90 replies to this topic

[maxmir]

What's went right:

 

Having my family with me to witness the solar eclipse.

Last minute location choice of the airport at Marshall, AK

 

I was in a RV.

I figured the airport is public.   

My experience as a private pilot made me think that it might be a good place to park the RV.

Unknow to me, the airport had  planned a fly in. About 20 + planes flew in.

There were about 75 people.

I was able to set up on the grass next to a few other RVs.

The locals folks grilled up burgers and dogs with all fixings for a small donation.

I got talk with a few fellow pilots too.

 

The weather was perfect 

 

What went wrong: 

Me biting off more than I can chew photographically.

 

 

I had a 500mm camera.  A 20mm wide field set up and a Go pro camera.

I could not get the Go Pro to record and batteries on the wide field died just before totality.

I some how I had auto iso on using the Nikon with the 500mm. I think it messed up some exposures but not all

Edited by maxmir, 09 April 2024 - 10:47 PM.

[mdredmond]

Wrong:

I spent a lot of time messing with Eclipse Orchestrator, rented a sweet expensive lens, bought a GPS and tracking mount, etc. An unfortunate confluence of events caused me to miss *all* totality pictures.

I had created a nice script and I got everything hooked up and it worked fine.  About 10 minutes before C1 I set everything running and the camera happily snapped pics of the partial.

I looked at the laptop screen and the scheduled time for C2 looked off.  Finally discovered that EO doesn’t automatically read GPS position and you have to “capture” it from the GPS (even though it knows about the GPS).  Shoved my phone in my back pocket and started to fiddle with capturing location into the software.  Got that done about a minute before C2.

C2 comes and I was so relieved to hear the camera do a 16 frame burst for the diamond ring and then happily snap away using all of my scripted exposures!

Then about 15 seconds before C3 I realized I hadn’t taken my solar filter off… Solar Eclipse Timer was in my butt pocket and I never heard “Filters Off!”  Too late to even run an emergency script.

Ugh.

Also:  the equitorial wedge for the Star Adventurer is a steaming pile of doo-doo.  Could have been the weight on it but I was well under advertised capacity.  It’s soooo hard to adjust - the declination adjustment knob is nearly impossible to turn. Could not have tried before because it was a rental lens and I didn’t have it until the day we left on the trip.

Right:

I had an amazing time with my teenage daughter slumming it for three days in the back of our SUV, eating junk food and generally having a nice adventure without wife/mom.  First time we’ve done anything except go to lunch or dinner together.

With lots of attention to Astropheric over the course of days we found a cool little veterans park in Sikeston, MO where a friendly but not huge crowd gathered under clear blue skies at C1.  My telescope was a huge hit.

I got to see the eclipse with my own eyes (giving that much more emphasis this time) and got to hear my daughter exclaim, “What the frick?” when totality started.

My bonus: I learned a new term.  Apparently when young women eat a meal consisting of a group of random things like goldfish crackers, triscuits with spray cheese and stroopwaffles, they call that a “girl dinner.”  Who’d have known?!

 

Hers:  She got to fly home by herself for the first time, which made her very happy and proud.

Wouldn't trade this experience for anything, including pictures.

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Edited by mdredmond, 10 April 2024 - 01:22 AM.

[Seachange79]

What went wrong:

Mum got sick and wasn't able to make the trip.

I dropped my cell phone Friday afternoon, and killed the screen. Dead. Found a repair place to fix it...$300 later, my screen works, but is too dark in the day and too bright at night. But it was fixed in time for me to leave Friday night.

The SeeStar would not work. It wouldn't find the Sun, even though it appeared to be pointing right at it. I couldn't see it on the tablet, and even manual slewing didn't help. I did a quick scenery mode check on some trees to make sure the optics were working, and that was fine.
No matter what I tried, it would not work. Off/on, compass calibrations, level adjustments, horizontal calibrations, nothing...nada. It worked on Saturday evening/night after a successful horizontal calibration, but not on Monday afternoon. I eventually gave up and packed it up so I wouldn't be tempted to kick it.

