Did any of you notice the solar eclipse in the US last week?  Here at Central Florida Photo Ops HQ we certainly did!  And even though the full moon covered “only” ~85% of the sun, it was still an awe-inspiring show.

Our experience in Winter Springs started with heavy rain and thick cloud cover, but the sky quickly cleared and from then on we had an amazing view.  I put together this time-lapse movie with ten photos I made at about ten minutes intervals :

To set up my camera, I first focused manually on a very distant tree and taped down the focus ring.  Then I spent some time figuring out exposure so detail on the sun’s surface would show.  The sun is really bright!  I put two stacked neutral density filters in front of my lens to cut the light by about 11 stops.  I ended up shooting in manual exposure mode at ISO 64, f/16, and 1/1000 sec at 800mm equivalent focal length.   For insurance, I also bracketed around that base exposure.  Luckily there were a few sunspots to see:

Sunspots on the surface

We had two other roving photographers on assignment to help document the eclipse.  Kevin McKinney was in Orlando south of us.  He noticed the sun shining through a tree and made the photo below.  Small openings between the leaves were acting as pinhole lenses and focusing multiple images of the crescent sun on the ground.  I’m glad he noticed this, I didn’t think to look:

Eclipse 2017 – thanks to the trees.  ©Kevin McKinney, 2017, all rights reserved.  Used with permission.

Howard Thomas (our other roving photographer) braved scarce hotels and huge traffic jams to report from Santee, South Carolina along the path of totality.  He made these next three photos:

The Sun’s atmosphere is 300 times hotter than the surface.  A total eclipse is one of the best ways to study the corona.  ©Howard Thomas, 2017, all rights reserved.  Used with permission.

Total eclipse and the star Regulus (upper left corner – click to see larger).  ©Howard Thomas, 2017, all rights reserved.  Used with permission.

Baily’s beads, or the Diamond ring effect, is visible during a total solar eclipse. The rough terrain on the edge of the moon allow beads of sunlight to shine through in some places. ©Howard Thomas, 2017, all rights reserved.  Used with permission.

Eclipses are fun to think about.  They’re such a huge coincidence!  The Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, and the Sun is 400 times farther way.  So they’re the same apparent size in the sky – that can’t be very common in the universe.  We don’t see one very often because the Moon’s orbit tilts with respect to Earth’s orbit around the sun.  And since the moon is slowly moving away from the earth, the geometry will be ruined after another billion years.

You can click on any of these photos to look at larger versions.  I hope you were able to see this stunning event and get some photos of your own.  If not, the next one in the US is in 2024.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog.  Now – go be amazed by rare natural phenomenon.  And make some photos!

©2017, Kevin McKinney, Howard Thomas, and Ed Rosack. All rights reserved