
(5/5)		 Yes
Aug 1st 2008 T 2:20 Novosibirsk Russia
 8655 Beach Yes
(5/5)		 No
July 22th 2009 T 5:36 Songshou China
 11,462 Rest area Yes
(1/5)		 No
July 11th. 2010 T 3:29 Hao atoll French
Polynesia
 9779 Airport Yes
5/5		 Yes

My next eclipses at my agenda will be :

Le Nov. 13th 2012 in Australia north of Cairns

...

April 8th 2024 in Montreal (I will have 76)

I'm dreaming to go to the moon in a remote future with the reservation I did with Air Canada in 1969 shortly after Apollo 11.

I also observe lunar eclipses The picture at left has been taken during the sept. 26 th 1996 total lunar eclipse from my appartement house balcony in Longueuil.

Instrument
Camera
Film
Exposure time
Celestron 5+ f /6.3
Olympus OM-1
Fuji Sensia 100 ASA
15 Sec
KEO