Solar eclipse in continental USA August 21, 2017

I got some good pics. I will post them soon.

Wonderful. Looking forward to them.

I'm at BNA right now waiting for our flight home.

My eclipse pictures

I can only upload in batches of 5 pictures and I have a bunch, so it may take several batches. I was at work when the eclipse occurred so I ran outside every so often to snap a pic or two. I am posting them in the order they were taken. The first pic is before the eclipse began, the last pic was almost near the end, and everything in between in the order from beginning to end. I used 3 layers of Mylar sheeting for my filter, and during the totality, I used a bare lens. All shots with the Canon T5, using a 300 mm lens, Manual focus and Manual settings.

Continuing on.........

And more ...........

And the last of my bunch

Nice pics of the total eclipse! Wish I could have seen that here.

However, all I have to do is live long enough and I will get my chance on August 12, 2045.

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2045-august-12

I'll be 95 years old, so I hope Connie doesn't mind pushing my wheelchair outside for me.

I just took a look at the still pics I took, and I think I had them in focus. At least as good as I could get them, I guess. But I did have to chuckle, as at the time that the moon covered as much of the sun as it was going to do, it looked like a big fat smile up in the sky. Kind of reminded me of the Cheshire cat in Alice and Wonderland.....

There is another total eclipse in 7 years (2024) on the western USA. You could catch that one if you were willing to hop a plane and travel a bit.

Wow Karl. Those are beautiful! That's what I saw.

I put together a video from the shots I took yesterday. I used the Nikon P900, which ONLY captures video in 15 minute segments, which can be a pain to have to deal with. So I not only had to be monitoring the screen the entire time to make sure the "subject" was more or less centered on the screen, but I had to keep track of the time countdown on the camera to make sure 15 minutes hadn't elapsed and the video had stopped recording.

Had some trouble with intermittent clouds rolling in to obscure the sun/moon all throughout the eclipse, but I was able to get most of it captured on video. I actually lost about the first 45 minutes or so of the eclipse because the clouds were just too dense to even see the sun. When I finally could see a glimpse of the sun, I put the ND2000 filter on, as I thought I was going to have highly obscured views of the sun for the duration. But things started to brighten up, so I put on the real solar filter I had.

I also discovered that the AC adapter for the Nikon P900 doesn't really run the camera, it just provides a charge to the battery, but not enough to keep the battery charged while capturing video continuously. I discovered this when the camera just died without warning, and had to run back over to the house to get a spare battery. So I lost some footage then, too.

Anyway, this video is longer that I would have liked it, but not too bad considering I was taking video for about 3 hours and I actually would have liked to post all of it. I don't get to see many solar eclipses, and it's entirely possible that this will be the last (of only two) that I will ever see. But from the number of views I typically get with my YouTube videos, obviously things that interest me don't interest many other people.

Video was taken at 1080P using a Nikon P900 with a Seymour solar filter (except one section using a ND2000 filter), on a Sky-Watcher Allview motorized mount and tripod. I didn't really get the hang of the best way to do manual tracking with the mount till towards the end, but honestly, I really don't have much experience with tracking solar eclipses, so this was sort of OJT for me.



https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=km1rRjXPHMI

When I was planning on taking video of the solar eclipse, one thing that had me worried was that with the high temps that day and the black bodied camera sitting in the hot August sunlight, there was a real good chance the camera would overheat and maybe trigger a thermal shutdown. So I needed some way to try to block the sunlight from striking the camera body directly.

I found a white plastic lid off of a bucket that looked like it would be the right size, so I used a 3 inch hole saw to cut a hole for the lens to fit through, and this seemed to do the job perfectly. Sure, kind of a kluge, but it did the job.

Beautiful video, Rich. I like the music you put with it, too. The clouds moving across the sun actually made it a more interesting partial eclipse. In retrospect, the color of the sun through your Seymour solar filter is the same color that I saw through my eclipse glasses. I do find it more pleasing aesthetically to see the sun as yellow orange during the partial phases. As to the sun shade for your camera, that's very clever! Where we were in Tennessee, the sun was searing hot until the sun was about half eclipsed. If it was that way where you were, that shade was an absolute necessity.

Thank you. When I was watching the video myself, I felt that the clouds and even the motion of the camera I had to do to keep the sun/moon in frame added a little bit to the video that I really didn't expect. I thought it all would be disorienting and distracting. But instead it helped keep me awake watching it.... :laugh:

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't grab a section of the video I took that showed some small object transiting the sun during the eclipse. But I sure don't look forward to going back and viewing all that video frame by frame to find it again. But I do have to admit I'm curious to look more closely at it.

And another benefit of that sun shade I kluged up, it made it easier to see the view screen, and probably helped me to keep the video more in focus than out. There are a few spots with soft focus I noted, but over all I was surprised that I didn't really flub this. Probably if I had brought my reading glasses out there I could have done better. Maybe next time...

I hear you on the reading glasses! You'll get another chance in 2024. Though you might want to travel a little closer for this one. Totality will be closer to me in 2024 and now that I've been bit by the bug I have no doubt I'll stake out a spot on the centerline and hope for good weather.

https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/april-8-2024/


I think you did a great job with it especially since you didn't have any specific eclipse photography training. You certainly handled the challenges of battery replacement gracefully.

We know the ISS transited during the eclipse, but I wonder about the time frame of that since I saw that picture during the NASA presentation that finished just about the time the eclipse started for us in Tennessee. I would love to see that footage when you find it. In the mean time, I've subscribed to your YouTube channel so I don't accidentally miss anything.

Thanks again for your efforts. While I decided to just experience it without fiddling with my phone or other camera, I appreciate your and also Karl's efforts immensely.

I couldn't imagine doing something like that back in the 35mm days. Can you imagine being on pins and needles the entire time waiting for the developed film to come back, not knowing if you just completely flubbed it or not?

Photography and videography is so easy these days. Comparatively speaking, of course. And in relation to "getting the shot", of course. Not necessarily in the context of the quality of the material or the presentation. I'll tell you, I watch some YouTube videos, and you have to wonder what in the world those people were thinking to publish that stuff. Use a damn editor to take out the parts that are just a waste of everyone's time to watch! Even if it is your own mind deciding whether to upload the entire thing or not.... oke:

Of course, this has me wondering how many people think the same thing about some of the stuff I have "published" over the years... :face_palm_02:

Rich, I'm so old I remember people's slide shows and 8 mm films! Talk about things that needed editing!

It is so easy these days comparatively speaking, though getting good photos is still difficult. I take lots of bad ones so I can get a few good ones!

As for YouTube, I have no problem skipping ahead to see if there is something of value. That goes for some semi-professional videos as well that have been edited. I'm not always interested in the subject matter or things drag. That's the beauty of video on demand. I don't have to sit there and watch it if it bores me.