Word: starfield
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...photograph stars beyond the sun during a solar eclipse. Since their light passes near the sun and through its powerful gravitation, it should be deflected a little, making the stars seem to shift their positions. The amount of the shift could be measured by photographing the same starfield months later, when the earth's travel around its orbit had placed the sun in a different position and left the stars alone in the night...
Greatest threat to his enterprise was a "maboob" (sandstorm) which blasted Khartoum three days before the eclipse. But the maboob subsided well before E-day, and Dr. van Biesbroeck got two good pictures of the starfield beyond the blacked-out sun. Then he wrapped his telescope in tarpaulin and flew back to Wisconsin. His precious plates, 17 inches square, never left his side for a moment...
...same caravans of groaning camels kicked up dust from the desert. But the brilliant stars in the desert sky had, he was sure, changed slightly. He unwrapped his telescope, chasing a dozen lizards out of the tarpaulin. Waiting five days for a night of good "seeing," he photographed the starfield in Aquarius where the sun had been six months before. Then back he flew to Wisconsin to start his long computations...