The AM3 did not want to connect to the phone through WiFi or Bluetooth before C1. I fought with it for 15 minutes before it finally decided to cooperate. Once connected, I quickly told it to GoTo the Sun, and as it was slewing, EO started sending the imaging commands. But, hey, at least the AM3 decided to work!

Also, because I was fighting with the SeeStar, I did not realize how much time had passed. The Sun crossed the meridian about 15 minutes after C1, and the AM3 stopped dead. The Sun drifted about halfway out of the frame before I realized the time. I quickly did another GoTo on the Sun, adjusted it in the frame, sync'd it, and let it go. I lost 7 or 8 partial frames due to this inattention.

I downloaded an app called SunSketcher to participate in a citizen science project supported by NASA. At 6 minutes to totality, I opened the app, pressed start, followed instructions, and put the phone down - back camera aimed at the Sun. I left it alone until a few minutes after totality....actually forgot where I put it and had a minor freakout thinking I lost it. haha
I have no photos on my phone and the app did not ask me if I want to upload the photos, as it said it would. I don't know what went wrong with that. I am disappointed though, because if I had known the app wouldn't work properly, I would have snapped a few cell pics myself, just to have pics to quickly send off to people.

A high cloud moved over the Sun just prior to totality. It did not obstruct the view, but it did ruin the wide field images I was attempting to get. Or maybe I ruined them. I'm blaming the cloud.

Eclipse Orchestrator worked like a charm (whew!) , except the timing seemed a little off.
I was not able to pinpoint location via GPS dongle because Eclipse Orchestrator would not recognize the dongle.
So, whether it was my computer time was off, my manually entered GPS coordinates were off, or EO was off, or a combination of the three, I'm not sure. It wasn't off by a ton, but it was off.

I didn't get photos of the C2 Diamond Ring or Bailey's Beads....I was distracted by the eclipse and missed my ten second warning to prepare to remove the filters. Luckily I heard the "Filters Off!" call, and I scrambled to remove them...fumbling a bit to removed the filter off the main cam....Oops.

Shortly after the C3 diamond ring, I went to put my eclipse glasses on to look at the emerging Sun. I was raising my head at the same time as I was bringing the glasses to my face, put them on, opened my eyes directly at the Sun...and PAIN!
I apparently had my solar glasses in one hand and my regular glasses in the other...and I put the wrong glasses on! Don't look directly at the Sun, kids. It really really hurts!

I also purchased the wrong fuel for my camping stovetop...

I got home tonight and was going to go through my images again, and I can't find my card reader. Yey.

What went right?
I found a lovely spot at Turkey Bayou Campground in Shawnee National Forest in Illinois after canceling my Gun Barrel City, TX plans.

The volunteers that help keep the campsite clean and running were all amazing, as were a lot of the people I met who were camping there.

They have nice dark skies (Bortle 4), so I was able to see both bands of the Milky Way for the first time (faintly). I was a little lost in the sky Saturday night, because I'm not used to so many stars. I couldn't pick out Polaris without the help of SkySafari...so many stars! Once I got my bearings, I was then able to show other campers things in the sky while having a mini-session with the SeeStar Saturday night.

There were lots of dogs at the campground. I had fun meeting them.

We had gorgeous skies for the eclipse. There were a few high wispy clouds around, but none obstructed the view.
Just at totality, a high cloud moved right in front of the Sun and Moon and decided to sit there. It ruined my wide angle attempts, but from preliminary review of the other photographs I was able to capture, they look pretty darn good. I'm happy.

