Cairns Hot Air Balloon in Eclipse
This will be the tenth eclipse I have travelled to see; I’ve travelled to Zambia, as well as to Iwo Jima to view the total solar eclipse.
Cairns, Queensland (PRWEB) November 14, 2012
Ten hot air balloons took off over the Atherton Tablelands, one of the few places in the Cairns region west of the Great Barrier Reef, to see the total solar eclipse with blue skies and clear viewing conditions.
Over 50,000 visitors streamed in this week to see the Eclipse, with many coming from the USA. Kenneth and Diane travelled from Eugene, Oregon for a triple celebration, to experience the eclipse, celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary as well as Kenneth’s 60th birthday. Luckily the skies were clear for the balloons and the full corona of the total solar eclipse could be seen the whole time the couple flew.
Cherill Spencer is a mechanical engineer and eclipse aficionado at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology within the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, at Menlo Park, California, operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Dept. of Energy Office of Science.
“This will be the tenth eclipse I have travelled to see; I’ve travelled to Zambia, as well as to Iwo Jima to view the total solar eclipse.” Ms Spencer said.
Sydneysider Ross Mitchell said he’d spent twelve months preparing for the total solar eclipse and been looking forward to seeing it from a balloon and it didn’t disappoint. “To see the eclipse amongst the 10 balloons this morning was amazing,” Mr Mitchell said.
To top it all, Shookie Basuroy an IT specialist from Sydney, got on bended knee in the balloon basket and proposed to his girlfriend which was seen on the eclipse live streaming at http://www.hotair.com.au/ Shookie’s proposal compared their diamond engagement ring to the full corona of the eclipse they had just seen together. And yes she accepted with tears of happiness.
Local business, Hot Air Balloon Cairns’ daily flight path, just happened to be one of the prime viewing spots for visitors and eclipse chasers, as was seen on the live webcast of the eclipse at http://www.hotair.com.au/, per the predictions by Fred Espenak of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre and the latest weather forecast from Bill O’Connor of Cairns Bureau of Meteorology.
Hot Air Balloon Cairns Managing Director, Andrew Steel said his team of 48 staff had done a fantastic job and it was certainly a day that will never be repeated in ballooning history.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce the exclusive images and footage at http://www.hotair.com.au/eclipse. However, we do ask you to please cite the source “Hot Air Balloon Cairns: http://www.hotair.com.au";