SolarChat!

I drove around 2700 miles round trip to experience this amazing natural wonder. Just about everything that could go wrong did, but I persevered. I could never get my Quark to work. My mount never stayed connected to my computer, so I had to follow the sun manually (by hand). A couple of my widefield cameras burnt through my batteries before the eclipse even started (I was trying to do time lapse). I lost the sun on all three of my long lenses at totality (the filters really work). I ended up grabbing my favorite setup (Nikon D810a with Sigma 150-600 with 1.4 teleconverter) and hand holding totality until I could put the filter back on. The totality image was pretty much straight out of the camera with a yellow filter on (It was supposed to be used with the Quark). The same setup was used for the images in this composite. I must have been a sight running between three cameras on tripods.

That was the most amazing experience that I have had in decades!

Looks good Dave despite the difficulties.

I feel you pain, Dave. I also experienced technical difficulties with my scope mount suddenly acquiring a mind of its own and going haywire, zipping around to the right several times as totality approached. I had to stop and reset everything from scratch.....talk about stress! My DSLR also kept stopping when running on time lapse, so I was running between it and my scope/laptop trying to keep everything up and running and on track all the time whilst the moon made its relentless approach to occultation.

Despite your challenges, you still managed to get some good images. Nice.

Stu.

Love the collage.

Chris

I am actually encouraged to hear that others struggled in the tense moments as I did.
Here is what I was endeavoring to do:

Use an Ha telescope to get images of the partial phases
Use a long telephoto lens to get bracketed exposures of totality. I have a special application on a laptop to control the camera programmed to the 1/10 sec for unmanned operation.
Timelapse video of the entire event. One frame every ten seconds until just before second contact. Straight video during totality with a range of exposure values. Then back to the interval shooting until C4
A multiple exposure image with an ambient exposure during totality
Two GoPro cameras; one aimed at the sky, the other aimed at the activity on the ground
One iPhone video capturing activity on the ground

Here is what happened:

The Ha scope worked as planned until totality when my guidance battery died and I had to re-aim the scope manually after that
The program operating my telephoto was set for the wrong GPS coordinates. So the timing was off by almost one minute and I only got three usable frames of totality. And focus was less than perfect.
The timelapse video worked well until the guidance battery died and my image drifted wildly. The straight video of totality was quite rough, and out of focus
The multiple exposure shot was aimed poorly and the ambient exposure during totality was too dark
The GoPro video was not nearly as dramatic as I expected
The iPhone video looked pretty noisy

For the most part, I failed on every front.
I'm looking for redemption in Chile in 2019.

Randall Benton

Wow, you certainly had some issues. But the results are great!

Oivind Tangen
60N 10E

Thank you all for your kind words!

I hope you saw the eclipse I can just imagine you dashing about and cursing and forgetting to look up. That sounds like a huge task, I don't think I could coordinate all that in normal circumstances. Did you do a full length dress rehearsal beforehand?
That is still an amazing shot and the presentation is just super, at least you managed these treasures and the memory will be with you forever

Alexandra

Some nice shots Dave despite the technical headaches.