I was able to take in a lot of the sights and sounds around me.
Just prior to totality, we started watching my white sheet for the shadow bands. We were actually able to see them on the graveled ground before I could see them on the sheet. They were very faint, probably because of the cloud. They very much resembled the rippling light on the bottom of swimming pools. That was really cool to see.
The crowd in our campground oohed and ahhed as totality approached and began. I heard "oh my God" exclamations, and whooping and cheering. I cursed a lot...and gawked. Actually, I think a lot of gawking happened with everyone, because while some talking was heard, it was mostly silent after the initial reactions.
The C2 Diamond Ring was amazing! Both were, but from my point of view, it actually looked like the C2 "ring" was made of flame! I don't think I looked directly at it, I would imagine the diamond would have caused pain like any other time looking at the Sun...I'm pretty sure I used averted vision...but I don't know. It was an amazing sight, no matter how I saw it. I also saw the C3 Diamond Ring for a second or two before I had my solar glasses back on...absolutely lovely!

The 360 degree Sunset was stunning.
Our campground was surrounded by tall trees and a ridge, on the Eastern side. And I think that actually emphasized the 360 degree sunset. It was gorgeous to see it through all of the surrounding trees.
The birds went silent as we neared totality, and all the little evening bugs (a type of crane fly, maybe?) that like to fly above the grass at dusk came out and they flew around for a while. I stopped noticing them approximately 15 minutes after totality ended.

I thought darkness during totality would be more like nautical twilight. Dark but not real dark. It was more like civil twilight. Still very bright. We were able to see Venus and Jupiter, though. Interestingly, Venus appeared red to me for a little while, before becoming its normal bright white.

Corona was amazingly bright. It was huge and lovely. I think the high cloud that was in front of it spread the light more and made it seem brighter than it was. I could be wrong though, never having witnessed it before.

During the partial phases of the eclipse, it was interesting to note how darkness and temperature changed. It didn't seem gradual to me. It was almost like it was in steps. Steady then drop, steady then drop. For the annular last year in Kerrville, the changes seemed more gradual to me.

A few people came over to look through my camera's viewfinder to see a closer view of the corona and solar prominences. That was cool.

From initial inspection of my photographs, what we saw through the camera's viewfinder was much more detailed and better than what I actually captured.

Experiencing the total eclipse was indescribable...though, I've obviously tried. It was absolutely astounding and amazing to be able to witness. Mind-blowing.

I hope everyone who wanted to see the eclipse was able to.

Now comes the fun part of going through the images and figuring out how to stack totality photos! Clear skies!

[sggi]

What went right:

Sprinter van rental $30 per day

Motel $69 per night

Weather opened up

Park viewing area limited to 350 cars

Zero incidents

 

 

What went wrong:

90% clouds in my home town, direct path of totality

forgot matches

EO script hung up and no automated photos were taken.

by traveling the totality time went from 3min26sec to 2min7 sec (so we were ripped off by 1min19sec)

 

Although, right or wrong I  would not trade any of it for experiencing this with my wife.

Another item checked off my bucket list. (and another item added to it, Spain 2026)

[Rickycardo]

I came away form this eclipse about 60/40.

Right.

After sweating the weather it turned out great. Some high wispy clouds but nothing that interfered with the eclipse.

Focus and tracking went well for my Ioptron star tracker using daytime polar alignment.

Bailey beads and prominence shots look excellent in preliminary evaluations.

Met some great people.

 

Wrong.

Many images are way over exposed. Lost all my diamond ring shots. I used the default exposure in Eclipse Orchestrator of 1/50s and that was about 3 stops over exposed. All shots of the corona over 1.6 seconds were over exposed with the highlights blown out. I can still make things work with the shorter exposures. This happened with both my Cannon R at 200mm and 6D wide field at 24mm.

My 6D had an error right at totality. Fortunately I am so used to working in the dark with that camera that I was able to turn it off, drop and reinsert the battery and turn it back on all without looking away from the eclipse.

After meeting some great people my social media accounts got hacked and disabled, including my business account. Everything is now offline and disabled. Not sure if it's recoverable.

[jfgout]

Did you get him to fly out later?

I'm not sure. I stopped looking at it for a second, and it was gone. Not sure if it flew away or was hiding in a part that I could not see. So, I just decided to put back the mirror. When I get the scope out of the car and back to the observatory (this week-end?) I will remove the front element to check if there is a dead (or very angry?) wasp inside the tube.

