Broadband Spectroscopy during the Total Solar Eclipse of March 29 , 2006

The eclipse of March 29, 2006 attracted the University of Hawaii eclipse team to the desert plateau near Waw an Namus, Libya. The eclipse was successfully observed with three experiments. One of these experiments, a broadband spectrometer, was entirely student designed, built, and run as part of the Astronomy 699 project. In this paper the details of the broadband spectrometer experiment and its results are outlined. The broadband spectrometer is a commercial fiberfed spectrograph with wavelength coverage from 350 to 1120 nm and a small telescope for light collection. During the eclipse two positions in the corona at 1.25 Rsun and 5.75-8.25 Rsun were observed. Due to the experimental nature of the instrument, several issues were resolved experimentally and by using an atmospheric modeling facility, MODTRAN. A comparison of the spectra from the inner and outer corona implies a significant color difference between the outer corona and the inner corona and therefore the solar disk color. The thermal and scattering contributions of dust and the possibility for the existence of fluorescing silicon nanoparticles are discussed.