Solar Eclipse

Last month my wife and I made our fourth attempt at seeing a total solar eclipse and were finally rewarded with some (nearly) clear skies. These were taken about 80km inland from Port Douglas.

1. The partial phase with a couple of sunspots.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/stevetla/830961​9316/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/stevetla/830961​9212/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/stevetla/830856​7073/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/stevetla/830961​8924/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/stevetla/830856​6959/

Wow! Thanks for the explanations of all the shots. The science geek part of me really enjoyed that. Stunning shots!

wow that is awesome!!! great photos!!!

The solar corona... bloody marvelous!!!

The solar corona is really impressive.

Excellent work. I am glad that your perseverance was finally rewarded. These are quite stunning!

Wow, they are just amazing! Great explanation as well. I'm glad you finally got there, you are certainly dedicated.

Excellent shots, Steve!

And congrats on seeing totality finally! We were a little bit inland from Port Douglas, it looked for sure we were going to be clouded out but things worked out in the end. It was a beautiful eclipse.

I've still never seen one in totality. I've seen three partial which is interesting, but somehow lacks the awe of totality. Wonderful captures mate.

Baz.

Awesome shots Steve, congrats! I couldn't get out of Sydney, but did setup my gear to attract all the clouds away from Cairns, haha.

How did you go getting your gear across? Any issues travelling with it? What did you use?

Thanks for the comments folks. We're already studying up for the one in the US in 2017.
Daniel - Long time no hear. Thanks for helping with the clouds. I bought a PST just before we went and deliberately left it at home for that reason.
We spent a fair bit on baggage. Mostly because we combined it with a 10 day dive trip (Truk Lagoon) so we shipped the astro stuff back home before we carried on. That was a bad idea but there's an eclipse in 2016 which passes by some great dive destinations so I'm not sure that we've learned anything.

I used a Super Polaris mount (light weight, good tracking and runs all night on a 9V battery) mounted on some aluminium legs from a cheap alt-az mount. The camera was a 50D with a Sigma 500mm f/4.5 and controlled by a netbook running SETnC.

We also took a little ST80 refractor on its own tripod, just to look through. I haven't done that before but I am so glad I did. Don't tell the wife, but if it was a choice of that or photographic gear, I would opt for the visual.

Steve.

Incredible photo work Steve, congrats on a job extremely well done. How dark did it get, was it like a moonlit night?

SteveInNZ wrote in post #15407752
Last month my wife and I made our fourth attempt at seeing a total solar eclipse and were finally rewarded with some (nearly) clear skies. These were taken about 80km inland from Port Douglas.

5. The solar corona is the outer atmosphere of the Sun that is too faint to see without an eclipse. The energetic particles stream out from the sun and get twisted and shaped by the complex magnetic fields.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/stevetla/830856​6959/
5_Corona by stevetla, on Flickr

Steve.

Now this one is awesome and you should send it to APOD !

Celestron wrote in post #15432111
Now this one is awesome and you should send it to APOD !

I agree!

What were your settings on these?

Nighthound wrote in post #15432098
Incredible photo work Steve, congrats on a job extremely well done. How dark did it get, was it like a moonlit night?

Thanks Steve. That's one of the peculiar but spectacular parts of it. The ambient light drops off quite a lot in the last 5-10 minutes before totality and your eyes start dark adapting but you don't notice it as such. You just see the colors change a bit, as if you are looking through polarized sunglasses. The last bits of Bailey's Beads and Diamond ring are like having a really bright Venus in the sky and when they go, it's like someone turns on a light behind the moon/sun and the corona just leaps out at you. It's hard to say what the ambient light level is actually like. Perhaps a moon that's a few days old.
We were in a bit of a valley for this one. On a couple of previous ones we had good views of the horizon and the majority of the ambient light came from outside the eclipse shadow.

If you get the chance to see one, it's well worth doing. The only thing that I can liken it to is the Grand Canyon. We've all seen countless pictures of it but when you stand on the edge of it, you can't help but be lost for words.

Celestron wrote in post #15432111
Now this one is awesome and you should send it to APOD !

Thanks Ron. It's a bit late now and they've already had a few good ones from this eclipse.

Toxic Coolaid wrote in post #15432186
I agree! What were your settings on these?

The corona shot is a conglomeration of six sets of exposures, each set having 11 exposures from 1/1000 to 1 sec. All are at ISO100, f/4.5 (because that's all the lens can do without giving Err99 on the camera).