 

JF

[Dan Starr]

Great thread and unfortunately I got some what went wrong:

 

Plastic tub containing AVX Battery, cables, level, hand controller, solar filters and the rest left at home.  Brother in law loaded the trunk and I checked for everything but we both missed this tub.  lol. As I was packing the computers I had recently received an 8 x 10 Thousand Oaks filter and was like I should toss this in my back pack but had ordered if another friend was coming and might need it.  Thought to myself I won't need this I got 4 other solar filters lol...definitely should have packed it.

 

What went right:  Did have the AVX counter weight and was able to get the OM-D E-M1X and Olympus 300f4 Pro perfectly balanced on the AVX so just like a gimbal mount.  Knew the AF or expected the AF to work great with or without the solar filter depending on the phase and sure enough totality photos are awesome here.  Previously was planning on using back button focus so no inadvertent focusing if someone hit the shutter button, and sure enough this worked great.  Had custom settings set up so those worked well and just used a wired remote and tripped as often as possible for Bailey's beads and totality.

 

Based on the shadow of the lens hitting the camera OLYMPUS logo which we had done prior we quickly centered the sun and then just moved the RA a little throughout the 4 minutes.  Polar aligned with the phone pointing to South Axis.  Had planned to align off the sun after setting the declination and pointing North.  This worked great just using the phone and pointing / aligning to South.  Just used the AVX guide on the side after leveling the tripod...again worked great for the four minutes.

 

Seestar worked great early on, did require an update.  Joked when we went to use it for time lapse that watch this it will take forever...but no went straight to the sun and got great for me time lapse during both partials.

 

TV85 on Manfrotto tripod and geared head.  Easy to find the sun with TV Sol Searcher but focusing is very tricky and with no solar filters didn't have opportunity to nail focus prior to just before totality.  These are slightly out of focus and I was sort of expecting this after not being able to nail it during partial...even prior was thinking the Olympus focus's so well might be letting the TV go since I have struggled with this in the past focusing and worry about it too much(!)...still happy overall that we were practiced enough that got some great photos and were still able to enjoy the event visually.

 

Was located in Greenwood, IN and skies followed predictions with some high elevation clouds.

 

Now to watch some videos on combining bracketed photos during totality.  Was a bit disappointed to number of sun spots but wow all the flares during totality certainly made up for those.  

 

Dan

[Tom Laskowski]

Wrong: Only some high thin cirrus and many contrails from the many aircraft that filled the sky with them. The impact on totality was minimal.

 

Right: I didn't hear that god-awful song Total Eclipse of the Heart one time during the entire time.

[Rickycardo]

Wrong: Only some high thin cirrus and many contrails from the many aircraft that filled the sky with them. The impact on totality was minimal.

 

Right: I didn't hear that god-awful song Total Eclipse of the Heart one time during the entire time.

Yeah, the campground we stayed at set up a PA and started blasting music, including that one, before the eclipse. Fortunately, they stopped about 30 minutes before 2nd contact. There are reasons why I prefer observing in solitude.
 

[JimB1]

Wrong: Only some high thin cirrus and many contrails from the many aircraft that filled the sky with them. The impact on totality was minimal.

 

Right: I didn't hear that god-awful song Total Eclipse of the Heart one time during the entire time.

We did get to hear “Don’t let the sun go down on me” when we got back to the hotel LOL

[JimV]

Wrong:  Scheduling flight departure 2 days before eclipse day.  Plane had mechanical problems in Dallas, causing missed connection to Bangor, ME.  Subsequent flights to Bangor all overbooked, so almost spent eclipse day in Philadelphia airport.  Airlines are undependable.

Right:  Believing weather forecasts.

[sah0620]

Right : Getting to my eclipse place with plenty of time to spare despite doing the entire trip rather spur of the moment (booked my place just two weeks ago).  Having virtually no clouds in southern Illinois.  Seeing the diamond ring and solar prominences with my own eyes.

 

Wrong : Didn't focus my iphone camera well on the moon/sun on the closer up shots I did, haha.  But luckily I spent a good 2-3 minutes of it just looking around and taking it in without futzing with pictures or videos.  

