I present a two-minute video set to music of the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse.
In my previous blog Chasing the Cross Continental Eclipse I told the tale of my chase to see the total eclipse of the Sun. I ended up under mostly clear skies in the Eastern Townships of Québec, Canada, not Texas, my original destination.
Here I present the result of shooting with four cameras that afternoon, taking still images, time-lapses, and a 4K movie.
Be sure to watch in 4K!
The site worked out very well, as the lower Sun in eastern Canada lent itself to views framing the eclipse over a landscape below, in this case a very wavy lake. But I was lucky to have open water as other lakes in the area were still frozen.
My post-eclipse selfie at the Lac Brome site in Quebec for the April 8, 2024 total eclipse of the Sun.
As it was, a snow storm a few days earlier left lots of snow in the area to be included in my post-eclipse selfie.
This was only the third total solar eclipse I’ve seen from Canada, after February 26, 1979 from Manitoba, and August 1, 2008 from the air out of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. The next total eclipse from Canada passes over my home in Alberta. But it is not until August 22, 2044!
I had always planned to drive to the April 8, 2024 total eclipse of the Sun. But to where? I ended up on the other side of the continent than originally planned.
It is not often the path of the Moon’s shadow crosses your home country, let alone continent. Only once before in recent years, on August 21, 2017, did the narrow shadow path pass near enough to my home in Alberta to allow me to drive to a total eclipse. They almost always require flying.
Packed and ready to hit the highway for a long eclipse trip.
Yes, while I could drive to the April 8, 2024 eclipse, it was going to demand a much longer drive than in 2017. But driving allowed me to take a carload of telescope and camera gear. So that was the plan.
My destination was San Antonio, Texas. That’s where I had made a hotel booking more than a year earlier. The weather prospects in Texas were forecast to be best (at least according to the long-term averages) of any locations along the path in the U.S. or Canada. (I did not want to drive into Mexico.)
Where I was going! Where I ended up going!
On March 30, with some trepidation, I set out down I-15 heading south. I got as far as Great Falls, Montana, my stop for night one. But it was to be a move in the wrong direction.
The forecast for Eclipse Day as of March 30. Blue is bad; white is good!
The various long-range weather models were all agreeing, even 10 days in advance, that Texas (covered in blue above) was looking poor for eclipse day. But eastern Canada looked good! That was the exact opposite of what had been expected.
So on Easter Sunday, I turned around and headed north, crossing back into Canada at a lonely border post in southwest Saskatchewan.
I proceeded east along the TransCanada, Highway 1. I decided against a route across the northern U.S. and around the southern end of Lake Michigan, to avoid severe weather forecast for the middle of the U.S.
One of my daily Facebook travelogue posts with a beer of the day.
Along the way I posted my beer-du-jour travel reports, as above from Day 8, that day from within the shadow path at last!
Our 1979 eclipse group in 1979.The 1979 eclipse site in 2024.The February 26, 1979 eclipse.
I also stopped at the only total eclipse site, of the 16 I had seen previously, I have ever been able to re-visit. On February 26, 1979 I and a small band of friends from Edmonton viewed the mid-winter eclipse (the last one visible from southern Canada) from a median road (Firdale Road as it is now called) on the TransCanada Highway near Carberry, Manitoba. I found the spot again, where I saw (and shot with my Questar telescope) my first total eclipse of the Sun.
However, a day after entering Ontario, the bad weather caught up with me, forcing an extra night north of Lake Superior while the only highway across the region, Highway 17, was cleared of snow and re-opened at Wawa, the usual cross-Canada choke point.
My new destination (after abandoning the site in the Texas Hill Country) was to be southern Ontario.
The weather prediction as of April 5.Southern Québec looking good!
However, as eclipse day approached and the weather predictions became more precise, it was apparent that Ontario would also be under some cloud. Southern Québec was looking better. So the Eastern Townships became my new Plan A site! I was running out of time!
Using the TPE app to check the Sun’s location once on site, the day before the eclipse.
I arrived on site in Québec with only a day to spare to check out the location I had found by exploring Google maps.
With the Sun lower in the mid-afternoon sky in Québec compared to the high-noon Sun in Texas, I decided to shoot a wide-angle scene of the eclipse over a lake, preferably with open water, not ice! That required a site with public parking on an eastern lakeshore.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) app to check Sun angles.Zooming in with TPE app for my chosen Lac Brome site. .
The site I found, then checked out on April 7, was on Lac Brome. It proved ideal — except for the thin cloud that was now predicted to drift through during the eclipse.
Sure enough, that’s just what happened. The cloud detracted from the eclipse only in preventing long-exposure images recording the outermost streamers in the Sun’s atmosphere.
A wide-field view of the eclipse of the Sun, taking in the bright planets Jupiter (at top) and Venus (below) that were easily visible to the unaided eye during totality.
I could have sought out clearer skies by going even farther east, but I was in a crunch for time and hotel rooms! As it was I was able to get rooms everywhere I wanted and at normal “non-eclipse” rates!
A panorama of the lakeside parking area at Lac Brome prior to the eclipse. My RAV4 and camera array, pre-eclipse.I shot with 4 cameras at the car and one set up lakeside.
The Lac Brome site filled with cars during the day, with people from Québec and Ontario, but also from Alberta, and from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Maine – at least those were the homes of the folks I enjoyed meeting on eclipse day.
Everyone had a great time and had a superb eclipse experience.
The total eclipse of the Sun over the waters of Lac Brome, in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. The twilight colours come from sunlight from outside the shadow path.
The lunar shadow arrived from the southwest, from the direction of the Sun, appearing as a dark cloud racing toward us. At the end of the eclipse the sky brightened first in that same direction, as the trailing edge of the shadow shot up across the sky. The clouds helped make the shadow edge more visible.
A time-lapse of the arrival and departure of the lunar shadow, made of 1200 frames each 1 second apart.
I shot with five cameras, just as I had done in 2017, possible only because I drove.
The main rig was my faithful Astro-Physics Traveler, a 105mm refractor telescope the company owner designed for his personal use at the 1991 eclipse in Mexico.
My main eclipse rig, with a 60mm visual scope on the 105mm photo scope, on an equatorial tracking mount.
My Traveler, bought in 1992, has lived up to its name, having now been to six central solar eclipses: the annular eclipses of 1994 (Arizona) and 2023 (Utah), and the total eclipses of 1998 (Curaçao), 2012 (Queensland, Australia), 2017 (Idaho), and now 2024 in Québec, Canada. I paired it with the wonderful matching AP400 mount, which I had only just brought back with me the month before from Australia, where it had spent the last two decades.
All the gear worked great. Unlike six months earlier for the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse in Utah, this time I remembered all the cables needed to have the telescope mount track the Sun.
I did mess up on a couple of settings (such as not framing the 4K movie camera as I should have – in pre-eclipse excitement I just forgot to check my chart). But none of the errors were serious.
The eclipse in a blend of two exposures to display all the fiery pink prominences that were visible during totality around the lunar disk in one image, set against the bright inner corona of the Sun with the dark disk of the Moon in silhouette in front of the Sun.
Once started all my cameras, except for the one on the Traveler, ran unattended.
At this eclipse I was determined to get a good look at it through the small visual scope I had piggybacked onto the Traveler photo scope. While I had used a similar rig in 2017, I only thought to look through the visual scope 20 seconds before totality ended.
Not this year.
A telescopic close-up of the eclipsed Sun. Onto the central blend of images for totality I layered in single images of each of the diamond rings before and after totality. They are when the last or first burst of sunlight shines through lunar valleys. The first diamond ring is at top left, the last at bottom right, so time runs from left to right.
I got a great look at the eclipsed Sun, its corona structures, flaming pink prominences, and breakout of the red chromosphere layer just as totality ended. (You can’t easily see the chromosphere at the start of totality as it can be risky looking too soon through optics when the Sun’s blindingly bright photosphere is still in view.)
This is a composite showing the sequence of events surrounding totality, from just before totality (at upper left) to just after totality (at lower right), with totality in the middle. The contact images were taken 0.6 seconds apart.
And yet, as at all eclipses, I found the naked eye view the most compelling. The “black hole” Sun looked huge and unearthly. While I had binoculars handy, the same 12×36 image-stabilized binoculars I bring to most eclipses, I completely forgot to look though them, just as I forget at most eclipses!
