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Post up your eclipse pictures

theandies
Enthusiast

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

 

Cresent Sun.JPG

 

Cresent Sun.JPG

 

home made filters.jpg

 

My "SUN" glasses!

 

glasses.jpg

13 REPLIES 13

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.

--------------------------------------------------------
"The right mouse button is your friend."

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

Excellent job!

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!


@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.

 

Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
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