Soviet Union Except for the total
solar eclipse of June 29, 1927, which was only visible from the sparsely populated
Arctic Ocean coast, this was the first total solar eclipse visible within the Soviet Union since its founding (the previous one was in
1914 when it was still ruled by
Russian Empire). 28 Soviet teams (including 17 astronomical observation teams and 11 geophysical observation teams) There were 370 astronomers in the teams. To offer better conditions for the 70 foreigners among them, the Central Committee of
All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) promoted a policy to reduce railway and water transportation fair by 50%. The
Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union established a special committee and made preparations for two years. The government raised 60,000, 365,000 and 400,000 roubles respectively in 1934, 1935 and 1936. Experts from the Leningrad Astronomical Institute manufactured 6
coronagraphs with a diameter of 100 mm and a focal length of 5 metres, distributed to
Pulkovo Observatory,
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow branch of the ,
Institute of Astronomy of Kharkiv National University,
V. P. Engel'gardt Astronomical Observatory and . Besides observations on the ground, balloons and aircraft were also used. Among them, Pulkovo Observatory and its
Simeiz branch (now
Crimean Astrophysical Observatory) sent three teams. The first studied the
chromosphere and solar
prominences in
Akbulak,
Orenburg Oblast, led by
Boris Gerasimovich, chairman of the Special Committee for Solar Eclipse Observation of the Academy of Sciences. The second went to Sara, Orenburg Oblast, led by
Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov. The third studied the
corona in
Omsk, led by . The team of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute went to the village of Bochkarev (Бочкарёв) in the suburbs of Kuybyshevka (now
Belogorsk, Amur Oblast) to study the
spectrum of the chromosphere and corona, the
polarization of the corona and the light bending in gravitational fields proposed by the
theory of relativity. The team of Kharkiv Observatory studied the luminosity, polarization and chromospheric spectrum of the corona in
Belorechensk, Krasnodar Krai, led by
Nikolai Barabashov. The team of the
Georgian National Astrophysical Observatory studied coronal radiation. The team of the Moscow branch of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodetic Society made standard coronagraph observations and led amateur observations nationwide. The team of V. P. Engel'gardt Astronomical Observatory studied the visible spectrum of the corona with diffraction gratings and took images of the corona with standard coronagraphs in
Kostanay Region in today's
Kazakhstan. An American team of 24 people led by
Donald Howard Menzel went to Akbulak together with the Pulkovo Observatory team. A team of four astronomers of
Arcetri Observatory, Italy led by
Giorgio Abetti went to Sara together with another team of the Pulkovo Observatory.
Japan Japan sent 20 astronomy observation teams and 18 geophysics observation teams to Hokkaido. In addition, teams from the United Kingdom, the United States,
India, China, Czechoslovakia and Poland also went to Hokkaido. Some were successful and some were not. Interestingly, another total
solar eclipse of August 9, 1896 was also visible in the coastal town
Eshashi of
Esashi District, which received many foreign scientists at that time. Therefore, despite the inconvenient transportation,
Kwasan Observatory of
Kyoto University and a Chinese team still selected it as the observation site.
China In November 1934, astronomer organized the Chinese Solar Eclipse Observation Committee shortly after the establishment of the
Purple Mountain Observatory, to prepare for observations of this eclipse in 1936, and the
solar eclipse of September 21, 1941 (another
total solar eclipse in 1943 was also visible in
Northeast China, the Soviet Union and Japan, but there was no plans or actual activities of any kind of observations in China). The committee was inside the Institute of Astronomy, with
Cai Yuanpei being the chairman, and Gao Lu the secretary-general. It asked for a fund of 30,000 from the government during the preparation, and received another 120,000 from the British, French and American portions of the
Boxer Indemnities Committee. Although the path of totality of this eclipse passed through northeast China, it was relatively remote located on the
Sino-Soviet border, and was already under control of
Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state. In the end, 2 teams were sent abroad. This was the first time that Chinese scientific observation teams made observations abroad. One team consisted of only
Zhang Yuzhe and , going to
Siberia, the Soviet Union. They initially planned to go to Orenburg Oblast with better weather conditions, but because the time was limited, they finally chose
Khabarovsk. The two took a ship from
Shanghai to Japan on May 31, then transferred to a train to
Tsuruga and then transferred again a ship, arriving in
Vladivostok on June 9. After staying there for 2 days, they took an international train and arrived in Khabarovsk on June 11. The goals include taking images of the corona, measuring the time of the eclipse, and comparing the darkness of the sky during totality with that of twilight. On the eclipse day, although it was clear in the morning and noon, the eclipse was clouded out in the afternoon, and it rained heavily in the evening. The observation was not successful. Another team consisted of 6 people, with being the leader, and , Zou Yixin,
Wei Xueren, and , going to Hokkaido, Japan. The team departed from
Nanjing on June 3, arrived in
Tokyo on the night of June 8, went to Hokkaido the next day, and arrived at the town of Esashi at noon on June 11. The town also received many foreign scientists during another total solar eclipse on August 9, 1896. The goals included taking images of the corona, taking films for public screening and gaining experience for observing the other total solar eclipse in 1941. There were clouds at first on eclipse day, but the sun came out of the clouds before the second contact. 3 ordinary corona images, 1 ultraviolet image and 3 sets of movies were taken. In Nanjing, only a partial eclipse was visible. Although not worth observing compared with a total eclipse,
Kao Ping-tse and Li Mingzhong who stayed in Nanjing still recorded the time of the solar eclipse, to check the accuracy of previous calculations. == Eclipse details ==