This is a composite showing the complete sequence of the April 8, 2024 eclipse of the Sun, from first contact (at upper left) to last contact (at lower right), with totality at mid-eclipse in the middle.
I shot all the images with the Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm refractor at 630mm focal length and f/6, with the Canon R5 at ISO 100. The partial phases are 1/800 or 1/400 second exposures through a Kendrick/Baader solar filter.
Wanting to record the full sequence, I shot the partial phases until the bitter end. But post-eclipse, people came over and had a look through my scope (I think mine was the only telescope on site). We had a great time exchanging impressions. The hand-held phone camera photos people showed me looked fabulous!
I looked for fleeting shadow bands just before and after totality (I laid out a white sheet on the ground for the purpose) but saw none, a negative observation confirmed by a fellow eclipse chaser at the site.
Time-lapse movies of the second and third contact (start and end of totality) diamond rings, shot through the telescope with the Canon R5 in continuous burst mode for hundreds of frames each.
I did two live interviews for CBC Radio, for the Edmonton and Calgary stations, but not until after the eclipse ended. By the time I did those and finished packing away my carload of gear, it was 6:30 p.m., three hours after totality.
I was the last to leave the site, with fishermen now arriving for an evening’s catch.
I was in that shadow as the Space Station flew over. Astronauts saw the elliptical shadow moving over eastern Canada.
The passage of the lunar shadow across the continent, showing where the clouds were. I was under the wispy clouds at upper right in Québec.
I faced no traffic jams heading back to the hotel at Ste. Helen-de-Bagot. I processed and posted one eclipse image that night. And I revised the price (down to $2.99 U.S.) and description of my How to Photograph the Solar Eclipses ebook, as now only the big processing chapter is of any value, post-eclipse. It continues to sell.
This is the waxing crescent Moon on April 10, 2024, two days after it eclipsed the Sun, and with it above the bright planet Jupiter, with it also near Uranus. Below the solar system worlds is the faint Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, visible here as a fuzzy star with a stubby tail..
On the long drive back to Alberta, with the pressure of having to make time now gone, I spent pleasant evenings stopping to see friends and family on the road home. So I didn’t start work on the complex blends and composite images I show here until I got home a week after the eclipse.
The happy eclipse chaser having bagged his game!
The 17-day-long drive was nearly 9,000 km over 100 hours behind the wheel. Was it worth it? Of course!
Would I do it again? It’s a moot question as none of the upcoming eclipses allows for a cross-continent drive. Except perhaps in July 2028 in Australia. But I suspect just heading inland a day or two over the Great Dividing Range will be enough to get away from winter coastal cloud in New South Wales. (Sydney is in the path, but so is a cottage I rented last month near Coonabarabran for my superb March stay under the southern skies!)
The next total eclipse of the Sun visible from anywhere in Canada will be August 22, 2044. I won’t have to drive anywhere, as it passes right over my house! But I will have to live that long to enjoy a eclipse from my own backyard.
I suspect this was my last chance to see – and drive to – a total eclipse in Canada.
Like all eclipses, seeing the October 14 annular eclipse of the Sun was not a certainty. As good luck and planning would have it, the sky and location could not have been better!
Annular eclipses of the Sun don’t present the spectacle of a total eclipse. Because the Moon is near its farthest point from Earth, its disk is not large enough to completely cover the Sun. At mid-eclipse, as I show below, a ring of sunlight (dubbed a “ring of fire”) remains, still too bright to view without a solar filter.
The October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse, in a single image captured at mid-eclipse, at 10:29 am MDT at the Ruby’s Inn Overlook on the rim of Bryce Canyon, Utah, a site well south of the centreline, with 3m03s of annularity.
While lacking the jaw-dropping beauty of a total, annular eclipses are rare and unique enough that every ardent skywatcher should make a point of seeing one.
Prior to October 14, I had seen only one, on May 10, 1994, from southeast Arizona, an event I captured on film of course back then.
My 1994 annular eclipse setup in ArizonaMy 2023 annular eclipse setup in Utah
A sunset annular on June 10, 2002 that I traveled to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to see was mostly clouded out. The annular of May 20, 2012 traced a similar path across the U.S. Southwest as the 2023 eclipse. But work commitments at the science centre in Calgary kept me home for that one. A sunrise annular on June 10, 2021 in Northwestern Ontario was essentially out of reach due to COVID travel restrictions.
With no other annular eclipses within easy reach in North America until 2039 and 2046, this was my next, and perhaps last, opportunity to see one, unless I chose to travel the world.
Eclipse site and pathSite close upEclipse details at my final site
I had planned for several months to watch the annular eclipse from southern Utah, ideally from Bryce Canyon National Park, shown above. (Clicking on the images brings them up full screen.) I booked accommodations in January 2023, finding even then that popular hotels in the area were already sold out.
The final spot for the wide-angle composite shown below. The camera had to be next to that very fence post to frame the scene well.
The attraction was the landscape below the morning Sun, for a planned composite image of the eclipse over the hoodoos of Bryce. However, I had learned weeks earlier that traffic was going to be restricted to just park shuttle buses on eclipse day. Should Plan A not work out then Plan B was Kodachrome Basin, a state park nearby, which a park employee assured me would be open to cars well before sunrise on eclipse day.
Seen on I-15 past Salt Lake City. Eclipse ahead!
So I made my plans to drive south, taking with me a carload of telescope and camera gear, an array I would never be able to take to an overseas eclipse. The centrepiece was my venerable Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm (4-inch) refractor, a telescope created for the 1991 total eclipse in Mexico. Since I bought mine in 1992 I’ve used it for five central solar eclipses, including now two annulars. It’s in the 1994 and 2023 site images above.
A week before the eclipse (as above at left), the weather prospects for the entire southwest looked poor. It was to be clouds everywhere. I even considered Plan S – Stay Home! And watch the 60% partial eclipse from Alberta where skies were to be clear.
But undaunted, six days before the eclipse, I headed south on Interstate 15, checking the weather each day, and seeking out Plan C sites in New Mexico or Texas south of the projected mass of clouds. I checked where accommodation could be had at the last minute.
At my stop in Richfield, Utah, four days before the eclipse, I had a crossroads turning point: either continue south to Bryce down US-89 (above), or head east on I-70, then south into New Mexico or Texas, with enough time to get there if needed.
But by now the weather prospects were turning around. By three days out, and with the forecasts now much more reliable, it looked like southern Utah would be in the clear. I continued with my original plan to Bryce. But where exactly?
TPE site overview with anglesTPE 3D showing Sun pathGoogle Earth 3D
I had looked at possible sites on Google Earth and with the Sun-angle planning apps I use (such as The Photographer’s Ephemeris, or TPE) and found one just outside the Park that I hoped would be accessible to drive into.
Upon arriving in the area three days early, the first priority was to inspect the site in person. It looked perfect! Almost too good to be true!
A panorama of the Ruby’s Inn site with the eclipse in progress. My wide-angle camera is at left by that fencepost.
The site, known as the Ruby’s Inn Overlook, provided a great view toward the eclipse with a stunning landscape below, including a river! (Well, it was actually an irrigation channel called the Tropic Ditch.) And I could park right next to my wide-angle landscape camera, to keep an eye on it over the five hours of shooting, while setting up the scope gear next to my car.
I stayed at the Bryce View Lodge on eclipse eve, a hotel just a few hundred metres from the site. So no long pre-dawn drive on eclipse morn. However, the gated site was not going to be open until 7 a.m. on eclipse day. And admission was $20 per car, a cash donation to the Bryce Canyon City school sports teams. Fine!
As it turned out, by the time I got on site and setup the priority wide-angle camera for the base-image sunrise shots at 7:30 a.m., the sky was too bright to polar align the telescope mount on Polaris, for accurate tracking of the Sun across the sky.
It turned out that was the least of my concerns.
My three eclipse cameras: the wide-angle, the one on the 105mm refractor telescope (with a smaller 60mm scope on top for visual views with a Herschel Solar Wedge), and one with a 100-400mm lens on the tripod.
As I unpacked the carload of scope gear at 8 a.m. I realized I had forgotten a crucial cable to connect the mount to the drive electronics. So the mount was not going to be able to track anyway!
