eclipse


Eclipse Report, Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a0nZAFfcEI&feature=youtu.be The above video is one of three that I captured during the eclipse.  This one uses a “white light” solar filter and is fairly wide angle, as it was intended to show the extended corona (and some nearby stars) during totality (more on that later).  The second was shot with my H-alpha solar telescope and is much more “close up”.  That one needs a lot of processing, since each frame of the movie requires processing hundreds of frames to produce a good image.  The third one is essentially useless.  In the not to distant future I hope to add […]


Eclipse Report, Part 1

You may have heard that the total solar eclipse caused some major traffic jams in Oregon.  I managed to avoid most of that by traveling to the Oregon Star Party (OSP) on Aug. 15th and returning very early on the 22nd.  That is, I left at 5AM.  Apparently, very few people are willing to get up early to beat the traffic, so I managed to get out of the path of totality (where most people were) while they were still sleeping. I have only a vague memory of a solar eclipse when I was a kid, and it probably wasn’t […]


Welcome to 2017, Year of the Solar Eclipse

Ignoring politics (which seems like a wise thing to do), the biggest news item for 2017 just might be the total solar eclipse that will be visible across almost all of the U.S. on August 21st of this year.  I plan to write fairly often about all things solar this year, and post at least a few solar images – especially after the new solar telescope arrives in a few months. I had hoped to get at least one new image captured before the end of 2016, but it didn’t happen.  We had one clear night recently, but I was too busy […]


Lunar Eclipse

On December 10, 2011 we had a total Lunar eclipse starting at about 4AM. A lunar eclipse is when Earth comes directly between the Sun and the Moon, so the Moon is in our shadow. Although it is much dimmer than the Moon is normally, it is still easily visible, being illuminated by light coming around Earth. The orange color is due to the refraction of light through Earth’s atmosphere. This is the same effect that makes the sky appear blue to us here on Earth.  Scope: AT111EDT at f/5.6 Mount: AP Mach1GTO Camera: QSI 583 Exposure: LRGB (single frame, […]