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"Given all the forest burning they do up there It's probably a waste of time, and if not that the wet season."
"Would like to go,but with the very iffy weather etc,I am saving my hard earned for the US eclipse in 2017..
Good luck anyway to all who attempt this one."
I've attempted 14 central solar eclipses, 11 totals and 3 annulars. Of these, only 4/14 have had really good weather prospects. Ten of them had very "iffy" weather.
I made a big rookie error with my first annular and made my own cloud by observing from Niagara Falls. The water vapour over the falls condensed into local cloud with the cooling effect of the eclipse. Had I observed from 1 km away I would have seen it. Excluding this error, cloud of my own making and looking at natural cloud. Of the other 13 eclipses, I was totally clouded out once (Shanghai 2009) and saw the inner corona through hazy high level cloud(Atlantic Ocean, 2013.) All others have been clear or most of totality visible in clear patches between clouds.
Indonesia is a relatively cheap destination. Balikpapan is relatively cheap, still has plenty of available accommodation, and is a cheapish flight from Denpasar or Jakarta which in turn are cheapish flights from Australia and doesn't have impossibly bad weather prospects. The area just south of Balikpapan on the beach has reasonable weather prospects equal to Ternate.
My Swedish observing partner and I are going to Ternate. We made arrangements more than 6 months ago and even then had problems finding accommodation. Even though Balikpapan and Ternate have similar weather prospects, we know many people going to Ternate which swayed our choice of destination. I agree with Willoughby that there is probably a lot of unlisted accommodation on Ternate. We just didn't want to risk lobbing in there and not finding it.
The smaller the land mass and closer to the east coast, the better the weather prospects. So the east side of small islands are best.
I wouldn't dismiss this eclipse quite so quickly as many of you seem to be doing.
Best of luck.
Joe
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