13 replies to this topic

[Nicole Sharp]

The photos of the Annular Solar Eclipse are finally online.  Links to Flickr are below.

 

https://www.flickr.c...77720312084363/

 

https://www.flickr.c...77720312084363/

 

These are all licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike so feel free to reuse them however you like within the terms of the license (you must provide attribution and reuse under the same license).

 

I will work on getting the photos of the Partial Solar Eclipse uploaded to Flickr next.  Photos were taken in 1-second intervals so altogether there are 10,407 photos of the Solar Eclipse including both the partial and annular phases.  There are 287 photos of Solar annularity, with maximum eclipse at 10:43:38 AM MDT (image #2807 from set 2, linked above).  Equipment used was a Sky-Watcher SolarQuest Solar autoguiding mount with an Omegon MightyMak 1000/90 Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, Astrozap Baader AstroSolar ND100000 film filter, Baader low-profile T-adapter, Astromania extension tube, Celestron Canon T-ring, Canon RF to EF adapter, Canon EOS R10 mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera, Vello Canon intervalometer extension cable, and Phottix Aion intervalometer.

 

I am still a bit confused about the location as to whether these should be properly tagged as "Bensing Park" instead of "Jefferson Elementary School" for the area near the basketball court north of the school parking lot.  This was within 170 meters or 560 feet of the eclipse centerline as predicted by IOTA Occult.

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Edited by Nicole Sharp, 20 October 2023 - 09:47 PM.

[Alan D. Whitman]

I'm glad that your long trip was a success with the weather, allowing you to see the annular, as you had long-hoped and planned to do. But eclipse-chasing is not only about the eclipse; it is also about traveling to see new places that you want to experience. Great that you got to experience the beauty of the arid West which is so much different than Maryland.

[Nicole Sharp]

I'm glad that your long trip was a success with the weather, allowing you to see the annular, as you had long-hoped and planned to do. But eclipse-chasing is not only about the eclipse; it is also about traveling to see new places that you want to experience. Great that you got to experience the beauty of the arid West which is so much different than Maryland.

 

Yes, definitely.  So many things went wrong for this trip.  I wasn't able to try out the rented mirrorless camera before the eclipse so I ended up accidentally only getting JPG images without any RAW files but I think it's okay since I was capturing at 1 FPS so there is hopefully enough data even for some stacking maybe.  I'm still trying to figure out how to make a timelapse video of the eclipse.  Ideally, you shouldn't plan an eclipse trip without a "plan C" where if everything goes wrong for the eclipse at least there is something else in the area that is worth sightseeing before you go back home.  I did this for the June 2021 Partial Solar Eclipse.  A lot of things went wrong then too, including arriving late so the eclipse had already begun when I arrived.  But I still had a lovely time exploring scenic Presque Isle and I'm happy to return to Erie (Pennsylvania) again in April 2024.

 

I only had three days in New Mexico since I flew in instead of drove but it was quite an experience.  It will take a few years to pay off the vacation loan for the trip (Pennsylvania in April 2024 is a lot closer to Maryland than Texas or New Mexico) but maybe I can go back to New Mexico in a couple of decades.  I had very little time at the International UFO Museum and Research Center to make it back to Carlsbad/Loving by Sunset so would like to drive back one day and maybe camp out at Mescalero Sands for the annual UFO festival in Roswell.  It will be less scary going back a second time since I've already been there now and know what to expect with the sandy terrain and unpaved roads.  There were people camping out all along the eclipse path around Roswell at Salt Creek and Mescalero Sands.  The museum itself is a "tourist trap" like everyone says but the real value is the research center and library with lots of source material and live experts available on ufology.  It would be nice to have a few days there just to sit around in the library reading books and discussing ufology with local experts without burning money each day on a hotel and rental car.

 

Even with just three days in New Mexico, I was able to get quite a few things crossed off my bucket list: visit a desert, visit a UFO museum or UFO research center, visit ground zero for a nuclear detonation, and see an Annular Solar Eclipse.

 

I was also able to get Chicago-style pizza in Chicago which was cool.  With three connecting flights, I was able to visit New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Maryland all in one day.

 

A big thank you too to Avis who apparently gave me a free upgrade on the economy rental car.  Zooming around the New Mexico desert in a brand-new Dodge Charger with yellow racing stripes definitely made the trip more fun and memorable.

Edited by Nicole Sharp, 21 October 2023 - 10:18 PM.

[Nicole Sharp]

I got the location figured out.  I was actually at "Jefferson School Park" which is adjacent to both Bensing Park and Jefferson Elementary School.  It is confusing because they have two different parks next to each other.

 

https://www.hobbsnm.org/parks.html

 

I am curious to see if anyone got photographs from Del Norte Park in Hobbs.  Del Norte Park is further out from the centerline so should not be as perfect of an annulus as I saw from Jefferson School Park but I don't know if the displacement is significant enough to be visually apparent.

