On the 21 September 1922 an eclipse of the sun passed across the centre of Australia providing optimum conditions for observations. This photograph was taken by one of the members of the Wallal Eclipse expedition in Western Australia.
In it we can see the polar axis set up to hold the spectrographs, the Floyd telescope and the two short focus camera. The woman on the left is probably the wife of W. W. Campbell the leader of the Lick Observatory expedition. During the eclipse she was responsible for the exposures of the solar corona by means of the Floyd camera.
For further information see the attached Powerhouse Theme, 'Australian Eclipse expedition to Wallal, Western Australia, 1922'.
Geoff Barker, Curatorial, October 2008
References
Campbell, W. W., 'The Total Eclipse of the Sun, September 21, 1922', Astronomical Society of the Pacific, provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System, May 2008
Evershed, J., 'Report of the Indian Eclipse Expedition to Wallal, West Australia', Kodaikanal Observatory, Bulletin, number LXI