Total Solar Eclipse!
Until now, I had never experienced a total solar eclipse. I have to say… WOW! Totality is a huge difference. I’ll explain below.
I’ve experienced a handful of partial solar eclipses. During the most recent one, in August 2017, I was at work. My co-workers and I were not super organized. We did not have eclipse glasses. We had to get creative, creating pinhole viewers from cardboard so we could safely observe the eclipse. I also used a magnifying glass to project the eclipse onto the floor and wall. It was pretty neat to see the growing “bite out of the sun”. As it progressed, it got darker. We went out onto a roof top terrace, and some kind co-workers from another area of the company generously let us borrow their eclipse glasses to have a proper look - it was really neat to see!
I experienced a lunar eclipse in Washington D.C. some years ago. That was kinda fun too. At the time, I was travelling for work a lot. A fun thing I would do to make work travel just a bit better, was to go for a swim at the end of the day. I got to experience the lunar eclipse from a roof top pool. This was a really fun experience! That time, as people on the pool deck were chatting and trying to understand what was happening, it was going very poorly. I gently joined in, and offered to explain lunar eclipses. The explanation, including using my hands to help people visualize, seemed to go well, and was well received. One gentleman asked what I do for a living, and I had to chuckle. At the time, the company I worked for had eclipse in the name. He exclaimed: “THIS IS YOU!!”, as he pointed at the moon. I laughed and said no. My co-worker back home in the office said “aw, you should have said yes, you’re welcome”. That would have been very funny!
Over the years, I’ve been quite into astronomy. At one point I had three telescopes, multiple specialized cameras, and it was pretty common for me to take vacations to see astronomy related things. For example, I’ve visited Arecibo in Puerto Rico, and the Very Large Array in Soccoro New Mexico, along with many similar nerdy places around the world. In spite of this, I’d never experienced a total solar eclipse, and I had heard many times the experience is life changing. So this year, in 2024, with a solar eclipse passing through the eastern side of North America, I was NOT going to miss it!
Given my interest in astronomy, I would often have elaborate set ups for experiencing whatever interesting phenomena I was experiencing. For example, transits of Mercury across the sun, or Venus. I would set up my telescope on a carefully aligned motorized tripod, with a solar filter, and cameras, etc. It was cool to do that. But, the more effort you put into capturing something using an elaborate set up, the less it becomes about the thing you want to observe, and the more stress you inflict upon yourself. 🤣
This time, for the total solar eclipse, I decided just to experience it with my family. I wasn’t going to bring any of my fancy gear. I was just going to be there, and savour every minute.
I did have eclipse glasses - being super mega careful they were safe, 12312-2 compliant, and I carefully tested them ahead of time. The sun can permanently damage your eyes, and you won’t even notice it happening, so safety is VERY important! I also decided to bring my mirrorless camera and tripod, just in case I decided to snap some photos of totality. I was leaning strongly towards no. But I kind of liked having the option to give it a try, without any pressure.
We were planning to drive to Sherbrooke, Quebec. It had the longest period of totality and a good weather forecast, within a reasonable driving distance. As April 8th arrived, sure enough, the skies in Montreal were clear blue. We took off with multiple times what we’d need to get to Sherbrooke, and settle in. Sadly, it seemed like EVERYONE else did too! The roads were absolutely packed, and barely moving. It was super heavy traffic… even an hour east of Montreal. We did calculations, and determined that Granby, Quebec would be a reasonable compromise. It would still have more than 3 minutes of totality, so we’d stop there. Due to very heavy traffic, we were never going to make it to Sherbroooke in time.
We pulled off the highway in Granby, and headed to a Tim Horton’s (I know… my non-Canadian friends will laugh at the Canadian stereotype) for a bathroom break, and to top up our snacks. While in the parking lot, I noticed some geeky (like me) looking people talking excitedly about the total solar eclipse, both in english and french. I joined in, saying hello, and sharing that our goal was the same thing. We decided to join together, and scope out a place to observe from.
We chatted, and quickly decided to go to a random parking lot to avoid the crowds elsewhere. We set up. And then we shared in an experience like no other.
As the eclipse progressed, I decided to set up my camera and tripod. I pointed the camera down at the ground to avoid damaging its sensors prior to totality. As we got closer and closer to totality, it got darker, suddenly much colder, and birds and insects all around us started doing their bedtime songs. It was amazing!
When totality finally occurred, it was awe inspiring. Suddenly, BLINK, it got MUCH darker. The eclipse in the sky was a vivid orb. It didn’t look real! During totality is the only time you can safely look at it with unprotected eyes. Even your naked eyes could see the sun’s corona, prominences, and they were jaw dropping. Some people were in stunned silence. Some laughed, unable to find the words. Others were making inaudible sounds of awe. Woven into this was a powerful sense of camaraderie that we were experiencing something together that we would remember the rest of our lives.
Attached is my picture I took. As I shared, I intentionally left almost all my gear at home... choosing to just experience the eclipse without the stress of my scope, robotic tripod, filters, laptop, fancy cameras, etc. All I had was eclipse glasses, my smartphone with an app to announce timings of first/second/third contact, and my mirrorless camera (on a simple non-tracking tripod) to snap this picture.
Things looked good on the back of the camera screen, but all bets are off until you blow things up on a bigger screen. After a very long drive, I arrived home, and was relieved and overjoyed to see that I managed to focus properly.
The crisp black circle you can see is the moon blocking the sun. Through an absolutely incredible coincidence, the sun is 400x larger than the moon, AND 390x further away from the earth. This makes the moon appear the same size as the sun, in the sky. Every so often, as the earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the moon, their paths across our sky intersects, and we get an eclipse.
The white fuzzy circle around the moon in this picture is the sun’s corona. This is the atmosphere of very hot material around the sun. If I adjusted the settings on this picture, you' would see that the corona extends much further out, and is irregularly shaped. I wanted to show the corona, AND highlight the solar prominences - the red colour that you see. Prominences are red glowing material that are anchored in the sun, but extend some distance above its surface. Super cool!
Thank you for reading!
The April 8, 2024 Solar Eclipse - shot with a Canon R7, a Canon RF 100-400mm. lens, and a tripod.
