Total Eclipse 2017

This map, courtesy of NASA, shows the envelope of totality for the eclipse in the state of Idaho, and why, if you live in Bozeman, MT (upper right in the photo), if you have the time, it is worth the normally-three-hour drive to at least Rexburg, ID, for the show.

There is an old New York joke: It goes: "How do you get to the Metropolitan Opera?" "Practice, practice, practice!" Everythig I had read about taking photos of the eclipse indicated that practice is the key. So I did four practice sessions in the two weeks leading up to the eclipse. One definitely needs a remote release and a sturdy tripod. Note the sunspot in the upper right quadrant of the sun's surface.

In a third practice session, about 8 days later, I learned that using a remote shutter release resulted in slightly sharper photos. Note now the line of sunspots in the lower left quadrant of the sun's surface.

In a fourth and final test session, I tried taping down the manual focus ring, sitting in a chair so as to lower the tripod and use a towel as a hood to block the sun out of the vision of the eye that I was not using to frame the photo.

We had left Bozeman at 5:09 am, suffered a few traffic delays thru Island Park, ID, and arrived at the WalMart, just on the north side of Rexburg, about 9:50 am. Why walmart, instead of a more scenic place? Well, when you are taking photos of the sun at about 10:30 am solar time, your camera is going to be positioned nearly straight up. Not much "scenery" on a cloudless day.

We were defintely NOT the only ones with the idea of watching the eclipse from Walmart. In addition to their nice bathrooms, they have a grocery store, a big parking lots and you can always do some shopping for other items.

The eclipse has started, as the moon moves across the face of the sun. Note the line of sunspots in the upper half of the sun's face, plus some more sunspots in the lower left quadrant. This was taken about 80 minutes before totality.

A bit more progress. Of course, all the time, the sun/moon image is moving diagonally across one's field of view. With the zoom extended to within a few mm of maximum, the angle of view is only about 1.3 degrees.

As the eclipse proceeded, I moved my seating postion to the back of our vehicle, so things were less precarious. And of course, there is a solar filter on the front of the lense. The camera being used is a Nikon D5600 with a Nikkor 200 - 500 mm zoom lens.

Some of the sunspots are now obscured.

20 minutes until totality

Six minutes until totality

Really getting dark in the parking lot. Susie was taking support photos while Roger "focused" on the sun.

Two minutes until totality

This is simply a little montage of some of the previous photos, mainly done for the introductory banner for this gallery.

Totality. Once totality starts, you have to take the solar filter off your camera lens, and start taking photos. Let this caption drop out of the way and look for the planet or star in the lower left of the photo.

Yes, I did take the time to come out from my hood and look at eclipse totality with my naked eye, But the luminance from the sun is harder to see with the naked eye.

Just getting to the end of totality. Note the red flares from the sun in the upper right edge of the eclipse.

The so-called "diamond ring."

Totality is over and we are back to having a crescent sun for the next hour. Totality was at something like 11:34 am Mountain Daylight time. This photo was taken 8 minutes later.

We hung around for a few more minutes, visited the facilities again at Walmart and then started home into the traffic. Heading north had some slowdowns, like this one in Island Park, but nothing like the huge jams SOUTH of Rexburg, heading back to the densely populated Wasatch Front.