So much for my plans for a time-lapse through the scope. I had to manually centre the Sun every minute or so. I took lots of photos, but gave up on any effort to take them at a regular cadence. But I had enough images for the singles and composites shown here.
This is a composite of the October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse with a sequence of six images showing the Moon advancing across a sunspot, the largest one visible on the Sun that day. The images are placed for a photogenic spacing, with time running forward from lower left to upper right, to reflect the Sun’s motion up across the morning sky.
Of course, once I got home the first thing I did was look downstairs in my scope room. Sure enough there was the cable, mixed up with the similar electronics from another mount I have from the same company, as I had been testing both prior to the eclipse. So much for my checklists! They’re only good if they list every critical bit, and if you use them.
So that was one big user error.
You don’t want to see this at an eclipse!
The other was a camera error, in fact Error70! I had set my main telescope camera to take rapid bursts of images (at up to 20 frames per second) at the crucial second and third contacts when annularity began and ended. With the Moon’s rough limb tangent to the inside edge of the Sun, you see beads of light rapidly form and disappear at the contacts.
This is a composite of the October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse at second contact. It illustrates the irregular edge of the Moon breaking up the rim of sunlight as the dark disk of the Moon became tangent to the inner edge of the Sun at second contact at the start of annularity. 15 exposures taken over 20 seconds at second contact are combined with a single exposure taken about 1.5 minutes later at mid-annularity.
The camera worked great at second contact, shooting 344 frames over 20 seconds. A composite of 15 of those frames is above, layered to exaggerate the rough lunar limb and its mountain peaks. A time-lapse from those frames is below.
A time-lapse of second contact from 344 frames over ~20 seconds.
And it appeared to be working at third contact three minutes later. Until I looked down and saw the dreaded error message. In checking the camera later, none of the third contact images had recorded to either memory card.
It is a known but intermittent bug in Canon firmware that can happen when the camera is not connected to a Canon lens (it was on a telescope it cannot communicate with). I saw the error once in testing. And I had a hard time reproducing it to take the screen shot above once I got home. But if something can go wrong …!
This is a portrait of the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse of the Sun, captured in a sequence of images taken from the rim of Bryce Canyon, Utah, from sunrise until nearly the end of the eclipse before noon local time. This is a composite blend of unfiltered exposures taken at sunrise for the landscape lit by the rising Sun, and for the dawn sky. Onto the base panorama of the ground and sky I layered in 66 filtered images of the Sun, as it rose into the morning sky, and with the Moon moving across its disk over nearly 3 hours, reaching mid-eclipse at about 10:29 local MDT at upper right. It then appears as a ring, or annulus of light for one frame.
Despite the errors both human and machine, I count eclipse day as successful, considering a week earlier prospects had looked so poor. As it was, apart from some thin but inconsequential cloud that drifted through before mid-eclipse, the sky was perfect.
As was the site. I enabled me to get the main shot I was after, the wide-angle composite, above. It’s a winner! And it accurately depicts the size of the Sun and its motion across the sky, albeit set into a twilight sky taken at sunrise.
As it had been 29 years since my last annular, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the darkening of the sky and eerie level of sunlight, despite a blazing Sun in the day sky, were impressive. The morning just looked strange! It was a taste of the total to come.
Venus at its widest angle west of the Sun was easy to spot in the deep blue sky. I regret not thinking to shoot even a phone camera image of that sight.
Projecting the solar crescents with a made-on-the-spot pinhole projection sign.
I had pleasant chats with other folks at the site, and enjoyed showing them telescopic views though the smaller visual scope I had piggybacked on the main scope, one that was just for looking through. Plus folks shot phone pix of my camera screen.
The October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse, in a single image captured at second contact with the Moon tangent to the inside limb of the Sun, at 10:27 am MDT at the site I used.
But at the critical contacts, I was glued to that visual scope for the amazing sight of the horns of the crescent Sun rapidly wrapping around the Moon at second contact, then unwrapping at third contact.
The October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse, in a series of images captured at second contact with the Moon tangent to the inside limb of the Sun, at 10:27 am MDT at the site I used. The 7 frames here were selected from a set of 344 shot in high-speed continuous mode at 20 frames per second.
The breakup of the rim of sunlight into beads of light along the cratered and mountainous edge of the Moon was also impressive. I was not at the optimum site for seeing those beads, as the landscape dictated my choice of location. But those that I saw at each of the internal contacts were a fine bonus to a memorable morning.
This is a composite that records the sequence around mid-eclipse of the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse of the Sun. This is a blend of 8 exposures each taken 2.25 minutes apart, about the minimum time to keep the disks separate and avoid them overlapping.
A third camera shooting a sequence with an untracked 400mm telephoto lens worked well. I used a subset of its images to create a still-image composite (above) and the full set for a time-lapse (below), with the position and motion of the Sun authentic, produced by the natural east-to-west motion of the sky. But against that you see the Moon’s orbital motion moving its dark disk down across the disk of the Sun.
A time-lapse from 300 frames taken at 4-second intervals with the sky’s motion carrying the Sun across the frame.
As soon as annularity ended, everyone else started to pack up and leave. For them the show was over. Understandably. On many total eclipse tours I’ve been on we’ve been on the road back to the hotel after totality and the requisite happy group shot.
Eclipse success! The trophy shot after everyone else had left.
But at this eclipse my shooting plan dictated that I stick it out. By the end of the eclipse I was the last one standing, alone to enjoy last contact and then lunch, killing time for any road congestion to diminish, as I had to head to another motel for the post-eclipse night, in nearby Panguitch.
I had a celebratory dinner and Moab-brewed beer that night at Cowboy’s, the best restaurant in Panguitch, sporting my Annular 2023 eclipse hat!
But the next day I started the drive north again, for the three-day trek back up I-15 to the border, then home.
Priority one upon getting home was to finish processing images, and to include them in a revised version of my ebook How to Photograph the Solar Eclipses. It is linked to above and here on the title. Images of some sample pages from the revised edition are in the slide show below.
Post-annular, the book’s title remains the same, but I revised the pages in Chapter 4 on planning for the 2023 eclipse with pages on “lessons learned!” And there were several!
I expanded Chapter 11 on processing to include tutorials on assembling annular eclipse composites, now that I actually have some!
Such as the composite of first- to last-contact telescopic close-ups below.
This is a composite of the various stages of the entire October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse, from start (lower left) to end (upper right), with mid-eclipse at centre. So time runs forward from left to right, with the Suns positioned to reflect the approximate motion of the Sun in the morning sky when this eclipse occured at my site, with it rising higher through the progress of the eclipse. North is up in this image.
The new version of my ebook is 20 pages larger than the pre-annular edition.
An email has gone out from eJunkie to all buyers of the earlier-edition PDF to alert them to the new version, and with a download link. Apple Books readers should get a notice when they open the book on their Mac or iPad in the Books app that a new version is available.
I suspect that will be the last revision of my ebook before the big event – the total eclipse of the Sun on April 8, 2024.
Here’s wishing us all clear skies for that one! That eclipse will indeed require a drive to Texas. This time I’ll remember that damned cable!
With the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse of the Sun only weeks or days away, it’s time to test your equipment, to ensure success on eclipse day.
On October 14 everyone in North America, Central America, and much of South America can see an eclipse of the Sun, as shown in the map below, courtesy GreatAmericanEclipse.com. The closer you are to the “path of annularity” drawn in yellow here, the more of the Sun you see covered by the Moon.
Eclipse map showing area of visibility of the October 14 eclipse courtesy GreatAmericanEclipse.com
However, for the best experience, plan to be in the central path of the Moon’s shadow. In North America, as shown in the map below, that path crosses the western states, passing over the scenic landscapes of the American southwest.
Courtesy GreatAmericanEclipse.com
Those in the main path will see an annular eclipse – the Moon will travel across the center of the Sun’s disk, but won’t be large enough to completely cover the Sun. The result, as shown below, is that the Sun will be reduced to a thin ring or “annulus” of light at mid-eclipse, but only for a few minutes.
The May 10, 1994 annular eclipse of the Sun, with a trio of eclipse rigs.
To view or photograph the annular eclipse well, you need to use a long telephoto lens or a telescope. A focal length of 400mm or longer is required to make the Sun’s and Moon’s disks large enough to show detail well.
