“I’ve never been a big fan of astronomical events: there are just too many meteor showers or planet transits to keep up with, and a slightly larger Moon just doesn’t do much for me. But I have completely shed my cynical attitude regarding the upcoming total solar eclipse,” Loren Grush writes for The Verge. “The more I learn about it, the more excited I am to see it — and to photograph it. I’ll be heading down to Nashville, which lies in the path of the eclipse’s shadow, so I’ll have the opportunity to get an incredible snapshot of the Sun completely covered by the Moon.”
“I consider myself an amateur photographer, but I’ve never tried taking pictures of celestial events before, and I’ve never even witnessed an eclipse,” Grush writes. “So I turned to a self-proclaimed astrophotographer Justin Starr to give me some tips about how to best snap a picture of the Sun — before, during, and after totality.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s the U.S. map:
(click for larger image)All of the Total Solar Eclipse 2017 info, including, locations, times, live video stream, and much more available via NASA here.
I’ll be in a lake smack in the middle..get to see optum whilst drinking a beer on the water.
cool, we are having an eclipse party…around 94% total here.
Botty, the difference between 94% and totality is literally day vs. night. You’re so close. Go for it.
I’d have to go to St. Louis…lol, no thanks. I’ll just stay here and squint my eyes.
This will likely be the single most photographed event in human history and 98% of the shots will be garbage taken with smartphones.
Anti-Planet X conspiracy theorists will be out there doing two things during and after the eclipse: Using super glue to adhere tin foil hats to their skulls and poo pooing every sighting of possible PX or its trailing moons historically recorded on clay tablets as the Winged Globe, Sumerian (Nibiru) and Babylonian (Marduk).
When I heard there was to be a total eclipse in northern Australia a few years ago, I booked a flight right away (granted, a three hour flight from where I live). I did not regret it.
A total eclipse is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. Please, if you have the time and means, make the trip to somewhere along the path of totality. You’ll thank yourself for doing it.
Want to have a vacation, avoid the crowds and get some fishing in at the same time?
Land Between The Lakes. Watch the eclipse from your boat and avoid the Bullshit- it is right within the window.
If you are a Pilot there is a muni airport right in the center of the 70 mile total eclipse band.
To be honest just drive on any highway the path is going through and pull over at the critical moment. The band is 70 miles wide, so it should not be that hard to navigate. The totality runs about 2 minutes give or take.
In Hopkinsville Kentucky they are charging people $30 a pop just to park. If you are Military or retired you can go to Fort Campbell- home of the 101st Airborne Division- nearby and enjoy the eclipse on base. Park at the PX or Commissary.
From my locale (Memphis Metro area) I will go somewhere between SE Missouri to Nashville. I-40 is a straight shot east of Memphis and I-55/57 is a straight shot North. Check the weather so you do not drive to an overcast.
In 2024 another will travel South to North from Texas through Arkansas on up north. The I-30 Corridor from Texarkana to Little Rock will put you in totality then. Anything north or west of 30 will be the sweet spot.
The pilot thing is in Missouri
It it gonna be a total S**t show here in Oregon. The small towns that are in the total zone are expecting vover 1 million people. Farmers are renting out camp sites and making tons of money. You won’t be able to easily drive in and out. 30 minute normal drive through expected to take hours (2 lane highway). My city is in the 99% zone but I’m driving 30 miles north to be in the 100% zone. I have to go the day before and camp –that’s going to suck but it will be worth it.
It’s possible to get great results using stuff you probably already have. When we had a total eclipse in south west England in 1999, I photographed it by clamping a pair of binoculars ( keep one lens covered – a telescope would be better ) on a four foot length of 2×4 mounted on a tripod and projected the sun’s image onto a white card glued to a plywood sheet supported on the other end of the beam. Any camera can be used to photograph the image on the card.
Two major advantages of this arrangement are that you can easily move the rig to track the sun, which moves faster than you might think ( for pedants – I know it’s really us moving and the sun less so ) and multiple people can observe and photograph the image while it’s happening.
Because you’re not fitting any special lenses or filters onto your iPhone, you can instantly with between taking hugely magnified images of the eclipse itself and wide angle shots of the landscape in darkness.
Obviously you must never look at the sun through the binoculars or telescope, but there’s no need to as the projected image is very clear once you get everything roughly alined and then you can tweak focus and positions for optimum results. You can try it out a few days before the eclipse to make sure it all works as expected – you don’t get long during totality, so you need to be sure of what you’re doing and work fast.
I’ve subsequently used the same technique with my iPhone to photograph unusual sun spot activity. You can easily get an image of the sun which will pretty well fill the screen of an iPhone using this technique.