Dave Stargazer
Well-known member
- Post score: 4
- #1
A Total Eclipse is an amazing, and unique experience - there is nothing like it. Magical. Spooky. Otherwordly.
So I finally am posting up my first work based on my captures of The Great American Eclipse - this is a montage showing many of the phases. The lower images are with a Maven solar filter, and the uppers are all sans filters. I posted much higher resolution on Flickr - I'll post the link in a comment - it's worth zooming in! I'll post my writing about the event and experience here (it's on Flickr too)
===============
I've been interested in astronomy since middle school. Hey - I chose the name Dave Stargazer, eh?
I recall that years ago I realized that we going to get a partial eclipse, but somewhere, not *that* far away, someone was having a Total Eclipse. And I was missing it. I could see one.
But total eclipses are extremely rare, and the area where they occur is quite small. You almost never just happen to get to see a total eclipse. You have to go to where it's happening.
So, in 2017 I was determined to try and see one. We went to southern Illinois, near Carbondale. And the clouds were with us - I mean they weren't with us - they left us alone, and dissappated so we had clear skies. And it was awesome.
They say to just enjoy/experience your first total eclipse - it's so mindboggling. And I mostly did that, but I also did have a plan in place to take some images during totality. And they came out well, but not stellar (oh haha 'stellar' - errr sry). But the experience was so cool...
Then I started looking forward, and planning for the 2024 Great American Eclipse. The 2017 eclipse, and now this 2024 one were even more unusual in that several densely populated areas of the US were in totality.
But there was one other very strange thing about this eclipse - its path *intersected* the 2017 path of totality. In a small area of the US. In southern Illinois. Where we'd seen the 2017 one. Do we go back to the same place?
In Illinois, April is far more cloudy than August, when the 2017 eclipse was. The best odds for clear skies were on the Mexican coast. But that was too far for us. We thought about going to TX where there was a slightly better chance of clear skies - or less cloudy skies. But that's a hike, with no guarantee of clear skies. So - back to southern IL. We didn't head back to the same spot, but one close by - and crossed our fingers we'd get clear enough skies.
I was glued to the cloud forecasts for the week before - looked bad! Rain! Then...maybe not! Ironically TX started looking bad for clouds. How far was I willing to try and drive to get to clear skies by 1:30pm on the day when the core of the eclipse would happen. And traffic. Leaving after the eclipse in 2017 was a rural road nightmare. I didn't want to be stuck in traffic, unable to get to be in the path of totality.
The day before the eclipse, we headed down to Harrisburg, IL. And it rained. And rained. A slow trip. At times some cars pulled off the road it was raining so hard. But it stopped by the time we arrived - some breaks in the clouds. Maybe we'd get lucky.
Next morning, I get up, and it's *completely* fogged in. Like 100ft visibility maybe. Crazy. But I knew that would burn off. Cloud forecast looked... ok, but there were some areas of clouds coming our way.
I had noticed during the 2017 eclipse, that some clouds just evaporated right before totality - I figured the cooling atmosphere driven by the moon's shadow did that. Then I read some other scientists speculating the same thing. We had one of the better cloud forecasts - maybe Arkansas was a slightly better chance. Or Maine haha. So the decision was to sit tight, and hope for the best.
Shortly before the eclipse started, I set up my gear - one camera with a telephoto, set for bracketing via wired remote, and one with a wide-ish lens for perhaps a timelapse done by bracketed intervals.
When the eclipse first starts, you don't notice anything. Only looking through solar safe glasses or the camera with solar filters will tell you that things are changing. It's not until maybe 70% partial eclipse that things seem "different." The light before then could just be due to clouds. But then the quality of the light is no longer "just clouds" - but something a bit odd. Crescent shapes appear among the shadows.
At 90% it starts to really get noticeably dim. And the light has a strange quality. By 97% things are really getting weird. It's like a queer sort of twilight - and getting dark very quickly - not like when the sun goes down with a slow transition. But it's still "daylight" - the rays are coming through a lot less atmosphere than they do at dusk.