 

 

 

[JimV]

Wrong:  Clouds forecast for Austin where I live.

 

Right:  All of my friends and family turned down requests to travel to Texas to view eclipse with me.  This turned into best outcome ever.  I had travel freedom to clear weather at last minute.

[bonjorno]

What went right:
Russellville, Arkansas.

Wasn't sure I'd find a place to set up my gear, not to mention just park my car. A lot of streets were closed off and a lot of Restricted Parking signs were up.  I asked a couple of people who were standing at a furniture store parking lot entrance if I could park there. They said sure, no charge, stay as long as you need to. Very friendly people in Russellville! The downtown area was set up for visitors, there were news crews, NASA, an astronaut, music and food vendors. It was great.

 

When the eclipse was over the people around me started talking to each other, like we'd all just shared a very special moment and I guess we just did.

 

What went wrong, for a while:
The external monitor I had attached to my camera wouldn't work even though it worked perfectly during a test run a half hour previous. So I would then have to bend over and try to view the eclipse in the small camera monitor. But the external monitor suddenly came to life after many bad words had been hurled at it.

 

I have to thank all the people on this forum for sharing their experience and knowledge without which I would not have been able to get the pretty good photos I took.

[Classic8]

I was so excited when I got to the observing field that I didn't even realize that I had set my tripod down with the wedge basically facing north instead of south and was wondering why it wasn't tracking. Somebody else pointed it out early on though. Must be going senile, but at least got that rectified (another scope of mine, I have to point it north to start off).  Then, since I stopped looking through my scope about a minute before the totality ended - about a couple minutes AFTER totality ended I realized I never put the lens cap back on the scope! Wasn't anyone right next to me that tried to use it, and no kids around, fortunately. And no damage to the scope that I can see.

 

Good: got to see the prominences somewhat close up in the scope, which was amazing.

Bad: it was slightly still too high power to get the whole corona in the field of view.

Edited by Classic8, 10 April 2024 - 03:53 PM.

[JimFR]

The right stuff:

 

 Picked an awesome location, while other areas nearby were a cloud-out.

 

 Setting up the ST80 and solar filter were a hit for the young and old.

 

 Got some lucky shots on my cell phone.

 

 I was completely awestruck at the experience.

 

 I beat the traffic out.

 

 Brought my binocs for birding before the show.

 

The wrong stuff:

 

  Brought 2 cameras and four lenses, never used ‘em, I was too awestruck to give them a thought.

 

  Hightailing it outta there would have let me beat the rush from Niagara.  Not really a bad thing, the drive was slow but steady.

 

  Didn’t look for shadow bands.

[fuzzy_toast]

Wrong:

 

- Wasn't sure about exposure settings so I set a broad range in SharpCap which burned up too much time between useful shots.

 

- Last minute I remembered the all-sky lens that came with my ASI120MC guide cam and thought it would be a fun to get a wide timelapse.  Ended up shooting the whole thing in black and white because I saw the live view and thought all was good.

 

- Forgot to pack my belt, as usual.

 

 

Right:

 

- Got to watch from my parent's backyard in rural Ohio with them and 2 close friends.  Best vacation ever.

 

- Pulled my filter, hit "Run" on the SharpCap sequence and walked away.  Didn't touch equipment until the end.

[OAJoe]

     What went wrong:

 

While driving down to Texas from the Denver area, I got a call from my bank about weird charges on my credit card, and I explained that we were going to Texas, but the weird charges had nothing to do that with. So, I explained that no, we did not buy shoes, go to a crab shack, or go to a Sephora on the way. I think it has been resolved for the most part. But now I need to change a lot of autopaid bills that go to that CC since they are giving me a new CC. (I have no idea how someone got our cc number. Maybe a hijacked cc reader at a gas station?)

 

While it was a windy drive down to Texas, we learned from neighbors and the news that we had 90+ mph winds. Power would be out at our house from Late Saturday night till Monday late. So, we would have to deal with some bad food after we got back on Tuesday.  

