The Eclipse Conspiracy

Great photos Tany. Love the detailed corona you captured.Could you share your photo specs: lens size, filters, exposure times?I had a 70% eclipse near Buffalo, New York. I thought a 70% eclipse would have been darker, but it was still very interesting.I'll get another chance in 2024 when Buffalo will experience a 100% eclipse. BTW, I was at Buffalo's Burchfield Penny Art Center recently. A photo artist presented oversized photos (about 5 feet by 3 feet?) of an orange-ish moth. The "fur" around the neck/head looked like the mane from a lion. The detail was jaw-dropping phenomenal, right down to the individual "hairs." Of course I thought of your wonderful photos. I took a quick photo, I will post it on the forum and see if you recognize the artist's work.Edited by dronestar, : No reason given.

Hi Tany,Sheesh Louise, that's impressive photo equipment. I had hoped to just scotch tape some mylar film to my Kodak Disc camera to get the exact same results you are getting. Errrm, guess not.Seriously, about the solar filter, is it like the mylar eclipse glasses we all responsiblyused? Or something completely else? Do the images you posted need to be retouched at all? Thanks for sharing your photos, they are appreciated.

Greetings,Here we go again . . .I am lucky to live in the path (western New York) of next monday's solar eclipse. I experienced the last partial eclipse in 2017, but it was only 50%-70%. I am greatly excited that this time will be 100% totality for about four minutes!I hope to take some bracketed photos for a minute of the total eclipse, but even if appearing unsuccessful, I will try to just watch and experience the rest of the event sans camera.The only thing left to do is pray to the sun god, the god above all gods, Ra, source of all life and all power, and hope He blesses us with good weather. (Ra, did I ever tell you that your were my most favorite god. Errrm, nice tie you got there, been working out? It shows)Anybody else in the path of the eclipse?

(it's difficult to see, but this emoticon is using solar glasses)If the weather permits, I can can cross one of two natural phenomenoms I've always wanted to experience, off my list:1. total eclipse
2. Northern Lights

Hey Tany,I read your other interesting entry. So this will be eclipse #4 for you? Wow. This will be #1 for me.As I understand it, the "quality" of the eclipse/corona will depend on: variable distance of all three bodies, the weather, solar activity, and ???Therefore I presume your photographic results from three events are all very different? Or not so much?

"Got those two bagged"I'm envious.Living in Western NY, whenever there is a major solar flare that is reported, the northern lights are sometimes reported as far south as Pennylvania. About five years ago, I was watching the late night news and they reported such an event. I begged my girlfriend to drive north with me but she was too tired. So I gave her my best guilt a catholic upbringing could give me, and she relented. Of course it was winter, so after driving an hour north through snow to get the best darkness, we waited outside for 30-60 minutes in the shivering darkness. Should have brought some hot chocolate with a little peppermint schnapps. Errrm, with a lot peppermint schnapps.And of course, . . . there was no northern lights. I just used up my one guilt trip that I will never get back again. Rats.My travels often had me flying near the arctic circle. My face would be hard pressed against the window, . . . but the lights in all their majesty and glory would never show themselves to me.*sniff*

Envy!

Thanks for the invite. Just a head's up, I've accepted similar invitations on a whim.I have two friends who just last month went on a tour to see the lights in Northern Canada. There was no guarantee they'll see them, but the odds with this date were supposedly high.I haven't heard their report yet, . . . their silence may be telling.

Wow, many thanks for the detailed info and recommendations Tany.Your recommended settings will capture a super wide gamut of light. Is this necessary because the corona requires an extended captured range, or is it for the safety-net of capturing such an extreme event?I have an older Nikon D7000 that disappointingly only shoots 3 bracketed shots at a time. When traveling, I often shoot in this mode for most of my shots, as I hate it when I blow-out highlights or can't retrieve shadow info.I don't wont to photograph throughout the entire totality, I do want to experience the event mostly sans camera. So with only a minute to spare, I think I should practice with the camera before the event so I wont get flustered. (Sheesh, I'm already panicking. What was that ASA? Why is the histogram so dark, . . . oh, . . . right, . . . forgot to take lens-cap off)Again, thanks for the tips, especially the one about the possible cloud dispersement at the end.

Okay, THAT was cool!Of course the Buffalo region, always trying to snatch defeat from victory, ("wide right", "13 seconds", "no goal", blizzard of 77 & 22") . . .The morning started out depressingly with heavy clouds. It looked like it might rain. The overly-optimistic weather forecasters did everything they could to keep the money-gouged tourists in Buffalo. But if the weather forecasters were honest they should have told the city to empty out and go south to the clear Ohio region. However, getting on the thruway yesterday morning with a potential million other motorists was not a good risk.So I bunkered down at the local park with my tripod, camera, solar glasses, grape soda, cheddar combos, lawn chair and some deep philosophic reading material . . . "Bigg'uns". 50-100 people also showed up, I am happy that I will be sharing this experience communally.The clouds thinned out just enough for the sun to peek out for a few furtive seconds between cumulus. Okay, maybe this won't be a complete disaster. Like staccato'd images from an animated cartoon, I saw the sun slowly being eaten by the dragon, as the Chinese reported millennia ago. But will the clouds be "so" generous for the 'big reveal'? After an hour of this maddening on-again, off-again strip tease, the last small tip of sun ray disappeared from atop the firey circle. And then . . . darkness. As in . . . nothingness. I've read the totality was gonna be dark like dusk, but the heavy clouds made this darkness appear like midnight. "Um, . . . mister sun, where'd you go?" 5, 10, 15, seconds go by, nothing. Oh crap. I quickly got a big pit in my stomach, "This event is passing me by." Why has my most favorite god, Ra, forsaken me?" Another five seconds go by. Just as my emotion of crestfallen reached its eleventh power, . . . suddenly, THERE IT WAS, the bright ring wrapped around the moon! The crowd cheered loudly! My eye's adjusted to the image. What's that red stuff on the bottom, . . . solar flares? Really? I clumsily took control of the camera, and took a bracketed set of images. A quick look at the histogram showed blown-out highlights, CRAP! This is what I didn't want to do, but now I had to fiddle with the camera. I did one quick re-set, and then told myself, whatever I get, I get, no more chimping. The image continued to disappear and re-appear in the next two-three minutes. It was not a great way to view this event. The strain of it possibly not re-appearing was panic-inducing. But the last minute, I just sat back in my lawn chair and enjoyed this marvelous wonder of nature.Yeah, totally worth it.Thanks for your photo tips Tany, considering the pressurized challenges, I did get better than average photos. I've since read that to get really good coronas, one needs to shoot with infra-red. I'll somehow share the photos with the forum.There is a place called "Frog Orgy Ravine" an hour's drive north from me. It would have been fantastical to hear the spring peepers suddenly chorus during the totality. Well, maybe next time.Would love, LOVE to see this again. I have friends in Spain and the eclipse will be there in 2026? Hmmm.

