Solar Eclipse!

[giganova]

Hi all!

What are your plans for the solar eclipse on August 21? If you haven't seen one, it will be spectacular!

In order to see a total eclipse, you need to be on the path of totality, which is the gray shaded area in the map below. Problem is, of course, that all hotels along this path have long been booked. But don't worry if you are not along the path; you will be able to see a partial eclipse from everywhere in the Continental US.

I will be in the Rocky Mountains (Sun Valley Idaho) and will look for a cool landscape with a tree in the foreground.

According to the nifty exposure time calculator below, I will set up two Leica M4s on a small travel tripod, loaded with FP4, one with a 21mm and one with a 50mm lens, will set the lens to f/5.6 and will cycle through exposure times of 1/500, 1/125s, 1/30, 1/8, 1/4 and 0.5 sec. This should give me at least a few useable images of the sun's corona and will hopefully not have the un-illuminated foreground too dark. Then I will cycle through 1/30, 1/8, 1/4 and 0.5 sec with the flash on to illuminate the foreground tree a bit. That should take about a minute, which will give me another minute or so to enjoy the eclipse with my own eyes.

 

[wolves3012]

I hope "your own eyes" will include appropriate protection, it's never safe to view eclipses with the naked eye. Hope that's not patronising you but I'd rather say it than someone pays the price.

If you're planning on 21 and 50mm lenses, don't expect to see much of the eclipsed sun in the end result - you'll need more like 500mm+ to achieve anything useful in that sense. That's not to say you can't get artistic shots, if that's your intention.

I took some shots of the 1999 near-total eclipse here, I seem to remember using a 300mm, as that was the longest I had, and a welding-goggle filter. Got a lovely sequence as the moon chipped away and "ate" most of the sun but the FL was a bit on the short side (actually, quite a lot!).

 

[css9450]

We had a partial back in 1994. I remember using my trusty Luna-Pro light meter and getting a reading that was about 3 and a half stops less than sunny bright daylight. So on Kodachrome 64, instead of 1/500th at 5.6 I was shooting somewhere around 1/250 between 2 and 2.8. I didn't shoot AT the sun, just at my surroundings. But since my exposure was correct, they look just like a normal sunny day! It was neat.

I'll probably do something similar this time.

 

[willie_901]

A session with one's favorite search engine will reveal the proper way to photograph eclipses.

As far as I know, the only way to be certain your eyes are safe is to use a ISO certified solar filter. These confrim to the ISO 12312-2 safety standard. Besides blocking visible light, a solar filter blocks UV light.

Unfortunately there are many products out there that claim ISO compliance but lack actual ISO certification. Even a compliant solar filter can be compromised by a scratch in the lens coating.

So study up and be careful.

I am a 90 minute drive from totality. I will not photograph the eclipse. Depending where we end up, there will be approximately 100 to 165 seconds of totality. I decided I want to spend all of those seconds immersed the experiemcing totality instead of fiddleing with my camera.

I am confident there will be plenty of eclipse imagary to enjoy afterwards.

 

[BLKRCAT]

But don't worry if you are not along the path; you will be able to see a partial eclipse from everywhere in the Continental US.

when is the Canadian version of the eclipse coming?

 

[pharyngula]

I am a 90 minute drive from totality. I will not photograph the eclipse. Depending where we end up, there will be approximately 100 to 165 seconds of totality. I decided I want to spend all of those seconds immersed the experiemcing totality instead of fiddleing with my camera.

I am confident there will be plenty of eclipse imagary to enjoy afterwards.

I could not agree more.

 

[x-ray]

We live in East Tennessee directly in the path. The exact center is just a few minutes south of us and We'll see a 100% eclipse. Schools are out that day and businesses are cloasing. The little town just a few minutes from us is shutting the Main Street down and the merchants are making a big event of it. Farmers are even setting up for huge cookouts and viewing area in the fields. Hotels are getting booked up too. My wife and I are going to lay back in our chairs on the deck and drink wine and enjoy good food.

In the 70's we had a ~98% here and it's very cool. Streetlites come on, the birds quit singing and the air gets calm.

I bought a filter for my 300 and 1.4 extended and some glasses. I'll see what I get. Be safe and have fun.

 

[rfaspen]

People in my town are making a killing renting out spare bedrooms. I'm unlucky to have a brother who really wants to see the eclipse.....🙂 Just kidding, it will be a tremendous experience to have my brother with me for this once-in-a-lifetime event.

I have cameras at the ready, but I plan to abandon photography if it becomes a chore. The experience is more important and there will be millions upon millions of photos after the big day.

So, I have a D700 with a 400/5.6 set up with the special filter, and a film M with a 50 (summicron), and an M240 that will probably sport the summicron 90. The Nikon will sit on a tripod, the others in my hands. The Nikon will give me those "technical" images I like, including the totality images with corona (my main objective) and the M's will give me "environmental" shots that will show enough of the sun (or moon?) to be obvious eclipse images.