 

     And what went right?

 

The hotel for the night before held my reservation for 13 months, and they did not charge me an arm and a leg. We had a good time at the Dallas Eclipse Festival at the Samuell Farm Park. The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History was a nice stop on Sunday afternoon.

 

I did get some reasonably good pics, even with the clouds coming and going. I was not able to use the bracketing like I had planned for the corona, but I just went with aperture priority (f/11 at ISO 200) instead to just get some shots, and let the camera decide. See https://www.flickr.c...177720316111472.

 

Met some nice people at the place, and heard a nice talk from a researcher.

 

The 70-300mm zoom gave me some lens flare. Not surprised, since it is a cheap zoom kit lens. 

 

I remembered to use my binoculars to see more detail in the corona.

Edited by jokrausdu, 10 April 2024 - 06:46 PM.

[Anhydrite]

Forgot to say, my last minute travel meant I wasn't able to polar align at night and my day alignment was way off apparently.

 

Took longer than expected to find the sun and then I had to adjust the mount every 2 minutes to keep the sun centered.

 

Also I had no success drift aligning.  That I will need to practice.

[flappah]

Also:  the equitorial wedge for the Star Adventurer is a steaming pile of doo-doo.  Could have been the weight on it but I was well under advertised capacity.  It’s soooo hard to adjust - the declination adjustment knob is nearly impossible to turn. Could not have tried before because it was a rental lens and I didn’t have it until the day we left on the trip.

 

This is the Star Adventurer 2i Pro isn't? And what lens did you have on it? It looks like a 500mm with an extender. I was thinking about using my 150-600mm Sigma with a 2x extender untracked on the D780 since I am planning to use my SMS Nomad tracker for the 75-200mm on the D7000. But not having to fuss with keeping the Sun in frame I was seriously considering buying a tracker for the D780. Now the D780 plus Sigma lens is quite some weight and definitely above the limit of the SMS Nomad. I am still not sure though to go with either the Star Adventurer 2i Pro or the GTi. 

Edited by flappah, 11 April 2024 - 01:40 AM.

[Starry_Spruce]

Right:
--Weather in Maine was truly unbelievable.
--Eclipse Orchestrator actually worked despite some failed practice runs (what a glitchy system!)
--Saw totality in a good place, with good people, and got some photos.
--Shared some H alpha views with friends and strangers alike.

Wrong:
--I wasn't a big fan of the diamond ring over exposures and wish I had just shot a larger series of Bailey's beads exposures to show the progression. Diamond ring just isn't as interesting, at least with my equipment.
--all my friends showed up right when partials were starting and I was stressing over getting the cameras going. They started weaving in and out of the tripods making me real nervous.
--My 18 month old son came down with a fever the night before. Was real worried but he was doing much better that morning.
--Wide angle shot was a little out of focus.

[Nappa]

Right:
  Chose Houlton, Maine for the site. 
  The town did a great job with a very festive atmosphere. 
  Weather was near perfect. Better for me than the 2017 eclipse. 

 

Wrong;
   Took a chance with my DSLR set on auto, and it over-exposed my pics. Not a big deal for me, as I was there for the visual.

[JPLarry]

I had 5 camera going for various things so there was a lot to manage, but it wasn't too bad. So here's my experience.

 

What went wrong 

• The HDR preview on the R7 I was using did not change when I changed shutter speed. I didn't notice this after C3 when I had it take a timelapse of partiality, and missed about 20 minutes of captures because my shutter speed was too high and I didn't have a preview that showed that.
• I manually took pictures with the R7 during totality. Wasn't great. Would do Eclipse Orchestrator for multiple cameras in the future.
• Not super happy with my wide angle shots, mostly because there wasn't a compelling foreground where I was.
• Hinode Solar Tracker drifted a few times during the partial phases. Not sure why and didn't lose images as a result, but meant I had to pay a little more attention to it.
• Probably didn't due Lunt Ha scope as best as I could have, so while the Ha images (right now - still working on them) look good, they could have been better
• Someone's horse escaped the day of and I was worried about it getting near my battle station (it eventually was corralled) 

