topic Re: Post up your eclipse pictures in Share Your Photos

Post up your eclipse pictures

theandies — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 18:14:25 GMT

I throughly enjoyed yesterdays experiance and part of my expericance was taking pictures with my camera and also with my camera mounted on my 8" Schmit-Cassigrain telescope. I had about a dozen family and neighbors in my driveway during the event and everyone enjoyed looking at the eclipse through my scope. We are in Warrenton, Va and experianced 82.7% but didn't get to see the end as the storm clouds moved into the area with about 30 minutes to go.....bummer but what an event. I can't wait until 2024!!

Here are two of my favorite shots I took. The first is a shot using my 75-300 EFS lens zoomed all the way in and manually focused. The second one is through my scope (Dang-it, I should have bought that focal reducer). Both shots were in manual mode. I probably could have messed with the setting more but I just wanted to get some shots and also enjoy looking at it thrugh my eclipse glasses. I made all the solar filters for my camera lens and telescope using Thousand Oaks Optical 12"x12" mylar solar filter sheet.

Enjoy

My "SUN" glasses!

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

TCampbell — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 18:31:47 GMT

It's always more fun with friends. I'm glad to hear you had good weather and a great time.

I traveled to Casper Wyoming to view it from totality. I could have found a closer location but weather would have been a gamble and I was hoping to improve my odds.

I did get some shots (ok, actually quite a few), but I'm on my iPad (the images are on my laptop). I'm still driving home (about 1400 miles) so I'll post them once I get a chance. I shot heavily bracketed sequences to capture the extent of the corona, prominences, etc. but that will need some processing to put all those together. Quite a few singles look good without any processing.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

theandies — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 19:08:59 GMT

Wow Tim, you sure are dedicated to drive 1400 miles. I was a little closer to totality but with kids in school and work I couldn't find the time to drive to South Carolina. Maybe in 2024!!!

Please share your shots as I'm sure they are spectacular.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

TCampbell — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 02:16:31 GMT

So the "catch" about 2024... is it's in April <sigh>.

Statistically in my part of the country... we only get about 3 to maybe 4 clear days in April. So I figure it's a 9 in 10 chance that it will be clouded out. Texas is probably the best bet for that one (or go down to Mexico).

It's unfortunate because the path of totality is only about a 1 hour drive from my house and that would have been MUCH more convenient.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

RobertTheFat — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 04:33:36 GMT

@TCampbell wrote:
So the "catch" about 2024... is it's in April <sigh>.

Statistically in my part of the country... we only get about 3 to maybe 4 clear days in April. So I figure it's a 9 in 10 chance that it will be clouded out. Texas is probably the best bet for that one (or go down to Mexico).

It's unfortunate because the path of totality is only about a 1 hour drive from my house and that would have been MUCH more convenient.

If it's only an hour's drive, you can wait for the weather forecast and then decide whether and where to go.

At my age everything depends on still being around in 2024. I was at the 1963 eclipse, but the clouds rolled in just in time to blot it out at totality.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

ebiggs1 — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 14:46:43 GMT

We were nearly in ground zero but it was cloudy and raining. OF COURSE ! I didn't even set anything up as the forecast was made several days ahead and it was spot on.

I did catch a few breaks (a camera is always close at hand) in the angry clouds with some interesting results and colors.

EOS 1D Mk IIn with 300mm f2.8 Sigma S lens. What's a little storm when there is an eclipse?

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

theandies — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:09:07 GMT

Thats a dramatic shot with the clouds. A t-storm rolled in for the last 30 minutes of the event and the sky closed up on us too. I have a few shots with the clouds. It's just nature doing her thing in the heavens and on Earth.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

TCampbell — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 14:06:05 GMT

Here are a few of my eclipse shots.

Near Corona with Chromosphere Prominences

Dimaond Ring

Chromosphere

HDR composite to reveal extended corona

These shots were taken with two different cameras.

I used a Canon EOS 60Da astrophotography camera with Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM II & Canon Extender 1.4x III mounted on a Manfrotto Tripod with a Losmandy StarLapse head tracking at Solar rate.

I also used a Canon EOS 5D III camera with a Losmandy TeleVue NP101is apochromatic refractor (540mm f/5.4) and TeleVue 2x PowerMate (effectively making it a 1080mm f/11 scope) on a Losmandy G11 mount with Gemini II (go-to module for the mount) tracking at Solar rate.