As I show above, the lens or telescope can be on a solid tripod, or on an untracked alt-azimuth telescope mount, or on a mount that can track the sky, such as the equatorial mount on the right above. All will work fine, as exposures will always be short, just a fraction of a second.
I go into the many options for photographing the eclipse in my ebook, linked to at right. It contains thorough tutorials on how to shoot the eclipses in 2023 and 2024. In this blog I’m focusing on extolling the need to practice now, with whatever gear you own and intend to use for the eclipse.
An array of solar filers, for unaided eyes, lenses and telescopes
No matter what optics you plan to use, they must be equipped with a safe solar filter mounted over the front of the optics. For the October 14 eclipse, even from sites in the path of annularity, a filter must be used at all times. It will never be safe to look at or shoot the Sun without a filter.
And it must be a filter dense enough and designed for the purpose of aiming at the Sun. Do not use stacked neutral density filters or other jury-rigged arrangements, as other filters can transmit ultraviolet or infrared light that can still damage eyes and cameras.
The eyeglass or handheld style of solar filters are good for unaided eye views, and most are made by American Paper Optics or Rainbow Symphony. A list of recommended filter suppliers is available at the American Astronomical Society’s eclipse website at https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety. In addition, many astronomy clubs, planetariums and science centers will offer safe eyeglass-style filters they purchased in bulk from one of the suppliers above.
However, for photography through a lens or telescope you need a filter that either screws onto the lens or clamps over the telescope, as I show below.
Comparing different types of telescope filters – the Baader Mylar worked best in this test.
In my testing, I’ve found that the aluminized Mylar® (or polyethylene) type of filter – one that looks like a silvery sheet – provides the best sharpness and contrast, despite the wrinkles. The most popular type is made by Baader Planetarium, and sold by them or by other dealers and resellers.
While metal-coated glass filters also work very well, in recent years they have become hard to find, with past suppliers of glass filters switching to black polymer plastic material. While safe and good for naked-eye views, I’ve found the image through black polymer filters can be soft and surrounded by lots of light scatter when used for photography at long focal lengths.
TESTING, TESTING!
An eclipse rig under test, with dual scopes for shooting and looking
Once properly equipped, test your setup as soon as possible on the Sun. In the rig above I have piggybacked a smaller telescope onto the larger telescope, both with filters, the latter to shoot through while I look through the smaller scope, good for watching the few minutes of annularity.
The key things to test for are:
Finding the Sun (not as easy as you might think!)
Focusing on the Sun (also critical and can be tough – focus on the edge or on sunspots)
Checking for any focus shift over a couple of hours time
Determining the correct exposures with your filter
Checking for any vibration that can blur the image
Operating your camera to change settings, without vibration
Checking to see how long batteries will last
Seeing how much the Sun moves across the frame during a few minutes time
Following the Sun or keeping it centered
Making a checklist of the gear you need on eclipse day, plus any backups such as a spare battery, and tools for last-minute fixes or adjustments.
The filters from Kendrick Astro Instruments have a handy Sun finder attachment.
You want to test how solid your setup is when aimed up. Your super-telephoto lens and tripod that work great for birds and wildlife might not be as well-suited as you thought when aimed high at the Sun. Best to find out now about any shortcomings in your gear.
A series of images with an 80mm refractor and Kendrick Mylar filter shows a range from under to over-exposed.
Run through a set of exposures to see what produces the best result with your optics and filter. Even with the October 14 eclipse underway, the Sun will be a similar brightness as it is on any normal day.
At best, on eclipse day you might wish to shoot a bracketed set of exposures throughout the eclipse, perhaps a frame taken at your pre-determined “best” exposure, and two others: at one stop and two stops overexposed, to account for the slightly dimmer solar disk when it is mostly covered by the Moon in a deep partial or annular phase.
Alter exposures by changing shutter speeds, not aperture or ISO. Keep the ISO speed low, and the aperture either wide open or at some middle setting such as f/5.6 for the sharpest images.
But also check what exposures might be needed when shooting the Sun through thin clouds. Any cloud or haze will require longer exposures. And you might need to change shutter speeds quickly if the Sun goes into and out of clouds. Practice that – without introducing vibration from handling the camera.
Leave the rig for a couple of hours to test how the focus might shift, as it is certain to do, as the temperature changes through the morning or afternoon. Practice touching up the focus. People fuss over the “best” exposure, when it is poor focus that is the common spoiler of eclipse photos.
You can find more tips for practicing for eclipse close-ups at a blog I wrote for AstronomyByNight.ca.
WIDE-FIELD OPTIONS
May 10, 1994 annular eclipse in a series of multiple exposures every 10 minutes.
An alternative way to shoot the eclipse is with a wide-angle lens, but also equipped with a solar filter, as shown above. Frame the scene to include the expected path of the Sun, determined by using planetarium software such as SkySafari or Stellarium (my ebook also has charts). Take images every minute or so, then layer those onto an unfiltered image of the sky and foreground taken either before the Sun enters the frame or after it leaves it.
A test set for a composite image.
Practice that method now, to shoot images for a test composition as I show above. It layers filtered images taken at 5-minute intervals onto an unfiltered background sky image taken after the Sun left the frame.
However, composite images can be complex to plan and execute.
The partial solar eclipse of October 23, 2014 as seen from Jasper, Alberta, at a public event in Centennial Park as part of the annual Dark Sky Festival. This is a single-exposure image showing the scene near mid-eclipse with telescopes from volunteers from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and the mostly clear skies above with the crescent Sun visible through the handheld polymer solar filter.
A simpler method for grabbing a souvenir eclipse photo is to simply hold a handheld solar filter in front of the lens to dim the Sun but leave the rest of the scene visible.
Again, you can practice that now to see what exposure might be best. For this type of shot I find black polymer filters best as they are less reflective than the Mylar type.
That method, or using a long lens or telescope will work well on eclipse day no matter where you are, either in the path or elsewhere enjoying the partial eclipse, as in the example image below, also from October 23, 2014, shot with my small scope at lower left in the image above.
The partial eclipse of the Sun, October 23, 2014, as seen from Jasper, Alberta, shot under clear skies through a Mylar filter, on the front of a 66mm f/6 apo refractor.
No matter the method and gear you use, success on eclipse day will require practicing beforehand to learn what can go wrong, and what works best for the setup you plan to use. Never assume something will work!
Clear skies on October 14! The annular eclipse that day will serve as a great dress rehearsal for the big eclipse to come – the total eclipse of the Sun on April 8, 2024. That’s the event you really want to get right!
On November 11, I traveled to the near-flung corners of my backyard to observe the rare transit of Mercury across the Sun.
History is replete with tales of astronomers traveling to the far corners of the Earth to watch dark objects pass in front of the Sun — the Moon in eclipses, and Mercury and Venus in transits.
On November 11, to take in the last transit of Mercury until 2032, I had planned a trip to a location more likely to have clear skies in November than at home. A 3-day drive to southern Arizona was the plan.
But to attend to work and priorities at home I cancelled my plans. Instead, I decided to stay home and take my chances with the Alberta weather, perhaps making a run for it a day’s drive away if needed to chase into clear skies.
As it turned out, none of that was necessary. The forecast for clear, if cold, skies held true and we could not have had a finer day for the transit. Even the -20° C temperatures were no problem, with no wind, and of course sunshine!
Plus being only steps from home and a warming coffee helped!
As it turned out, the site in Arizona I had booked to stay was clouded out for the entire event. So I was happy with my decision!
For my site in Alberta, as for all of western North America, the Sun rose with the transit in progress. But as soon as the Sun cleared the horizon there was Mercury, as a small, if fuzzy, black dot on the Sun.
As the Sun rose the view became sharper, and was remarkable indeed — of a jet black dot of a tiny planet silhouetted on the Sun.
I shot through two telescopes, my 4-inch and 5-inch refractors, both equipped with solar filters of course. I viewed through two other telescopes, for white-light and hydrogen-alpha filtered views.
I was able to follow the transit for three hours, for a little more than half the transit, until Mercury exited the Sun just after 11 a.m. MST. The view below is from moments before Mercury’s exit, or “egress.”
I shot still frames every 15 seconds with each of the two cameras and telescopes, for a time-lapse, plus I shot real-time videos.
