My View of the eclipse
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 1:38 pm
Hi everyone...
Well, the eclipse is the better part of a week behind us now and finally made it home and have made up a bit of a mosaic of the eclipse. We (wife, teenage kids, and I) travelled across several states during the week prior to the eclipse eventually spending 3 days in the Rockies in Colorado. We left Colorado Sunday to meet up with a good friend and fellow astronomer who drive straight form Ontario.
Although the skies were somewhat overcast with moderate cirrus the sky was clear to the north of our Hotel in Kearny Nebraska so we were not overly concerned for the drive to Raveena NE about 30 miles to the north. We arrived at the golf course where I had arranged to view the event, and had crisp blue skies. The course manager provided spaces to park, unload all the astro gear, golf carts to haul it to the hill top by the 1st green (highest point on the course) and there were a lot of trees to take shelter from the heat, washroom, and a kitchen in the clubhouse too. Prior to totality they had 400 people in the course to view...mostly just using various eclipse glasses. My friend Gord and I were the only ones with much of a telescope setup and we had a steady stream of people coming to get a look as we moved to wards totality.
The images in the mosaic were taken through a William Optics 70mm scope and a Canon 60D. I also grabbed a few images in Ha as the event was under way using the Lunt 75mm etalon/B1200Ha filter set with the ZWO1600MM camera on a William Optics 70mm scope mounted beside the other. Here is a snap of me getting setup.
I grabbed images through the DSLR as the eclipse progressed...no particular timing was followed as I was busy with family and visitors stopping by for views. I selected a few to show the sequence from early eclipse, through totality, and almost to the final contact of the moon. We did have small thing patch of cirrus blow through just prior to totality but it had little effect on the views.
This was my first total eclipse, and it was an amazing experience. Even my family that were somewhat skeptical of the effort to get there were impressed (and to have the 2 teenagers admit that was pretty impressive 
).
That's it for now...on to processing images captures since we got home, and out do some more in a few minutes.
Take care,
Brian
Well, the eclipse is the better part of a week behind us now and finally made it home and have made up a bit of a mosaic of the eclipse. We (wife, teenage kids, and I) travelled across several states during the week prior to the eclipse eventually spending 3 days in the Rockies in Colorado. We left Colorado Sunday to meet up with a good friend and fellow astronomer who drive straight form Ontario.
Although the skies were somewhat overcast with moderate cirrus the sky was clear to the north of our Hotel in Kearny Nebraska so we were not overly concerned for the drive to Raveena NE about 30 miles to the north. We arrived at the golf course where I had arranged to view the event, and had crisp blue skies. The course manager provided spaces to park, unload all the astro gear, golf carts to haul it to the hill top by the 1st green (highest point on the course) and there were a lot of trees to take shelter from the heat, washroom, and a kitchen in the clubhouse too. Prior to totality they had 400 people in the course to view...mostly just using various eclipse glasses. My friend Gord and I were the only ones with much of a telescope setup and we had a steady stream of people coming to get a look as we moved to wards totality.
The images in the mosaic were taken through a William Optics 70mm scope and a Canon 60D. I also grabbed a few images in Ha as the event was under way using the Lunt 75mm etalon/B1200Ha filter set with the ZWO1600MM camera on a William Optics 70mm scope mounted beside the other. Here is a snap of me getting setup.
- set-up.jpg (1001.04 KiB) Viewed 5634 times
- Eclipse-Composite.jpg (1.24 MiB) Viewed 5634 times
- Sun_L_170729_RS.jpg (407.4 KiB) Viewed 5634 times
- Sun_L_174449_RS.jpg (129.29 KiB) Viewed 5634 times
).That's it for now...on to processing images captures since we got home, and out do some more in a few minutes.
Take care,
Brian