During totality, no filter. Remember that. During partial eclipse, no matter how small that sliver of sun is, you NEED a filter. The sun is one powerful atomic furnace and the tiny sliver at either end of the period of totality will gladly fry your retinas forever (it will fry your Kodak Retina's too). Yeah, that does sound patronizing. Couldn't help it. I've had to deal with teenagers. Parents will know what I mean.

 

[dmr]

16 days 2 go! 🙂

This will most likely be my last opportunity to see (and to photograph) a total solar eclipse, and I've convinced myself that I will NOT miss out on this one. I've taken the day off and have "Plans A through F" in mind.

The path of totality is just southwest of me. My Plan A is a spot I've found near Lewiston, NE (translated: Middle Of Nowhere) right in the darkest of the dark.

My biggest concern is crummy weather, so I'm willing to drive a few hours into better weather if need be. I've plotted out locations from roughly Hyannis, NE to Boonville, MO, all in the path of totality, and all reachable within a few hours of drive time from me. I plan to be following the forecasts very closely over the next two weeks!

I'm considering (don't know if I'll go this far, but this is a YOLO experience!), if and only if the weather is gonna be overcast all along the path above, catching an early morning flight to a better location. For example, I can get an early morning nonstop to Portland, rent a car, and haul {expletive} into the Salem area. I've checked with our in-house TA and that flight seldom sells out and since it originates in OMA it's almost never late. Ditto with a similar early morning flight to Atlanta, drive northeast into the toolies. Both are do-able timewise.

I've picked up a 100000 ND filter (some time ago, missing the price gouging) and (please throw soft stones!) I think that in this case the correct tool for the job is one of the d{mumble} cameras. 🙂 I've been playing around with test shots and more or less settled on ISO 100, 1/500, f/11 for the partial eclipse shots. Here's one of my test shots, taken after those I posted here in another thread.

This is, of course, manual focus, using live view to compose. I've found it somewhat clumsy trying to focus on the sun, so I plan to focus on a far-far away object with the filter off and then pop the filter on. That's what I did for the shot above.

If anyone wants to play with a simulation, here's one of several out there on the Interwebs:

https://eclipsemega.movie/simulator?lat=40.225024210604964&lng=-96.40777587890625

There is a SME from NASA posting on this astronomy board who has been most helpful to me. They have a dedicated section for the upcoming eclipse here:

https://www.cloudynights.com/forum/135-north-american-total-solar-eclipse-2017/

The postings in that section appear to pass sanity checks. I've also found that there's a lot of misinformation out there. 🙁

Anyway, I'm excited about it, and look forward to seeing what everyone here (and elsewhere) has to show on that Tuesday. 🙂

 

[PKR]

I guess people are gonna get crazy?

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2017/08/07/solar-eclipse-states-natural-disaster/

 

[john_s]

I know there's lots of info out there, but wanted to mention that in one of the Ansel Adams books there is a recommendation for pyrocatechol development to control extreme contrast that you might get with an eclipse.

 

[ornate_wrasse]

I live in Oregon and the path of totality is about an hour and a half drive from here in normal conditions. I plan on driving to Albany, OR where a friend has offered to let me stay at his house. Part of the drive will be on I-5 which I expect will be full of eclipse-related traffic. The drive may end up taking many hours :-(

My daughter, who is an attorney, lives in Redmond, OR and normally it is a drive of about 20-30 minutes to the courthouse in Madras, OR where she works defending clients. On the day of the eclipse, that drive is expected to take over 5 hours! She is debating what to do as her job necessitates her being at the courthouse and she cannot take the day off as most people would do.

 

[PKR]

I live in Oregon and the path of totality is about an hour and a half drive from here in normal conditions. I plan on driving to Albany, OR where a friend has offered to let me stay at his house. Part of the drive will be on I-5 which I expect will be full of eclipse-related traffic. The drive may end up taking many hours :-(

My daughter, who is an attorney, lives in Redmond, OR and normally it is a drive of about 20-30 minutes to the courthouse in Madras, OR where she works defending clients. On the day of the eclipse, that drive is expected to take over 5 hours! She is debating what to do as her job necessitates her being at the courthouse and she cannot take the day off as most people would do.

I'd camp out, rather than having to work after sitting in traffic for hours. When I have morning appointments away from home, I leave a day early (late evening)and stay in a motel, rather than get up at 3am to drive to a 9am appointment in order to miss 2 hours of bad freeway traffic. It cost a little, but really improved my life. Work/meetings go better too.

 

[davidnewtonguitars]

In Texas in March 1970 I set up my Pentax H1a w/ a 200mm lens in the parking lot where I worked. I don't remember what preparations I made for the camera as for filters n stuff, but I got some pretty good shots of what passed for a corona, the negatives are still in a box of stuff out back. I made one of those cardboard box pinhole deals to watch it with, and passed it around to people who wandered up.
I didn't even give this eclipse a thought until my older brother called to say he needed someone to go with him to Nebraska. I'm always up for a road-trip, and I'll take snaps, but not of the sun this time.
He says all the buzz says to "plan for trouble" as the route of totality could be packed with crazies.
What film would be best if a riot ensues, or heretics are burned? Color, huh?

