Irish scientist describes capturing eclipse from plane

An Irish solar physicist has called an aerial mission to capture images of a total solar eclipse the highlight of her career. Dr. Laura Hayes, an Assistant Professor at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS), was part of a specialized team that flew aboard an Air Corps plane to record the celestial event and gather new data about the sun.

The mission, a significant collaboration involving scientists from DIAS, the European Space Agency, and Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics, saw the team depart from Casement Aerodrome. Their flight path took them over Conamara and out into the Atlantic Ocean, heading towards the eclipse's path of totality, approximately 540km west of Conamara.

To achieve unobstructed views, the plane descended to 10,082 feet, and a window was opened to allow a specialized camera to capture the eclipse without the distortion typically caused by filming through glass. The team had meticulously prepared for over a year, but they had only a two-minute window to collect their critical data during the eclipse's totality.

Dr. Hayes, who operated the camera on a specially designed gimbal, described the intense focus required. "A year of preparation has come down to these two minutes and I genuinely don't think I took a breath for those two minutes of observation," she stated, conveying the immense pressure and excitement of the brief but crucial scientific endeavor.

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A year of preparation has come down to these two minutes and I genuinely don't think I took a breath for those two minutes of observation.