Solar Eclipse | 1900 | Documentary, Short

Title: Solar Eclipse | 1900 | Documentary, Short Director: Nevil Maskelyne Release Date: 1900 Runtime: 1 Format: 35mm; black-and-white; silent; filmed through a kinematograph telescope Country: United Kingdom Language: Silent Genres: Documentary, Short, Science --- Chapters: 00:00:00 Partial phase begins 00:00:12 Approaching totality 00:00:25 Totality and corona 00:00:40 Emergence of sunlight 00:00:55 Waning partial phase --- Summary: A concise observational record of the total solar eclipse of May 28, 1900, filmed in Wadesboro, North Carolina. The camera, fitted to a telescope, captures the progression into totality, the brief appearance of the solar corona, and the Sun’s reemergence as the Moon’s shadow passes. As an early scientific motion picture, the film emphasizes documentation over spectacle, preserving one of the first moving images of a celestial event and illustrating late Victorian efforts to apply cinematography to astronomy. --- Background: British magician and filmmaker Nevil Maskelyne joined a British Astronomical Association expedition to North Carolina to film the eclipse on May 28, 1900, using a custom telescopic adapter for his cinematograph. The surviving minute of 35mm footage—long held in the Royal Astronomical Society’s archive—was restored in 4K by the BFI National Archive and made available in 2019, representing the earliest known surviving moving picture of a total solar eclipse. --- Trivia: Maskelyne had previously filmed the 1898 total solar eclipse in India, but that footage was reportedly stolen during his return journey. Contemporary accounts and later research note the specialized “kinematograph telescope” setup used to keep the Sun steady in frame during totality. Scholars estimate the restored fragment comprises roughly one minute of imagery derived from a few hundred frames of 35mm film. --- Public Domain / Rights: Original Release: 1900 Copyright Status: Public Domain Renewal: No --- Hashtags: SolarEclipse 1900 NevilMaskelyne PublicDomain SilentFilm Documentary Astronomy BFI RoyalAstronomicalSociety This video was sourced from Internet Archive. Originally uploaded by cringeape20@gmail.com. https://archive.org/details/solar-eclipse-1900-directed-by-nevil-maskelyne