Tag Archives: total solar eclilpse

Sharing the Total Solar Eclipse Wonder

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I really enjoy sharing cool astronomical events with friends and family, and I was very happy to share the recent total solar eclipse with my husband, my son, my daughter in law, her mother and brother, and her brother’s friends.

We watched the eclipse from the Autopia event at the Aerodromo de Siguenza outside of Siguenza, Spain, so there were other folks around as well.

We had been concerned about the potential for traffic between Madrid, where we were staying, and the eclipse site, so we got to Siguenza several hours early.  It was very hot, but the Autopia team gave us cold water on the way in to the site and had lots of drinks, and there were areas to sit in the shade under the trees beside the runway.  We had a great time hanging out, chatting, and playing games.  It was definitely more enjoyable to hang out with a group while we waited!

When it was time for the eclipse, I set up my SeeStar and GoPro in the line of photographers.  We had brought beach chairs for the group to sit on.

We had brought a colander from our Air B&B to use as a set of pinholes to project the partially eclipsed sun onto a surface. It took some adjustment to get it the right distance from the surface to have a good pinhole effect, but the experiment was successful and fun to show to other people.

I had brought eclipse glasses, and the event also provided some, so we had plenty.  It is truly cool to see the Moon start to move in front of the sun, and we had fun naming what the different shapes look like – cookie bite mode, banana mode, fingernail mode, fin mode.  It was interesting to hear what names the other people in the group came up with.  I had noticed in previous solar eclipses that it hits a point where you really feel like you can see the Moon as a sphere, and I had that sense again here.  

As totality neared, and it got darker and darker, it was fun to comment on what we were seeing.  When totality occurred, it was wonderful to express and hear others express amazement – seeing Venus, seeing the sun’s corona, seeing a pink prominence.  

My personal motto is “Find Wonder and Share It.”  This was definitely a shared wonder day.  

And it was definitely a better experience for being shared.

Have you shared any wonder recently?

One Eclipse, Four Cameras: Lessons Learned

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Now that I’ve processed data from four different devices from the total solar eclipse, here are my lessons learned:

SeeStar:

– For air travel to see an eclipse, I would absolutely take the SeeStar again; it worked great as a travel telescope.

– I was too conservative on when to take the solar filter off the SeeStar; I should have taken the solar filter off a little earlier to get the diamond ring/Bailey’s beads effects going into totality.  

– While it worked well to use time lapse mode with 2 second intervals approaching/after totality, I should have switched to video mode to get more frames per second just before/during/just after totality.  Or just used video for the whole thing, assuming there is enough memory space on the SeeStar.

– I should have adjusted the exposure differently for totality.  Looking at the images in PixInsight, I can see that the bright spots are overexposed, so the prominences lost their hot pink color.  

– There might be a way I could have programmed the timing of all that in advance so that all I had to do on the day was remove/attach the solar filter at the right times; I plan on investigating that before we do this again.

GoPro:

– I would absolutely take the GoPro again; it worked great to capture the wide field.

– I would set up the GoPro and be aware of where it was so I didn’t end up standing in front of it.

– I would have set the exposure to be brighter so that during totality the view was a little brighter.

Panasonic LUMIX and 12-60 mm lens:

– I would absolutely limit my lens choice again, and I would again choose the wide angle lens and let the SeeStar/telescope capture the close up view.

iPhone:

– As I did this time, I would limit my use of the iPhone to panoramic views.

What gear would you carry?

Which was your favorite?

Viewing the Total Solar Eclipse from Siguenza, Spain with a Panasonic LUMIX camera and a 12 – 60 mm lens

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I had deliberately limited myself to a single, wide-angle 12 – 60 mm lens for my travel camera, a Panasonic LUMIX DC-GX9.  I didn’t want to waste time swapping lenses during totality, and my goal, like with the GoPro, was to capture the wider field, trusting the SeeStar to capture the eclipsed sun itself.

Nevertheless, the first temptation was to image the eclipsed sun.  And, unlike the SeeStar, the image wasn’t saturated, so the hot pink solar prominence on the left side of the sun showed as hot pink, although with a 60 mm lens, there wasn’t a lot of detail.

Then I followed my plan and took pictures of the eclipsed sun with the landscape.  I took some with the 12-60 mm lens set at 24 mm, capturing Venus as well as the eclipsed sun in one of them.  Venus was about 50% illuminated, so it was a half-moon shape, although again with this lens there was not a lot of detail.

I also took some pictures with the 12 – 60 mm lens set at 60 mm.  Venus was out of the frame for this one.

As the Moon moved away from blocking the sun, I stopped taking pictures … until sunset, when the sun was clearly a crescent and then a fin as it set behind the mountains.

What an amazing sight.

Which view do you like the best?

Camera geek info:

  • Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF7 set at f/5.6, 15 second exposure, ISO 1600
  • LUMIX G VARIO F3.5-5.6/12 – 60
  • Corona image: 60 mm, ISO 200, f6.3, 1/40 sec exposure
  • Widefield image: 24 mm, ISO 3200, f8, 1/40 sec exposure
  • Widefield image with Venus: 24 mm, ISO 200, f6.3, 1/40 sec exposure
  • Normal image: 60 mm, ISO 3200, f8, 1/13 sec exposure
  • Sunset images: 60 mm, ISO 200, f14, 1/50 sec exposure