Imgur: The magic of the InternetMy Imgur photo isn't being automatically linked and shown on the forum. Not sure why, you'll have to click to the image, sorry. [ I added a width and that seemed to fix the problem. But it shouldn't need a width, so I've got a possible bug to look into. --Admin]I think the heavy cloud cover reduced the corona effect.My older Nikon camera was too slow to capture, then process, then save bracketed/burst-mode-picts of very dark images. I liked the effect the rim-lit clouds had on the over-exposed images, but then the moon rim light was too overexposed. However, when I tried to stack all of the bracketed images into one image in an app called Bracketeer, the large movement of the moon and clouds in between exposures made it unsuccessful.If there is a next time, I would:
1. Use faster ASA1000
2. Use an even bigger, heavier, and more stable tripod
3. Use mirror lock-up to ensure the very least amount of camera vibration
4. Capture more extreme bracketed exposures
5. Use larger lens, 500-1000mmHowever, because the total eclipse event is so incredibly short, I think I can improve the experience by not using a camera at all.

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During the recent total solar eclipse, you may have glimpsed what looked like explosive solar flares bursting from the sun after its fiery corona briefly came into view. But it turns out this was not the case. There were no solar flares during the eclipse.

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"There are many (incorrectly) reporting that a solar flare was visible during the total solar eclipse," Ryan French, an astrophysicist at the National Solar Observatory in Colorado, wrote on the social platform X. "This is sadly untrue, and the bright feature seen by millions was actually a prominence. These are longer-lived plasma structures, and not explosive like flares."

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Unlike solar flares, which eject plasma as they explode from the sun's surface, prominences are plasma structures that remain connected to the solar surface for days or weeks, normally forming a large loop, according to NASA. Prominences can eventually snap and fling plasma into space like a CME, but this didn't happen during the eclipse.

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No, you didn't see a solar flare during the total eclipse — but you may have seen something just as special

Would be awesome to view the total solar eclipse AND then the aurora borealis in back to back months!However, I've been burned before, chasing these northern lights. But, like the lure of the siren's song, who among us can resist?Be safe, make sure you wear authentic borealis glasses.

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May 9: "Experts say the aurora might be visible this Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights . . . and get away from city lights. The best aurora is usually within an hour or two of midnight (between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. local time). Auroras could be visible as far south as Alabama.

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Northern lights this weekend? Auroras could be visible as far south as Alabama.(Okay Tany, what are your perimeters for photographing this event?)

Thanks for the photo tips, the bhphotovideo site was particularly helpful.Unlike the short photographic duration of the total eclipse, hopefully this event won't have me racing the clock.I found the following scientific website that shows the intensity of light pollution across the world. You can zoom into your location, and maybe it will help provide the closest location with least amount of light pollution near you. In the tiny box on the top right, try clicking both "nightlights" and "night sky business":http://xjubier.free.fr/.../solar_eclipses/xSE_GoogleMap3.php

Anybody get good photos/experience?Yeah, I'm also seeing incredible photos on the web. The photos might be enhanced, but it seems the aurora is even showing near bright areas.All for thee, . . . but not for me . . .Friday night was nearly bust for me. For darkness and getting light reflections in the water, I drove up to the NY Lake Ontario shore. Unfortunately, way across the lake, there was still a LOT of light spill from Toronto. But the worse thing was the cloud cover, 95-99% cloud cover. Groaaan. In between clouds, I photographed some very, very small splotches of purple and green light that my camera picked up (better than my naked eye). But hardly profound. I'll upload photo later. But they reported that the lights would continue to be seen on Sat and Sun, so I wasn't too disappointed, . . .Sat night, rain was everywhere. (The sun god Ra is still punishing me. Talk about grudges, . . . will someone tell me what I did to deserve this?!) So didn't try at all.Oh uh, MAYBE one more chance on Sunday night . . .As of right now, they say Sunday night still has good possibility for northern states to see the lights IF the sky is clear. Its currently rated as "G4," with potential G5 later. This time I'll go east between Buffalo and Rochester. The light maps show this area as pretty dark.Not taking any chances, I am pledging my soul to Ra, and offering my first three offsprings. He'll have to allow it because I will have the most sincere photo patch, . . . and he respects sincerity.(I'm doomed)