 

What went right

• Per the last wrong point, I booked a site at a horse campground because all of the normal campsites were otherwise booked, and waited until only $300+ rooms were available at local hotels. I commandeered my sister's horse, to get me into a campground that was only 1/3 full because of the horse requirement.
• Eclipse Orchestrator worked flawlessly on my R5. I think it might have missed 1 of around 3000 photos. Using this going forward.
• SharpCap worked flawlessly on my Lunt. I set it to take disc and prominence videos every 10% and 25% of the partial phases. Worked wonderfully.
• Weather worked out wonderfully after several stressful days of figuring out where to run and be able to drive back in time for work on Tuesday, didn't need to.
• Sun trackers (Hinode and SolarQuest) generally worked well. They weren't super pleased with Totality, but generally handled it well.
• I got Earthshine!
• Months of practice and preparation paid off.
• I can stop thinking of eclipses for a little bit.

 

What went really right

• My girlfriend suggested we go to Egypt in 2027 to see the Eclipse over Luxor (this after she was clearly over my obsession with preparing for this one). I think she's semi-serious about it. I'm sorta seriously considering it - 6 minute 23 second max totality. I want to do Australia in 2028.

 

What I'll change in the future

• I had 3 mirrorless cameras (R3 at 17mm, R5 at 500mm, and R7 at 860mm). I'd probably go to the 500mm and a wide angle in the future. I thought that if I cropped in on the 500mm I'd have a pretty low res image, but I'm not sure I need to crop in (indeed, for the extended corona, 500mm was perfect).
• EO on any/all cameras
• Scouting for scenic areas for wide angle shots
• More powerful computer for editing shots and composites

 

I had goals of getting better shots than I did in 2017 and largely met those. I'm very please with what I have thus far.

[ashankar]

Right: 

• Being able to watch it from my driveway in Bloomington, IN, with friends, family, and neighbors
• Eclipse doubter (the "what's the big deal?" person) cried!
• Deciding to totally automate imaging
• Eclipse Orchestrator (free version) actually worked
• High but thin cirrus added amazing color to diamond ring shots
• Everything that failed during practice runs didn't
• Got some great shots despite being a first-time eclipse photographer
• Digital artist son from NY came and did the HDR

Wrong:

• Paid too much attention to stuff rather than just look
• Started video recording too late (C2-20s); should have been more like C2-30s, same on the C3 side
• The fancy mount (AP 900GTO) didn't track as well as the cheaper ones (Losmandy G11 and Orion Sirius)
• Celestron PowerBank ran out of juice before C4, will use the marine battery next time
• Didn't do enough exposures pre-C2 and post-C3, missed the beads

Edited by ashankar, 11 April 2024 - 05:33 PM.

[DeepSky Di]

Right:

- preparation, studying exposures, setting up M, C1 and C2 on my DSLRs for partial, Bailey's Beads and Totality to use with remote controls

- focusing - using EAFs with a remote control and USB battery power

- finally getting properly foamed pelican cases for car trips

- my new SolarQuest - just turn it on and it tracks the sun

- my HEM27 - learning to daylight polar align reliably and track the sun

- my Insta360 - planted on its tripod, able to record spherical video of the event with no further interaction

- William Optics Bahtinov masks converted to solar filters

- a Spectrum glass filter

- the location - wonderful AirBnB with a pool area with a clear horizon over fields

- the company - always good to have a Fellowship of the Eclipse

- the fantastic clear days before and after the Eclipse

- 2 nights of DSO imaging before and after, with a clearer skyline than at home

- being in the totality, experiencing the temperature drop, strange charcoal darkness and 360 degree sunset all around, hearing distant cheers and seeing fireworks in the distance

 

Wrong:

- clouded out during all of the partial and totality.

- if it had cleared up just for totality, one of my OTAs would still have been out of focus from DSO with a different optical train the previous night

 

Future:

- Start doing solar more often

- 2026, 2027 and 2028.

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