Great
American Eclipse - April 8, 2024.
The total
solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 was likely viewed by more than 70
million people as it
coursed across the United States. My wife and I traveled from
Tucson to St. Louis, and then headed south on the day of the eclipse.
My nephew Matt accompanied us as we went to
Jackson MO, about 90 miles
south of St. Louis. Jackson was very near the center line and was
anticipated to deliver a little over 4 minutes of totality.
Members of the Astronomical
Society of Eastern Missouri (ASEM) had traveled to
Brookside Park the night before and saved us a parking spot.
We set up our gear about 3 hours before the start of the eclipse and
visited with friends and others who were in the park. The sky was
clear with a few high cirrus clouds passing through. The air
cooled noticeably as the eclipse progressed. The sky turned its
usual grey as totality neared, then turned dark blue to the southwest as
the shadow approached. Totality was spectacular, but I fumbled
with my camera a bit as it got quite dark. Jupiter was visible to
the east of the eclipse, and Venus to the west.My images were all made with an old Canon 50D and a Tamron 70-200 zoom at 200mm, with a solar filter (which was removed during totality). I shot bracketed images across a range of shutter speeds before and during totality. Image processing was done in LightRoom and Photoshop. Full resolution images are in the thumbnails below:
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This page illustrates what can be photographed using amateur telescopes and a CCD camera. I currently use an SBIG STL11000M camera and have previously used SBIG and Starlight Xpress cameras, as well as a Cookbook 245 camera that I built myself. Many of the images o this web site were taken from my backyard near a busy street with several street lights. Not only is the CCD camera a great imaging tool, but it allows "real time" observation of objects not normally visible in areas with moderate-severe light pollution.