At this transit Mercury passed closer to the centre of the Sun’s disk than it will for any other transit in the 21st century, making this event all the more remarkable. That point is recorded above, from a shot taken at 8:19 a.m. MST.
Stacking a selection of the time-lapse frames, ones taken 1-minute intervals, produced this composite of the transit, from just before mid-transit until Mercury’s egress.
I assembled all the best images and 4K videos together into a movie, which I narrated live at the telescope as the transit was happening. I hope this provides a sense of what it was like to view this rare event.
The Transit of Mercury from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
We won’t see another until 2032, but not from North America. The next transit of Mercury viewable from here at home is not until 2049! This was likely my last transit, certainly for a while!
P.P.S.: And for tech details on the images and videos in this blog, please click through to Vimeo and the video description I have there of cameras, scopes, and settings.
I present the final cut of my eclipse music video, from the Teton Valley, Idaho.
I’ve edited my images and videos into a music video that I hope captures some of the awe and excitement of standing in the shadow of the Moon and gazing skyward at a total eclipse.
Totality over the Tetons from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
The video can be viewed in up to 4K resolution. Music is by the Hollywood session group and movie soundtrack masters, Audiomachine. It is used under license.
Me at the 2017 total solar eclipse celebrating post-eclipse with four of the camera systems I used, for close-up stills through a telescope, for 4K video through a telephoto lens, and two wide-angle time-lapse DSLRs. A fifth camera used to take this image shot an HD video selfie.Never before have I been able to shoot a total eclipse with so many cameras to capture the scene from wide-angles to close-ups, in stills, time-lapses, and videos, including 4K. Details on the setup are in the caption for the video on Vimeo. Click through to Vimeo.
I scouted this site north of Driggs, Idaho two years earlier, in April 2015. It was perfect for me. I could easily set up lots of gear, it had a great sightline to the Grand Tetons, and a clear horizon for the twilight effects. And I had the site almost to myself. Observing with a crowd adds lots of energy and excitement, but also distraction and stress. I had five cameras to operate. It was an eclipse experience I’ll likely never duplicate.
If you missed this eclipse, you missed the event of a lifetime. Sorry. Plain and simple.
A composite of the 2017 eclipse with time running from left to right, depicting the onset of totality at left, then reappearance of the Sun at right. Taken with the 4-inch telescope shown above.If you saw the eclipse, and want to see more, then over the next few years you will have to travel far and wide, mostly to the southern hemisphere between now and 2024.
But on April 8, 2024 the umbral shadow of the Moon once again sweeps across North America, bringing a generous four minutes of totality to a narrow path from Mexico, across the U.S., and up into eastern Canada.
It will be the Great North American Eclipse. Seven years to go!
I present my Top 10 Tips for photographing the August 21 total eclipse of the Sun.
If the August total eclipse will be your first, then you could heed the advice of many and simply follow “Tip #0:” Just don’t photograph it! Look up and around to take in the spectacle. Even then, you will not see it all.
However, you might see less if you are operating a camera.
But I know you want pictures! To help you be successful, here are my tips for taking great photos without sacrificing seeing the eclipse.
An iPhone in a tripod bracket and on a small tabletop tripod.
TIP #1: Keep It Simple
During the brief minutes of totality, the easiest way to record the scene is to simply hold your phone camera up to the sky and shoot. Zoom in if you wish, but a wide shot may capture more of the twilight effects and sky colors, which are as much a part of the experience as seeing the Sun’s gossamer corona around the dark disk of the Moon.
Better yet, use an adapter to clamp your phone to a tripod. Frame the scene as best you can (you might not be able to include both the ground and Sun) and shoot a time-lapse, or better yet, a video.
Start it 2 or 3 minutes before totality (if you can remember in the excitement!) and let the camera’s auto exposure take care of the rest. It’ll work fine.
That way you’ll also record the audio of your excited voices. The audio may serve as a better souvenir than the photos. Lots of people will have photos, but nobody else will record your reactions!
Just make sure your phone has enough free storage space to save several minutes of HD video or, if your camera has that feature, 4K video.
A wide shot of the 2006 eclipse in Libya with a high altitude Sun. 10mm lens on a cropped-frame Canon 20Da camera.
TIP #2: Shoot Wide With a DSLR
For better image quality, step up to this hands-off technique.
Use a tripod-mounted camera that accepts interchangeable lenses (a digital single lens reflex or a mirrorless camera) and use a lens wide enough to take in the ground below and Sun above.
Depending on where you are and the sensor size in your camera, that’ll likely mean a 10mm to 24mm lens.
By going wide you won’t record details in the corona of the Sun or its fiery red prominences. But you can record the changing sky colors and perhaps the dark shadow of the Moon sweeping from right to left (west to east) across the sky. You can also include you and your eclipse group silhouetted in the foreground. Remember, no one else will record you at the eclipse.
A sequence of shots of the 2012 eclipse from Australia, with a wide 15mm lens and camera on Auto Exposure showing the change of sky color.
The total eclipse of the Sun, November 14, 2012, from a site near Lakeland Downs, Queensland, Australia. Shot with the Canon 5D Mark II and 15mm lens for a wide-angle view showing the Moon’s conical shadow darkening the sky and the twilight glow on the horizon. Taken near mid-eclipse.
TIP #3: Shoot on Auto Exposure
For wide shots, there’s no need to attend to the camera during the eclipse. Set the camera on Auto Exposure – Aperture Priority (Av), the camera ISO between 100 to 400, and your lens aperture to f/2.8 (fast) to f/5.6 (slow).
Use a higher ISO if you are using a slower lens such as a kit zoom. But shoot at ISO 100 and at f/2.8 if you have a wide lens that fast.
In Av mode the camera will decide what shutter speed to use as the lighting changes. I’ve used this technique at many eclipses and it works great.
An accessory intervalometer set for an interval of 1 second.
TIP #4: Let the Camera Do the Shooting
To make this wide-angle technique truly hands-off use an intervalometer (either built into your camera or a separate hardware unit) to fire the shutter automatically.
Once again, start the sequence going 3 to 5 minutes before totality, with the intervalometer set to fire the shutter once every second. Don’t shoot at longer intervals, or you’ll miss too much. Shutter speeds won’t likely exceed one second.
Again, be sure your camera’s memory card has enough free space for several hundred images. And don’t worry about a solar filter on your lens. It’ll be fine for the several minutes you’ll have it aimed up.
Out of the many images you’ll get, pick the best ones, or turn the entire set into a time-lapse movie.
A Nikon DSLR and lens set to Manual Focus.
TIP #5: Shoot on Manual Focus
Use Auto Exposure and an intervalometer. But … don’t use Auto Focus.
Switch your lens to Manual Focus (MF) and focus on a distant scene element using Live View.
Or use Auto Focus to first focus on something in the distance, then switch to Manual and don’t touch focus after that. If you leave your lens on Auto Focus the shutter might not fire if the camera decides it can’t focus on the blank sky.
A comparison of a Raw image as it came from the camera (left) and after developing in Lightroom (right).
TIP #6: Shoot Raw
For demanding subjects like a solar eclipse always shoot your images in the Raw file format. Look in your camera’s menus under Image Quality.
Shoot JPGs, too, if you like, but only Raw files record the widest range of colors and brightness levels the camera sensor is capable of detecting.
Later in processing you can extract amazing details from Raw files, both in the dark shadows of the foreground, and in the bright highlights of the distant twilight glows and corona around the Sun. Software to do so came with your camera. Put it to use.
A 200mm telephoto and 1.4x Extender, with the camera on a sturdy and finely adjustable tripod head.
TIP #7: OK, Use a Telephoto Lens! But …
If you really want to shoot close-ups, great! But don’t go crazy with focal length. Yes, using a mere 135mm or 200mm lens will yield a rather small image of the eclipsed Sun. But you don’t need a monster 600mm lens or a telescope, which typically have focal lengths starting at 600mm. With long focal lengths come headaches like:
•Keeping the Sun centered. The Earth is turning! During the eclipse that motion will carry the Sun (and Moon) its own diameter across your frame from east to west during the roughly two minutes of totality. While a motorized tracking mount can compensate for this motion, they take more work to set up properly, and must be powered. And, if you are flying to the eclipse, they will be much more challenging to pack. I’m trying to keep things simple!
•Blurring from vibration. This can be an issue with any lens, but the longer your lens, the more your chances of getting fuzzy images because of camera shake, especially if you are touching the camera to alter settings.
