Well I got perfect skies but I had to go plan D.
You can look up these places on Google maps.
A big low was approaching Ontario the last few days, with a perfectly clear area east of it with quite a sharp boundary between clear and cloud... Forecasts 3 days ago indicated clarity at Napanee ON - this was my first plan.. The next day, Montreal. I took a motel room in Montreal where I sit now typing this letter. The cloud boundary predictions were moving east. I decided on Cowansville Quebec, 75 miles ESE of Montreal and was there at 10am today. The cloud boundary was clearly seen at about 10º above the horizon from there and clearly increasing. It was 4 hours to first contact so I bugged out and drove 2 hours east to the wee village of Scottstown Quebec. Result: perfect skies throughout! Success. The cloud boundary became visible above the trees right around 4th contact. By the time i packed the car the cloud was high enough 30º to have interfered.. So if i had not done the drive this morning...
Equipment behaved great. My only problem was a poor polar alignment. The sun was drifting south slowly in the camera frame. I had to perform a half dozen 'corrections' - this will make a timelapse movie impossible. But the individual shots will work.
I also ran a 20 minute time lapse of the general scene near me centered on totality and another with a 10mm wide lens.
Pics when i have time. I drive to Toronto tomorrow, 6h. Unpack the car Wednesday start messing with the pics on thursday...
Dave
