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!

Anticipation

Well we are down to less than a week now until the "Great American Eclipse" happens. Lot of planning has gone into this one - from scouting venue and getting a room reservation 18 months in advance to reading lots of articles. Even some dry runs due to all the technical tools and software I'm going to try to use in order to both view the eclipse as well as photograph it.

At first I was not sure that driving to Nebraska was the very best decision, but given the tools I'm wanting to take it has been making more sense as the weeks unfolded. And of course seeing things like Hertz cancelling people's car reservations and screwing their plans also validates my desire for control!

I continue to pray for good weather - it started off looking iffy 10 days out but it seems to be slowly improving. I'm sure if it is a matter of a couple hundred miles shift I'll be up for that on eclipse day but really hoping Nebraska comes through as a clear sky venue so I can relax and enjoy the event. If it works out it will have been 47 years, 5 months, and 14 days between my first eclipse in 1970 and this pan-American event!

Jupiter in the Lion's Den

Jupiter is just such a fun, friendly target. Big, bright, and dynamic it is a consistent performer. For me from the vantage point of my driveway this apparition amid the stars of Leo is fast running its course - the giant planet will soon be lost in the neighbor's oak by the time it emerges in the twilight.

So after my successful Mars imaging the next clear night I opted to try to grab a session with Jupiter. And it did not disappoint - right there lining up for a transit was the Great Red Spot! It probably transited around 9:31 pm EDT on the evening of June 14th, which interestingly was off compared to the one on-line prediction I could find (what's up S&T - why did you ditch your calculator?)

I also did a little eye time after the videography. The spot was pretty dark, a bit more red than in prior years. But for certain it has shrunk - it's clearly evident compared to how it looked a decade ago. Will it still be there in another 30 years? Hopefully the arrival of Juno soon will shed some light on the dynamics of this long lived Jovian storm.

Jupiter June 14, 2016 9:30 EDT

Mars Finally Poses

Mars has to be one of the most fascinating objects. Shy in that it only lines up for a good appearance once every couple of years, and then only for a few weeks. Even then the disk is small, requiring study to tease out the details.

But then the effort pays off - albedo features, ice caps, dust storms, clouds - no other planet offers such an array of Earth like features. This spring in late May Mars came to opposition in Scorpius - but the weather had been pretty overcast and wet. Added to that was Dave & Laura's wedding, so Mars would need to wait!

In a sad moment of hurried home repair I backed into my venerable 6" Dynascope and managed to snap loose the finder scope from the OTA. I was crushed, but at least the scope was still serviceable. So the first week in June I get the opportunity - set the scope out, get the laptop and video camera - somehow manage to target Mars without a finderscope. But wait - where's the USB cord? Noooo!! Nothing but bad luck, Mars holding on to its secrets.

Amazon shopping that evening for a good USB cable. And then - the laptop dies - or more accurately the fan in the laptop dies. More opportunity slides by as I await my repair, the red planet all the time receding from its closest approach.

Finally the conditions align again - a clear night, USB cable, laptop, everything I need. This time despite a tense moment when the video camera was not recognized at first I pull it off, reeling off a string of AVI files. Even on screen I can make out the polar cap in the south and various albedo features - looks like Mare Acidalium there hugging the polar region.

The Registax works its magic, and I am delighted with the outcome. All the effort is worth it - I have an image that is far and away my best ever of 4th rock from the Sun. Now if the weather cooperates maybe I can score one more session before Mars recedes too far to make details discernable! That's the problem with an addiction, you always want that next hit.    

Mars - June 10, 2016 10:45 EDT

Mercury Transit - 2016

When I noticed earlier this year that the US east coast was in a good position for the May 9th transit of Mercury I made sure to put some placeholders into the work schedule - before work and around lunch time. One of the best perks of having a WFH ability is to take advantage of stepping away for an hour to run some errands - or catch a transit of the Solar System's innermost planet. A couple weeks prior I had purchased a filter for the Vixen (which has the added bonus of being yet another piece of paraphernalia in the tool chest for the August 2017 eclipse). However, we were in quite the rainy/overcast mode for weeks before so it seemed as though it'd be a missed opportunity.

The forecast indicated that the prospects would be best in the morning and then likely steadily deteriorate. The transit was due to start at about 7:10 a.m. with the Sun only about 10 degrees above the horizon. That would be challenging given the horizon.

I set up the Vixen and got the camera ready a little before 7. The sky had some clear sections but it looked like it was going to gradually worsen with high, thin clouds moving in. At first it seemed that a position just outside the front door would work, but the window of opportunity between trees proved to be inadequate. Finally the sunlight breaking at the end of the driveway guided me to a spot where I had a reasonable chance to observe for 20-30 minutes.

By the time I got the Sun targeted the transit was underway. And what a blank looking disk Sol exhibited - just one unimpressive sunspot formation to be seen. And there, at about the 11 o'clock position, was that unmistakeable circular pinprick of a shadow. I ran off multiple shots at a range of exposures, then spent a little time inspecting the minute ball using the 20mm eyepiece.

During the time I had multiple neighbors ask what I was up to, and the clouds carried out their threat to occlude the event so that by 8:30 I was back at my home office desk and ready to start the day. This is one of those events that is hardly spectacular yet for an astronomy wonk something you want to catch, highlighting the scale of our Sun compared to one of the smallest planets.

Mercury - tiny dot at about 11 o'clock

A Harvest Moon Eclipse

With this month's lunar eclipse favoring the east coast of the United States - the Moon well above the horizon at mid-totality before midnight on a Sunday evening - I was hoping for some clear skies so that I could put the 80mm Vixen through its paces. However, the weatherman had other ideas. I kept checking every 15 minutes or so once the eclipse had started shortly after 9 p.m. but conditions were overcast.

Finally a little before 11 p.m. I saw one or two postings on Facebook from folks who were saying they could see something. I stuck my head out the window and sure enough the clouds had broken up enough to reveal a coppery Moon hanging high in the eastern sky. While not practical to set up the Vixen I grabbed the camera, telephoto lens, and tripod and headed for the back yard.

Lunar Eclipse in Pisces with High Thin Clouds

The view was fantastic - a fairly dark eclipse I would say, with a color range from darkish red-brown to the copper colored edge nearest the limb of Earth's shadow. I really felt at home with the DSLR this time in manual mode, firing off a range of photos and adjusting them based upon the near instant feedback displayed on the LCD. The clouds continued to try to take back possession of the evening but not before I was able to secure a few memorable shots.

The one thing that I have to say - I am so tired of all this "Super Moon!!" junk in the papers and social media. And the fact that we had a "super" Moon undergoing eclipse - well one would think that it was as rare as a Venus transit. It was a great eclipse to be sure, but the slight difference in the Moon's size as it was near perigee was more of an academic footnote than of any real visual consequence.