Solar Eclipse

We've been extremely busy lately...  There's been a lot of very poor health as well as months of painful health for Sheila...  and, of course, we've had other commitments squeezed in too.  We're hoping now to have a few uneventful weeks and good health leading up to our next big event.  More on that another time.  

My health has still had its ups and downs.  One day is good and then the next is miserable with near anaphylaxis, overwhelming fatigue, and simply feeling quite lousy including a lot of extra pain.  Then I take some extra medications to help my body balance itself and then I need a few days to recover.  Fortunately, my health hasn't been poor enough to land me in the hospital.  This constant cellular fight going on in my body is exhausting though.  

During all of this, in recent days, we've had some out of town visitors for a short time as well as a solar eclipse that I had forgotten about.  

At lunchtime on the day of the eclipse, Sheila asked me if I knew we had an eclipse approaching.  I suddenly remembered that we have on in August...  then was shocked to realize it is August already!  I immediately went looking for my solar eyeglasses among all my astronomy gear so I could take a quick look at the sun.  

I was seeing a full disk so the eclipse hadn't started yet.  I went back inside to set up a camera for capturing photos of the sun.  I used my Sony a7r and mounted my long Canon L 400mm f/5.6 lens on it.  This would be very similar to using one of my telescopes but would be a simpler setup that I could point toward the sun while handholding the camera and long lens. If I used one of my telescopes, then I would need a big, heavy mount to keep it steady along with a bunch of other little connectors. Instead, I stacked 16 stops of neutral density filters on the end of this camera lens to use as a handheld solar telescope.  The neutral density filters would keep the sun from destroying my camera's sensor.  

The weather had been sunny, clear and beautiful outside all morning and, in the hour before the eclipse, it remained sunny, clear and beautiful.  However, the moment the 100 minute eclipse began, clouds started obscuring the sun.  I looked to the west where the clouds were coming from and all I saw was a dark sky full of solid cloud cover.  I knew I had only a few seconds to capture an image before the sun would be completely obscured.

At about four minutes into this solar eclipse, this image below is what I captured.  The clouds actually made this a more interesting image!  At the nine o'clock position on the sun, you can actually see a couple of sunspots too!  And, if you look carefully, you can faintly see another sunspot near the four o'clock position.

After I captured the above image of the sun at the very beginning of this partial eclipse, it began raining and it rained for the next couple of hours.  

A day or two later, the sun was shining again and I still had the 16 stops of neutral density filters on my camera so I stepped out onto the deck with my camera and captured the sun again.  This time, however, I needed to put the camera and lens on a tripod though.  For some reason, I couldn't manage to handhold it steady enough to get a crisp image.  

In this second image, you can still see those same couple of sunspots that were visible during the eclipse.  A day or two had passed so the sunspots moved to our right but they are clearly there.  There are also a few other sunspots and other details that are visible on the sun in this photo too so this quick shot using the same camera, lens and neutral density filters worked fairly well.

I'd really like to get out there with a few solar telescopes to capture better photos of our sun but I really haven't had the time nor energy for that.  I might need to make some time soon before the sun gets too low during our long winter.