Then right before totality, it's still "day" but you can feel the night swooping in - the wind comes up driven by the great variance in temperatures of the total eclipse. Talk about spirits of the air! The birds, animals, insects all start going nuts!
Then the last fraction of the sun is blotted out in quick succession - the Diamond Ring (which is still day!) followed by Baily's Beads, as the sun peeks between the mountains and valleys of the moon.
Then... Totality. The corona. Bright magenta prominences - all visible to the naked eye in all their glory!
It's night where we stand, but on the horizon, you can see twilight. The shadow of the moon is quite small.
I looked for Comet P12 Pons-Brooks, but couldn't spot it - it was very hard to see, near Jupiter. But a new sungrazer comet was discovered during the eclipse! Unfortunately in the following days, it broke up as it neared the sun, and is no more.
The magnificence of the corona is unparalleled - dancing in the brief night.
Then the moon edges away for another glimpse of Baily's Beads, and then the Diamond Ring. Day returns, and grows stronger again.
When will there be another eclipse here? Southern Illinios has had TWO total eclipses in the space of seven years. It will be thousands of years before there is another in Harrisburg.
I'm so happy to have been a part of this one.
Tech Notes:
This is a composite of 12 of my captures during the eclipse. I took more than 6000 captures during the event!
The sun is at the peak of it's 11 year solar cycle - there was a giant sunspot on the far side of the sun which I was hoping would rotate into view, but the one big sunspot you see is quite impressive.
All the lower left images are from the partial eclipse phases. They were done with a magnetic Maven Solar Filter, which allowed me to quickly remove it at Totality, and replace it when it was over. Thanks to Michael Maven who got these to me in time!
Starting at the upper left, we see:
-- The Diamon Ring - two versions
-- Baily's Beads - one large detail
-- Totality
I have been working on a Grand Stack version of totality since the eclipse - 3 weeks already - but I remain not satisfied with the results so far, but that is forthcoming!
This composite came together over the course of a few days.
I have yet to start work on the interval brackets from the second camera. Another composite from those I'm sure will happen, plus I would like to produce a timelapse from them.
===============
So I finally am posting up my first work based on my captures of The Great American Eclipse - this is a montage showing many of the phases. The lower images are with a Maven solar filter, and the uppers are all sans filters. I posted much higher resolution on Flickr - I'll post the link in a comment - it's worth zooming in! I'll post my writing about the event and experience here (it's on Flickr too)
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.
===============
I've been interested in astronomy since middle school. Hey - I chose the name Dave Stargazer, eh?
I recall that years ago I realized that we going to get a partial eclipse, but somewhere, not *that* far away, someone was having a Total Eclipse. And I was missing it. I could see one.But total eclipses are extremely rare, and the area where they occur is quite small. You almost never just happen to get to see a total eclipse. You have to go to where it's happening.
So, in 2017 I was determined to try and see one. We went to southern Illinois, near Carbondale. And the clouds were with us - I mean they weren't with us - they left us alone, and dissappated so we had clear skies. And it was awesome.
They say to just enjoy/experience your first total eclipse - it's so mindboggling. And I mostly did that, but I also did have a plan in place to take some images during totality. And they came out well, but not stellar (oh haha 'stellar' - errr sry). But the experience was so cool...
Then I started looking forward, and planning for the 2024 Great American Eclipse. The 2017 eclipse, and now this 2024 one were even more unusual in that several densely populated areas of the US were in totality.
But there was one other very strange thing about this eclipse - its path *intersected* the 2017 path of totality. In a small area of the US. In southern Illinois. Where we'd seen the 2017 one. Do we go back to the same place?
In Illinois, April is far more cloudy than August, when the 2017 eclipse was. The best odds for clear skies were on the Mexican coast. But that was too far for us. We thought about going to TX where there was a slightly better chance of clear skies - or less cloudy skies. But that's a hike, with no guarantee of clear skies. So - back to southern IL. We didn't head back to the same spot, but one close by - and crossed our fingers we'd get clear enough skies.