 

[ornate_wrasse]

I'd camp out, rather than having to work after sitting in traffic for hours. When I have morning appointments away from home, I leave a day early (late evening)and stay in a motel,

Your plan would work for "normal" times. However, every hotel, motel, camping spot and even the lawns of private homes have been totally booked in Madras, Oregon for probably a year or more.

I read that probably a million people will be coming to Oregon to experience the eclipse, an increase of 25% in a state that has a total population of 4 million.

 

[PKR]

Your plan would work for "normal" times. However, every hotel, motel, camping spot and even the lawns of private homes have been totally booked in Madras, Oregon for probably a year or more.

I read that probably a million people will be coming to Oregon to experience the eclipse, an increase of 25% in a state that has a total population of 4 million.

Suggest your daughter take a sleeping bag and a change of clothes to work? I would avoid that mess of people if possible. I've seen an eclipse or two. I wasn't overly impressed. I would rather watch a big storm.

That's a lot of people.

Have fun.

 

[willie_901]

I've picked up a 100000 ND filter (some time ago, missing the price gouging) and (please throw soft stones!) I think that in this case the correct tool for the job is one of the d{mumble} cameras. 🙂 I've been playing around with test shots and more or less settled on ISO 100, 1/500, f/11 for the partial eclipse shots. Here's one of my test shots, taken after those I posted here in another thread.

Considering how carefully you've planned for the 21st, I apologize in advance if you have a plan in place to fully protect your vision while photographing pre and post-totality scenes.

Please research for yourself the how come UV protection is essential for eye safety during all but the 100 to 180 seconds of totality. A 1000 X ND filter is useful for non-totality exposures. But, speaking for myself, I would not assume it will protect my eyes.

Solar filters that are available for photography.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

What follows is a copy of an email I got recently from a friend locally (we are in the path of totality) which some might find interesting and add some perspective. He had attached a couple of photos of the sun with this setup, but copying those into the message box here doesn't happen.
I've seen a total before, and, personally, I'm just going to watch this one, and enjoy it.
As a side note, here, as in much of the West, it's wildfire season. Which means smoke. If the eclipse were to happen today, I doubt that any of the thousands of people who booked extremely expensive hotel rooms and extravagant "eclipse packages" here 18 months ago would end up seeing very much at all. In two weeks it's anyone's guess.

Anyway, what follows is a small bit of information on how taking pictures of the eclipse is done if you're an astronomer, and it's just something you do:

I have been getting ready for the eclipse and one of the things I am going to do is to image the sun leading up to and after totality. For this I purchased a solar filter that has a 0.5 Angstrom pass band at the Hydrogen alpha wavelength where one of the prominent solar emission lies. This filter is mounted on my 85mm Takahashi telescope which rides on top of my 6” Takahashi. I bought that telescope telling my self I would use it for imaging but up to now it has just been the telescope for guiding the larger one. The camera used is a Canon 5Dmk iii which has been modified to allow IR radiation to pass through. Attached are two images. The first is one showing half the sun and there is some nice detail showing of the sun spots and waves of filaments on the surface. The second image is the same but zoomed in by 8X and there is some much higher detail which I think are spicules that make up the chromosphere top layer of the sun. To see this you may have to zoom in some more. There is a great deal of study trying to understand what causes these.
In addition to imaging with the solar filter using the 85mm telescope I will also image the sun during totality using the 6” Takahashi with no filter. It will be programmed ahead of time and I hope to get images of the corona as well as the diamond ring and Bailey’s beads that occur seconds before and after totality. The camera will be a Canon 5D Mk iv which I acquired this year.
Best, Mike

 

[giganova]

Do you think I could capture cool scenes with a 21mm lens on B&W film? Will the eclipsed Sun be too small to see that it is an eclipse?

My plan was to set my M4 with the 21/3.4 SA on a tripod, with a great scenery in the Rocky Mountains where I will be, and cycle through 1/500 sec to 1 sec exposures.

I was also wondering whether I should put a red filter in the lens. This would give pitch black skies with a B&W film but won't affect the sun's penumbra.

Any thoughts?

 

[skucera]

My house is in an area that will be approximate 99.6 totality. That's good enough for my wife, so she's thinking about drinking mimosas in the back yard and enjoying that. My middle daughter and I are slightly more ambitious, so we'll drive about 15 miles north into the totality zone.

I've seen several partial eclipses over the years, all of them above the clouds. So, in past years, I've seen the clouds darken and the street lights come on, but I've never seen the sun itself at that moment. In fact, the joke in Oregon is that if there is any sort of special astral or celestial event will be cloudy, but with any luck at all the forecast will hold and we'll have a clear sky. I'm crossing my fingers, because if it is cloudy, I'll just drink mimosas with my wife in the back yard.

I'm hoping that it is clear, because I want to put my old 500mm catadioptric telephoto to work to get a good shot of the penumbra. My Canon and Konica cameras won't be damaged by the intense magnification of direct sunlight, unlike my Leica or any of my digital cameras.

Scott