Image acquisition was handled via Solar Eclipse Maestro (by Xavier Jubier) which handles the precise timings and for each shot and scripts the exposure changes required to each camera.

EDIT: I originally used the HTML to use embedded images from my Flickr album, but noticed that the images vanished for a day, then re-appeared the following day. I'm not sure if that has to do with how Flickr deals with the files... so I removed the embedded links to Flickr and replaced them with actual inline images.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

ebiggs1 — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 17:29:53 GMT

Nice job

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

davetong — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 20:21:43 GMT

Frustratingly I saved the JPEG but not the PSD so I need to re-do this. In particular, the penultimate image of the sequence doesn't match the others. I'm not ecstatic about the way that Photoshop merged the layers, but I spend half an hour trying to do a better job and failing miserably so eventually I gave up.
Canon 70D with the kit 55-250 lens. Filter was a kids solar viewer strip taped over a 58mm mounting disk. Think I ws shooting 1/40 f5.6 iso 100. I'd have to look up the exposure for totality. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to try higher speeds, but all I could think at the time was "holy [expletive] this is amazing". Shot from Salem, Oregon.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

Waddizzle — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 22:25:58 GMT

Nice sequence, davetong. Excellent job assembling it, too.

If you have to redo it, then I would suggest putting the totality in the center, and the diamond rings along the top and bottom rows. The bottom row is fine, when it comes to the diamond rings.

I would swap the center diamond ring with the totality image at the top right. But, doing so will leave you with a diamond ring that is "backwards", so cheat and flip it.

Or, you could have the totality in the center, and diamond rings to either side of it. They do not all have to be the same size, although I would match up the sizes of the diamond rings.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

davetong — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 22:27:39 GMT

Interesting idea. I'll try it both ways and see what looks best. Thanks.

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

ebiggs1 — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 05:46:03 GMT

Excellent job!

Re: Post up your eclipse pictures

TCampbell — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 16:26:36 GMT

@davetong wrote:

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to try higher speeds, but all I could think at the time was "holy [expletive] this is amazing". Shot from Salem, Oregon.

Don't regret your results... those are great results!

Also... if you would have had the presence of mind... then you would have been staring at your camera and you'd be missing out on the eclipse. MUCH better that you experienced the eclipse.

I got multiple exposures only because I had computer software controlling all the exposure changes.

I used a program called Solar Eclipse Maestro. It uses a GPS to determine accurate time and location and it uses the eclipse prediction models from NASA to determine where the Sun/Moon should be. Based on this, it knows the precise moment when the four "contacts" should occur (C1 = Moon first touches the edge of the Sun, C2 = Moon fully covers the Sun (totality begins), C3 = Sun re-emerges from Moon (totality ends), C4 = Moon is completely off the Sun and eclispe is over.)

It's got a list of exposures that it will take relative to those moments.

My script was programmed to take a full uneclipsed sun,

Take an image at 1st contact.

Then take another shot at every 2% of coverage.

Take the diamond ring at 9 secs before C2

Take Baily's Beads at 1.5 secs before C2

Take Chromosphere exposures 3 secs after C2

Take Prominences exposures at 9 secs after C2

Take a 13 stop brackted sequence up and down during totality (for me that was 1/1000ths sec, f/8 & ISO 200 then a 1/500, then 1/250, then 1/125, etc. for 13 stops... then reverse and take the 13 stops in the other direction back to 1/1000th)

Then it does all this in reverse after mid-eclipse goiing into C3 and ultimately C4.

All this happens on auto-pilot and I don't touch the camera. The computer controls the timing of each shot and also sends the commands to the camera to adjust exposures for each different shot. All I have to do is listen for the alert to tell me when to remove the filters just prior to C2... and when the put the filters back on after C3.

I was a nervous wreck trying to make sure all my equipment was setup and tracking properly. I actually setup the afternoon PRIOR to the day of the eclipse, waited for nightfall... used the stars to perform a polar alignment and star alignment... then had everything tracking in the morning while waiting for the eclipse to begin.

But I was worried something might go wrong ... or that I'd run out of battery power... or ... whatever. Once the the eclispe began and I saw that the camera was running and all the right shots were happening at the right times, and I checked to verify that the batteries had plenty of power... that's when I finally started to relax and realize this thing really was happening.

What an amazing experience. I'll never forget it.

Next big one is 2024. It's in April -- statistically not a great month for weather. But I have to try.