A Crowning Achievement

NASA tweeted a link to an article today that takes a look at how scientists fared in predicting in advance how the Sun's corona would appear during the Great American Eclipse this summer using data from NASA resources. The corona (Latin for crown) is the star of the show, the ethereal white light that emerges round an occulted Sun. This super-hot atmosphere of our nearest star is dynamic, being shaped and sculpted by the strong magnetic fields emitted by the Sun.

Scientists used magnetic field information from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory to arrive at the prediction. It was far from a trivial model - the "simulation required thousands of processers and took about two days of real time to complete"!

Below was the best guess by Predictive Science, Inc. Below that is my image of the corona, a combined shot using HDR software to bring out the full details. If we rotate the prediction counter-clockwise a bit it really does give a pretty good outline of the shape we saw on August 21st - well done folks!

First Cut - Images of Solar Eclipse 2017

I'm like a kid on Christmas morning - I have over 150 images of the eclipse to play with, probably half of those taken during totality. It should keep me entertained for many cloudy evenings!

I spent part of my rest day at Scottsbluff looking over the treasure trove and played with some to place on Facebook and to send off to S&T. Once I get with my friend Steve Stewart (who is a digital photo pro in my humble opinion) I should have more great pics to display here. I am especially eager to work with him to generate an HDR of totality given I have some bracketed shots of the corona. The challenge with digital editing in my opinion is to enhance the shot without straying into fiction. Right now the Internet is awash in fanciful renditions of the eclipse with golden Diamond Rings and red hot prominences. And that's OK so long as you let people know it's an artistic creation - otherwise you set people up chasing unicorns at the 2024 eclipse.

So - without further ado - first takes of the Great American Eclipse!

The Sun is reduced to a thin crescent as we count down to second contact. Some sunspots are visible near the 8 o'clock position

The gorgeous Diamond Ring emerges as the Sun struggles to shine its light in the face of the advancing lunar limb

Totality! The corona splendor on full display

Third Contact - the Moon slips off the face of the Sun in this shot. Prominences and Bailey's Beads are highlights to the view.

Success!

Praise be to God - I have been able to witness the Great American Eclipse of 2017 from the Guernsey State Park in Wyoming! It was an incredible experience under nearly perfect conditions. I'll edit this entry or post supplements later when time permits to detail the entire, fabulous experience!