An ideal focal length is 300mm to 500mm. But …
When using any telephoto lens, always use a sturdy tripod with a head that is easy to adjust for precise aiming, and that can aim up high without any mechanical issues. The Sun will be halfway, or more, up the sky, not a position some tripod heads can reach.
A re-processed version of a still frame of the total solar eclipse of November 14, 2012 taken from our site at Lakeland Downs, Queensland, Australia. This is a still frame shot during the shooting of an HD video of the eclipse, using the cropped-frame Canon 60Da and Astro-Physics Traveler 4-inch apo refractor telescope at f/5.8 (580mm focal length). The image is 1/60th second at ISO 100. This is a full-sized still not a frame grab taken from the movie.
A sequence from a movie showing the camera adjusting the exposure automatically when going from a filtered view (left) to an unfiltered view of the diamond ring (right).
TIP #8: Use Auto Exposure, or … Shoot a Movie
During totality with your telephoto, you could manually step through a rehearsed set of exposures, from very short shutter speeds (as short as 1/4000 second) for the diamond rings at either end of totality, to as long as one or two seconds at mid-totality for the greatest extent of the corona’s outermost streamers.
But that takes a lot of time and attention away from looking. Yes, there are software programs for automating a camera, or techniques for auto bracketing. But if this is your first eclipse an easier option is to simply use Auto Exposure/Aperture Priority and let the camera set the shutter speed. Again, you could use an intervalometer to fire the shutter so you can just watch.
Don’t use high ISO speeds. A low ISO of 100 to 400 is all you need and will produce less noise. The eclipsed Sun is still bright. You don’t need ISO 800 to 3200.
Even on Auto Exposure, you’ll get good shots, just not of the whole range of phenomena an eclipsed Sun displays.
Or, once again and better yet – put your camera into video mode and shoot an HD or 4K movie. Auto Exposure will work just fine, allowing you to start the camera then forget it.
Place the Sun a solar diameter or two to the left of the frame and let the sky’s motion drift it across the frame for added effect. Start the sequence running a minute or two before totality with your solar filter on. Then just let the camera run … except …
A small refractor telescope with a solar filter over the front aperture. That filter has to be removed for totality.
TIP #9: Remember to Remove the Filter!
You will need a safe solar filter over your lens or telescope to shoot the partial phases of the eclipse, and to frame and focus the Sun. This cannot be a photo neutral density or polarizing filter. It must be a filter designed for observing and shooting the Sun, made of metal-coated glass or Mylar plastic. Anything else is not safe and likely far too bright.
But you do NOT need the filter for totality.
Remove it … when?
The answer: a minute or so before totality if you want to capture the first diamond ring just before totality officially starts. Set a timer to remind you, as visually it is very difficult to judge the right moment with your unaided eye. The eclipse will start sooner than you expect.
If you have your camera on Auto Exposure, it will compensate just fine for the change in brightness, from the filtered to the unfiltered view.
But don’t leave your unfiltered camera aimed at the Sun. Replace the filter no more than a minute or so after totality and the second diamond ring ends.
The partial eclipse of the Sun, October 23, 2014, shot through a mylar filter, on the front of the 66mm f/7 apo refractor shown above (450mm focal length), using a cropped-frame Canon 60Da camera for 1/8000 second exposure at ISO 100. Focus on the sharp tips of the crescent Sun or a sunspot if one is present.
TIP #10: Focus!
Everyone worries about getting the “best exposure.” Don’t! You’ll get great looking telephoto eclipse close-ups with any of a wide range of exposures.
What ruins most eclipse shots, other than filter forgetfulness, is fuzzy images, from either shaky tripods or poor focus.
Focus manually using Live View on the filtered partially eclipsed Sun. Zoom up on the edge of the Sun or sharp tip of the crescent. Re-focus a few minutes before totality, as the changing temperature can shift the focus of long lenses and telescopes.
But you needn’t worry about re-focusing after you remove the filter. The focus will not change with the filter off.
Me in Libya in 2006 with my eclipse setup: a small telescope on an alt-azimuth mount.
TIP #1 AGAIN: Keep It Simple!
I’ll remind you to keep things simple for a reason other than giving you time to enjoy the view, and that’s mobility.
You might have to move at the last minute to escape clouds. Complex photo gear can be just too much to take down and set up, often with minutes to spare, as many an eclipse chaser can attest is often necessary. Keep your gear light, easy to use, and mobile. Committing to an overly ambitious and inflexible photo plan and rig could be your undoing.
By following both my “Ten Tips” advice blogs you should be able to get great eclipse images to wow your friends and fans, all without missing the experience of actually seeing … and feeling … the eclipse.
However … may I recommend …
My 295-page ebook on photographing the August 21 total eclipse of the Sun is now available. See http://www.amazingsky.com/eclipsebook.html It covers all techniques, for both stills, time-lapses, and video, from basic to advanced, plus a chapter on image processing. And a chapter on What Can Go Wrong?! The web page has all the details on content, and links to order the book from Apple iBooks Store (for the best image quality and navigation) or as a PDF for all other devices and platforms. Thanks! Clear skies on eclipse day, August 21, 2017.
For much more detailed advice on shooting options and techniques, and for step-by-step tutorials on processing eclipse images, see my 295-page eBook on the subject, available as an iBook for Apple devices and as a PDF for all computers and tablets.
The most spectacular sight the universe has to offer is coming to a sky near you this summer.
On August 21 the Moon will eclipse the Sun, totally!, along a path that crosses the continental USA from coast to coast. All the details of where to go are at the excellent website GreatAmericanEclipse.com.
If this will be your first total solar eclipse, you might want to just watch it. But many will want to photograph or video it. It can be easy to do, or it can be very complex, for those who are after ambitious composites and time-lapses.
To tell you how to shoot the eclipse, with all types of cameras, from cell phones to DSLRs, with all types of techniques, from simple to advanced, I’ve prepared a comprehensive ebook, How to Photograph the Solar Eclipse.
It is 295 pages of sage advice, gathered over 38 years of shooting 15 total solar eclipses around the world.
The book is filled with illustrations designed specifically for the 2017 eclipse – where the Sun will be, how to frame the scene, what will be in the sky, how the shadow will move, where the diamond rings will be, what lenses to use, etc.
Here are a few sample pages:
I cover shooting with everything from wide-angle cameras for the entire scene, to close-ups with long telephotos and telescopes, both on tripods and on tracking mounts.
I cover all the details on exposures and camera settings, and on focusing and ensuring the sharpest images. Most bad eclipse pix are ruined not by poor exposure but poor focus and blurry images – the Sun is moving!
A big chapter covers processing of eclipse images, again, from simple images to complex stacks and composites.
For example, I show how to produce a shot like this, from 2012, combining a short diamond ring image with a long-exposure image of the corona.
A final chapter covers “what can go wrong!” and how to avoid the common mistakes.
The ebook is available on the Apple iBooks Store for Mac and iOS devices. This version has the best interactivity (zoomable images), higher quality images (less compression), and easiest content navigation.
However, for non-Apple people and devices, the ebook can also be purchased directly from my website as a downloadable PDF, which has embedded hyperlinks to external sites.
I think you’ll find the ebook to be the most comprehensive guide to shooting solar eclipses you’ll find. It is up to date (as of last week!) and covers all the techniques for the digital age.
Many thanks, and clear skies on August 21, wherever you may be in the shadow of the Moon!
This is a video 37 years in the making, compiling images and videos I’ve shot of total solar eclipses since my first in 1979.
Though I’ve “sat out” on the last couple of total eclipses of the Sun in 2015 and 2016, I’m looking forward to once again standing in the shadow of the Moon in 2017 – on August 21.
If you have not yet seen a total eclipse of the Sun, and you live in North America, next year is your chance to. It is the most spectacular and awe-inspiring event you can witness in nature.
I hope my video montage relays some of the excitement of being there, as the Moon eclipses the Sun.
As always, click HD and enlarge to full screen.