[Nicole Sharp]

Partial Solar Eclipse photos are uploading now but it will take at least 7 hours to upload at 1 megabyte per second (4 gigabytes per hour).

 

Advice for April 2024: the Sun is becoming out of focus by about 3/4 of the way through the eclipse after the telescope is cooled down during Solar annularity and then heated back up as Solar noon approaches.  So, need to set alarms to go off 1/4 of the way through the eclipse and again 3/4 of the way through the eclipse to recheck the focus.

 

Even at maximum eclipse, I like that you can still see a Solar facula on the "Ring of Fire".  A Sunspot would have been more distracting but Solar faculae are fun to look for since they are more subtle.

 

It is easy to forget that these are spheres (or spheroids) instead of just discs.  I'm not sure if it is an optical illusion, but it appears that Luna isn't completely darkened so that you can see some Sunshine on the Lunar surface (a limb brightening instead of a limb darkening).

Edited by Nicole Sharp, 22 October 2023 - 12:21 AM.

[Nicole Sharp]

Using unfamiliar/rented equipment for an eclipse means more things can go wrong.  There was some kind of file corruption or camera error and I am missing a few files.  One of the videos from the International UFO Museum comes in as 0 bytes (unrecoverable) and there's about 286 images (out of 10,120 images) missing from the Partial Solar Eclipse.  Nothing is missing or corrupted from the Annular Solar Eclipse at least other than not having the RAW files.

 

I think I broke Flickr too.  Have to upload in chunks of 1000 images each to avoid a failed upload.

 

I recommend getting a brand-new SD card for April 2024 since the flash-memory cards only have a limited number of writes/rewrites before they eventually fail.

[SteveInNZ]

One of the videos from the International UFO Museum comes in as 0 bytes (unrecoverable)

Maybe you saw something you shouldn't.
Queue X-Files theme tune ..... Just sayin'. 

 

Steve.

[Nicole Sharp]

Maybe you saw something you shouldn't.
Queue X-Files theme tune ..... Just sayin'. 

 

Steve.

I did capture at least three UFOs during the Solar eclipse, but I'm pretty sure these are just bugs flying past the front of the telescope :-P .

 

These types of small blurry objects can usually be safely classified as IFOs since if they are out of focus then they have to be closer than the hyperfocal distance of the telescope at infinite focus which means they are mostly likely Terrestrial animals (typically flying insects) and not mysterious aircraft or anything further out away from the telescope.  An airplane will usually be in focus if it is far enough away to appear small compared to the angular size of the Sun.

Edited by Nicole Sharp, 22 October 2023 - 08:12 PM.

[Nicole Sharp]

Maybe you saw something you shouldn't.
Queue X-Files theme tune ..... Just sayin'. 

 

Steve.

 

The mirrorless Canon R10 is supposed to be able to record videos over 30 minutes in length but if this has to be enabled in the camera settings I might have missed it and resulted in a failed recording.  Otherwise might just be file corruption.  I actually did get a new SD card for the Annular Solar Eclipse but it was already in the old DSLR camera and I forgot to swap out the cards.  The fact that 286 other photos during the Partial Solar Eclipse also mysteriously disappeared seems to indicate some kind of corruption or possible camera error.

 

When I was at the International UFO Museum and the Project Gnome Site, the camera card with the eclipse photos was left in the hotel room but I doubt any "Men in Black" went into my hotel room to delete 286 seconds from my Solar eclipse footage....

Edited by Nicole Sharp, 22 October 2023 - 08:20 PM.

[Nicole Sharp]

Still uploading photos from the eclipse trip, but you can view everything together as a Flickr Album Collection here:

 

https://www.flickr.c...57722201083437/

Edited by Nicole Sharp, 23 October 2023 - 08:13 PM.

[Nicole Sharp]

Photograph is now available from the Sky & Telescope magazine website:

 

https://www.skyandte...-of-centerline/

[Nicole Sharp]

All of the Annular Solar Eclipse photos are now archived on Wikimedia Commons as well for public use.  This is a permanent archival link from a public server whereas the Flickr links depend on my Flickr Pro subscription.

 

https://commons.wiki...3273179465).jpg

 

https://commons.wiki...bbs,_New_Mexico

[Nicole Sharp]

Square cropped version is now available:

 

https://commons.wiki...07_(square).png

 

https://commons.wiki...quare_crop).png

 

 

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[Nicole Sharp]

Now on Wikipedia, woot:

 

https://en.wikipedia...ctober_14,_2023

 

https://es.wikipedia...octubre_de_2023

 

https://pt.wikipedia...outubro_de_2023

Edited by Nicole Sharp, 27 October 2023 - 12:05 AM.