I was glued to the cloud forecasts for the week before - looked bad! Rain! Then...maybe not! Ironically TX started looking bad for clouds. How far was I willing to try and drive to get to clear skies by 1:30pm on the day when the core of the eclipse would happen. And traffic. Leaving after the eclipse in 2017 was a rural road nightmare. I didn't want to be stuck in traffic, unable to get to be in the path of totality.
The day before the eclipse, we headed down to Harrisburg, IL. And it rained. And rained. A slow trip. At times some cars pulled off the road it was raining so hard. But it stopped by the time we arrived - some breaks in the clouds. Maybe we'd get lucky.
Next morning, I get up, and it's *completely* fogged in. Like 100ft visibility maybe. Crazy. But I knew that would burn off. Cloud forecast looked... ok, but there were some areas of clouds coming our way.
I had noticed during the 2017 eclipse, that some clouds just evaporated right before totality - I figured the cooling atmosphere driven by the moon's shadow did that. Then I read some other scientists speculating the same thing. We had one of the better cloud forecasts - maybe Arkansas was a slightly better chance. Or Maine haha. So the decision was to sit tight, and hope for the best.
Shortly before the eclipse started, I set up my gear - one camera with a telephoto, set for bracketing via wired remote, and one with a wide-ish lens for perhaps a timelapse done by bracketed intervals.
When the eclipse first starts, you don't notice anything. Only looking through solar safe glasses or the camera with solar filters will tell you that things are changing. It's not until maybe 70% partial eclipse that things seem "different." The light before then could just be due to clouds. But then the quality of the light is no longer "just clouds" - but something a bit odd. Crescent shapes appear among the shadows.
At 90% it starts to really get noticeably dim. And the light has a strange quality. By 97% things are really getting weird. It's like a queer sort of twilight - and getting dark very quickly - not like when the sun goes down with a slow transition. But it's still "daylight" - the rays are coming through a lot less atmosphere than they do at dusk.
Then right before totality, it's still "day" but you can feel the night swooping in - the wind comes up driven by the great variance in temperatures of the total eclipse. Talk about spirits of the air! The birds, animals, insects all start going nuts!
Then the last fraction of the sun is blotted out in quick succession - the Diamond Ring (which is still day!) followed by Baily's Beads, as the sun peeks between the mountains and valleys of the moon.
Then... Totality. The corona. Bright magenta prominences - all visible to the naked eye in all their glory!
It's night where we stand, but on the horizon, you can see twilight. The shadow of the moon is quite small.
I looked for Comet P12 Pons-Brooks, but couldn't spot it - it was very hard to see, near Jupiter. But a new sungrazer comet was discovered during the eclipse! Unfortunately in the following days, it broke up as it neared the sun, and is no more.
The magnificence of the corona is unparalleled - dancing in the brief night.
Then the moon edges away for another glimpse of Baily's Beads, and then the Diamond Ring. Day returns, and grows stronger again.
When will there be another eclipse here? Southern Illinios has had TWO total eclipses in the space of seven years. It will be thousands of years before there is another in Harrisburg.
I'm so happy to have been a part of this one.
Tech Notes:
This is a composite of 12 of my captures during the eclipse. I took more than 6000 captures during the event!
The sun is at the peak of it's 11 year solar cycle - there was a giant sunspot on the far side of the sun which I was hoping would rotate into view, but the one big sunspot you see is quite impressive.
All the lower left images are from the partial eclipse phases. They were done with a magnetic Maven Solar Filter, which allowed me to quickly remove it at Totality, and replace it when it was over. Thanks to Michael Maven who got these to me in time!
Starting at the upper left, we see:
-- The Diamon Ring - two versions
-- Baily's Beads - one large detail
-- Totality
I have been working on a Grand Stack version of totality since the eclipse - 3 weeks already - but I remain not satisfied with the results so far, but that is forthcoming!
This composite came together over the course of a few days.
I have yet to start work on the interval brackets from the second camera. Another composite from those I'm sure will happen, plus I would like to produce a timelapse from them.
===============
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