If you've read any of my ski day posts, you may correctly suspect that I don't like driving in traffic, so heading up to Wyoming and back in a traffic jam to view a natural spectacle may not be in the cards. I suppose it would have been fun, but I have other things I want to spend my $$ and time on.
Plus, a 97% eclipse is way better than nothing! All we had to do was to step outside.
Eclipse glasses had sold out way beforehand, so that was not an option. But I had viewed the sun before by projecting the image from a secondhand telephoto lens, and I read that people had done it with binoculars/spotting scope, so I headed to Walmart to get a basic scope and a cardboard box/white cardboard to project the image into:
As the eclipse started, I was on a conference call with India and had to say, "Excuse me, I really have to go. Send me an email". This event was not going to happen again for a long time!
If you zoom in on this early shot, you can see sunspots and very slight bumps of hills/mountains on the Moon, on the lower right edge:
My best pic of the local maximum:
Even at 97% we didn't have anything approaching darkness, but outside it looked like I had a pair of 30% blue-gray sunglasses on. And the midday sun was amazingly cool.
Shadows on the ground near this time:
Whether you have an observatory, telescope, spotting scope, eclipse glasses, #14 welding glass, a pinhole camera, or your fingers crossed to create a pinhole camera, you can enjoy an eclipse.
great captures!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Getting eclipse shots out of a cheap spotting scope and a cardboard box. Pretty good for a Monday
ReplyDeleteNice pictures. My wife, father, step mother, and I were fortunate enough to see the eclipse from Grand Teton NP. I knew it was doing to be great but I had no idea how great.
ReplyDeleteBob, I think I might do that next time if possible.
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