My montage features images and movies shot in:
• Manitoba (1979)
• Chile (1994)
• Curaçao (1998)
• Turkey (1999)
• Zimbabwe (2001)
• Australia (2002)
• Over Antarctica (2003)
• South Pacific near Pitcairn Island (2005)
• Libya (2006)
• Over Arctic Canada (2008)
• South Pacific near the Cook Islands (2009)
• Australia (2012)
• Mid-Atlantic Ocean (2013)
Out of the 15 total solar eclipses I have been to, only the 1991 and 2010 eclipses that I did go to are not represented in the video, due to cloud. Though we did see much of the 1991 eclipse from Baja, clouds intervened part way through, thwarting my photo efforts.
And I only just missed the 2010 eclipse from Hikueru Atoll in the South Pacific as clouds came in moments before totality. Of course, it was clear following totality.
Cameras varied a lot over those years, from Kodachrome film with my old Nikon F, to digital SLRs; from 640×480 video with a Sony point-and-shoot camera, to HD with a DSLR.
I shot images through telescopes to capture the corona and prominences, and with wide-angle lenses to capture the landscape and lunar shadow. I rarely shot two eclipses the same way or with the same gear.
I hope you enjoy the video and will be inspired to see the August 21, 2017 eclipse. For more information about that eclipse, visit:
On May 9, a last-minute chase into clear skies netted me a view of the rare transit of Mercury across the Sun.
The forecast called for typical transit weather – clear the day before, and clear the day after. But the day of the transit of Mercury? Hopeless at home in Alberta, unless I chanced the prospects of some clearing forecast for central Alberta.
As the satellite image below, for 8:30 a.m. MDT on May 9, shows, that clearing did materialize. But I headed west, as far west as I needed to go to be assured of clear skies – to central BC. Kamloops in fact.
I stayed at the Alpine Motel, got a great room as the end, and set up in the parking lot away from traffic. Not the most photogenic of observing sites, but I was happy! I had my clear skies!
I set up two telescopes, above: a 130mm refractor to shoot through, and an 80mm refractor to look through. Both with dense solar filters!
Both worked great. However, low cloud prevented me seeing the Sun as soon as it cleared the eastern hills. So this was my first good look, below, at the transit as the Sun rose above the clouds.
The May 9, 2016 transit of Mercury taken about half an hour after sunrise, as the Sun emerged from low horizon cloud. Taken from Kamloops, British Columbia, where the transit was well underway at sunrise. Mercury appears as the circular dot at lower left, with a sunpot group above centre. I shot this with the 130mm Astro-Physics refractor at f/6 prime focus with the Canon 60Da camera at ISO 100. Shot through a Kendrick white light solar filter. The low atltitude added much of the yellow colouration.
There it was – the fabled “little black spot on the Sun today.” Mercury is the dot at lower left, with a sunspot group at upper right. This was the first transit of Mercury since November 8, 2006. We see only about 13 Mercury transits a century, so in a lifetime of stargazing (the Sun is a star!) even the most avid amateur astronomer might see only a handful. This was only my third transit of Mercury.
The May 9, 2016 transit of Mercury taken about 45 minutes after sunrise, as the Sun emerged from low horizon cloud. I shot this with the 130mm Astro-Physics refractor at f/6 prime focus with the Canon 60Da camera at ISO 100. Shot through a Kendrick white light solar filter.
This was the view, above, a little later, as the Sun entered more assuredly clear skies. From about 7 a.m. PDT on, the Sun was in the clear most of the morning, with just occasional puffy clouds intervening now and then.
I shot still images every 30 seconds, to eventually turn into a time-lapse movie (after a ton of work hand registering hundreds of frames!).
But for now, I’ll be content with this composite of 40 frames, below, taken at 7-minute intervals. It shows the progress of Mercury across the Sun over the last 4.5 hours or so of the event, until egress at 11:38 a.m. PDT.
This motion is due to Mercury’s movement around the Sun. A transit is one of the few times you can easily see a planet actually orbiting the Sun.
For all images I used the 130mm f/6 Astro-Physics refractor with a 2X Barlow for an effective focal length of 1560mm and the Canon 60Da camera (at ISO 100) to yield an image size with the Sun just filling the frame. Exposures were 1/250th second through a Kendrick white light Mylar filter. Yellow colouration of the solar disk added in processing.
In this composite, the disks of Mercury are not all perfect dots. The wobbly seeing conditions distorted the images from frame to frame. But I used the actual images taken at that moment, rather than clone some perfect image across the disk to simulate the path.
To wrap up, here’s Mercury Transit: The Movie! I shot several HD and zoomed-in “crop mode” movies at the beginning of the transit and again at the final egress. Commentary is from me talking live into the camera mic as I was shooting the clips. Background noise is courtesy Pacific Drive and the Trans-Canada Highway!
Enjoy, and do enlarge to HD and full-screen for the best look.
The next transit of Mercury is November 11, 2019. If you are hoping for a transit of Venus, good luck. The next is not until December 10, 2117!
A successful solar eclipse! Always a great thing to celebrate!
Today, several hundred people, including students from the nearby elementary and high schools, enjoyed views of the Moon eclipsing the Sun from Jasper, Alberta. The eclipse event in Centennial Park was part of the Park’s annual Dark Sky Festival, held to celebrate the National Park’s status as a Dark Sky Preserve.
The photo above is a long 1/25 second exposure, though still taken through a solar filter, of the eclipsed Sun dimmed by clouds. The longer exposure enabled me to pick up the clouds and iridescent colours around the Sun.
The photo below is a single exposure capturing the viewing through the many telescopes supplied by volunteers from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (Edmonton and Regina Centres), as well as capturing the crescent Sun, seen here though a handheld solar filter.
Clouds came and went over the afternoon, but when they needed to be gone, clouds cleared off around the Sun for great views of the Moon hiding then revealing the giant sunspot that was the highlight of this eclipse.
The image below, which I shot through a small telescope at 1/8000th second through a filter, shows the big spot group about to be hidden by the advancing limb of the Moon.
This event was our last solar eclipse visible from most of Canada until the long-awaited “Great American Eclipse” of August 21, 2017, when the lunar umbral shadow will sweep across the United States, bringing a total eclipse to the U.S. and a substantial partial eclipse to Canada.
A solar halo and sundogs surround the Sun on a cold winter day in Alberta.
I’m back home amid the snow and cold. The one celestial treat to such a clear but cold winter day is the appearance of sundogs and solar halos around the cold Sun.
This was this morning, with the low winter Sun above my snow-covered backyard, and the air filled with tiny ice crystals. You can see them as sparkly “stars” in the sky and in the foreground. Those crystals are refracting the sunlight and making the coloured “rainbows” on either side of the Sun called “parhelia” or sundogs. A faint halo encircles the Sun, topped by an upper tangent arc.
You can read more about halos and their origin at Les Cowley’s AtmosphericOptics website.
Here’s another view with a wider-angle lens. I’ve punched up the vibrance to bring out the fact that the shadows on such a day are not black or grey but blue, coloured by the intense blue light streaming down from the sky.
With these winter scenes, I wish all my blog fans and followers a very Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a very happy New Year. Clear skies to all in 2014!
I superimposed the actual footage of Comet ISON passing by the Sun onto a graphic simulating its predicted path around the Sun at perihelion. They match!
This is an animation of Comet ISON at perihelion. I superimposed the actual SOHO satellite movie footage, released Friday, Nov 29, onto a still-image sky background (created with Starry Night™ software) that shows the scene at the moment of perihelion, and that displays the predicted orbital path of ISON plus labels the stars.
You’ll see the star fields (real and simulated) register fairly closely (check Antares at lower left) around the time of perihelion. It’s neat how the comet follows its predicted path! Well, of course! Newtonian gravity stills rules the solar system.
But I am amazed at how well the simulation (which is done from the viewpoint of the surface of Earth) lines up with the real movie (which was taken by the SOHO satellite from the L1 point 1.5 million km away from Earth but in the Earth-Sun line).
The Sun rises into a pastel palette of sky and earth tones.
I woke up early, just at sunrise, looked outside and wow!
I grabbed the camera and telephoto and got another nice shot right from my back deck. The canola field next to my yard is proving to be a photogenic foreground now that it’s in full bloom, just in the last couple of weeks.
There was enough haze and humidity in the air to dull the Sun to a fiery orange. The range of shades in earth and sky was wonderful. It was a classic prairie scene worth getting up for.
Being able to see the horizon is why I live on the plains and not in the foothills or mountains. And certainly not in the city!
This is the “director’s cut” movie of the November 14 total eclipse of the Sun in Australia, unabridged and unedited.
I shot this movie of the eclipse through a telescope to provide a frame-filling closeup view of totality. This is the entire eclipse, from just before totality until well after. So it includes both diamond rings: at the onset of totality and as totality ends.
A few seconds into the movie I remove the solar filter which produces a flash of light until the camera readjusts to the new exposure. Then you really see the eclipsed Sun!
We got 1m28s of totality from our viewing site near Lakeland Downs, Queensland. But the movie times out at slightly less, because at several points where you hear a shutter click, I took a still frame which interrupts the movie. You can see some of those still images in earlier blog posts.
My timing was a little off, as I opened up the exposure to reveal more of the outer corona only moments before the end of totality, so the first moment of the final diamond ring is a little overexposed. During totality I was looking with binoculars, and made the mistake of going over and checking on my other wide-angle time-lapse camera. That wasted time needlessly. I should have spent more time attending to the movie camera and taking more stills at various exposures. No eclipse every goes quite as planned. Losing 30 seconds of totality in order to seek out clearer skies did cost me some images and enjoyment time in the umbra. But our experience was far less stressful than those who dodged clouds (or failed to miss the clouds, in some cases) at sites closer to or at the coast.
The original of this movie is in full 1920 x 1080 HD, shot with the Canon 60Da through the 105mm f/5.8 Astro-Physics apo refractor, on an equatorial mount tracking the Sun. I rarely have the luxury of shooting an eclipse through such extravagant gear, as I would never haul that type of hefty gear now on an aircraft to remote sites. But this equipment emigrated to Australia in 2002 for the total eclipse in South Australia and has been here down under ever since. So this is its second Australian eclipse. Mine, too!
The Sun sets in a ball of fire behind the skyline of Calgary.
For this shot on September 27 I found a spot on an overpass on the Ring Road east of Calgary to look west. Using an app for the iPad, LightTrac, I was able to locate the exact spot where the Sun would set behind the skyline, including the new 50-storey Bow Tower.
Getting the Sun big compared to the buildings means shooting from a distance with a telephoto lens. I used a 200mm and 1.4x extender here.
It would have been nice to have shot from a higher altitude but such places are hard to find east of Calgary where the land flattens out onto the prairie. However, this was a good test of the technique for lining up a rising or setting Sun or Moon with a photogenic foreground. That’ll come in handy this weekend for the Harvest Moon.
Smoke reddened the Sun and turned it into a ball of fire setting into the west.
This was Monday night, September 24, looking toward the hills in the west end of Calgary. I positioned myself on the north side of the Bow River across from the downtown core, at the top of the river valley to catch the Sun in this telephoto shot. The other camera was taking a time-lapse sequence in a wider scene with the Bow River in view.
We are certainly having some fine sunsets of late, thanks to forest fire smoke.
The day looked hopeless with not a chance of clear skies. But a small hole opened, revealing Venus on the Sun.
I had seen this sight before, in 2004 from Egypt. But my first reaction upon seeing it again, albeit briefly, was [Expletive Deleted]!!! No photos really provide the visual impression of just how enormous Venus appears on the Sun. We’re used to sunspots (and there were lots today) and some quite large. But nothing we ever see on the Sun matches the size of Venus. The eyepiece impression is of something much larger than the photos show. It’s like Moon illusion at work on the Sun.
It had been hopelessly cloudy all day in Calgary. Interpretive obligations over at the science centre (where we showed the NASA webcast from Hawaii), I hit the highway in search of a clear hole … and found one northeast of the city, one at first that seemed to be wide and stable. I stopped, looked with the filtered naked eye, then drove on seeking slightly less cloud, getting greedy! I should have stopped sooner. By the time I did stop and hurriedly set up the little 80mm refractor telescope, I had about 30 seconds for a great clean view, then switched to the camera. By the time I got it set, clouds were coming out of nowhere and thickening fast. I couldn’t shoot through the solar filter. This is a filterless shot, at 1/8000th second! Clouds provided the natural filtration. Fine! At least I got the camera focused, for a crisp view of Venus next to the clusters of sunspots, something no one alive has seen — in 2004 the Sun was virtually spotless.
So, not a view or photo under the best of conditions, but an experience I am happy to settle for. Now, I just want clear skies in Australia for November’s total solar eclipse. Please!!
This was the first significant solar eclipse in many years that I did not travel to. For the May 20, 2012 eclipse I was content to stay at home on the sidelines and take in the partial eclipse of the Sun.
From Calgary, the Moon covered about 62% of the Sun at mid-eclipse, which this shot captures, taken at maximum eclipse for us. Here, a big sunspot group is just being uncovered by the passing Moon. Having lots of spots on the Sun this day made the partial eclipse all the more interesting, though still no comparison to the annular eclipse visible over the spectacular landscapes of the southwestern U.S.
I would have been there, in the Moon’s ant-umbral shadow, had it not been for the fact that at home I am very much involved in the opening of a new planetarium and digital dome theatre at the science centre, TELUS Spark, where I work. This is a milestone event in one’s life, one I’ve had the privilege of experiencing twice before, in 1984 in Edmonton with the opening of its new science centre and planetarium, and in 1996 when we converted the old Calgary Centennial Planetarium into a then state-of-the-art tilt-dome theatre. Oddly coincidental, I missed seeing the May 15, 1984 annular eclipse in the SE United States due to the imminent opening of the Edmonton theatre. History repeats itself — a Saros cycle of science centres perhaps?
For this eclipse we conducted a public viewing session and managed to grab excellent views once clouds cleared away before mid-eclipse. Eclipse anxiety was running high leading up to and through the initial minutes of the eclipse as it looked like clouds were going to skunk us. But wonder of wonders, the sky cleared and the eclipsed Sun was revealed, to my great relief. Missing the annular eclipse is bad enough; I didn’t want to miss the partial eclipse, too!
Now, we just need clear skies on June 5 for the transit of Venus.
This is the news maker of the week, the sunspot group known as Region #1429.
It hit the headlines this past week as it let loose several intense solar flares, triggering geomagnetic storms around Earth and some aurora displays. Even as I took this shot of the Sun on Saturday afternoon, through a normal white light filter, Region #1429 was unleashing another intense flare, visible in red H-alpha light as a brilliant bright spot embedded in the dark sunspot. We can expect some more solar storms heading our way, and perhaps displays of northern lights.
The Sun is picking up in activity and there will be lots more of these headline events over the next few years, as the news media latch onto to any story that promises to wreak mayhem and chaos here on Earth. In reality, these events won’t have much effect on us in everyday life except to create beautiful auroras we can admire.
I can count on one hand how many shots of the Sun I’ve taken in the last decade that weren’t at an eclipse, or a sunrise/sunset. I just don’t do much solar shooting. But today I had to resurrect some old gear to get this shot. The Sun was putting on a fabulous show this afternoon (Sunday, June 5, 2011) with an army of huge prominences rimming the edge of the Sun. Very impressive. And looking very HOT!
After 2 to 3 years of record low activity, the Sun is picking up, returning to its normal self, with sunspots and prominences a daily occurrence. But these were especially dramatic. Each of these prominence “flames: towers tens of thousands of kilometre above the surface of the Sun. The Earth would be a dot next to one of them.
To get this shot, I created a masked composite in Photoshop of two exposures, a short 1/13s second shot to record the disk detail, and a long 1/2 second shot to record the fainter limb prominences. For a telescope I used my little Coronado PST H-alpha scope, a special scope just for solar viewing that filters out all but a narrow wavelength of red light, allowing the prominences to be seen.
Trouble is, my DSLR cameras won’t reach focus on the Coronado scope. So I dusted off the little 2003 vintage Sony DSC-V1 point and shoot camera and a Scopetronix 40mm eyepiece and “afocal” adapter, so the camera was screwed onto and looking into the eyepiece which was then inserted into the scope. I hadn’t used an afocal setup like that since the Venus transit in 2004.
It was tough to focus the stack, so focus was a bit of a guess — it was helped here with a liberal application of Photoshop’s Smart Sharpen filter! In all, it is a crude system but in a pinch it does work. Maybe I’ll have to get better gear just to take solar shots. With the Sun becoming more active, there certainly will be lots more to shoot.
The Amazing Sky 