Partial Solar Eclipse Photographs Now On-Line!

 

by Patrick C. Carr, CASE President

 

Christmas Day 2000. A day that I will always remember, but not just because it was a great time to travel to Atlanta, Georgia to see family and friends, but to bask in the beauty of a partial solar eclipse! While the partial solar eclipse does not bring to astronomers the energy and rarity of a total eclipse, it is still a special event when viewed carefully and properly.

 

I was having Christmas brunch at a friend's house in Atlanta when we ventured out, solar filter and cameras in hand, to attempt to capture the event on film. We were in luck! There was not a cloud in sight, and there were no major obstacles like trees or houses to block our view of the sun. I was glad to be in Atlanta, since the weater forecast for Siloam Springs, Arkansas was not good. They were expecting snow, sleet, and freezing rain. There would be no photos from Siloam Springs of this event.

 

After setting up the camera (Minolta 5000i Maxum), loading it with 100 ASA color print film, setting up the tripod and opening the solar filter, I realized that to do this effecctively it would take two of us to photograph it. One would hold the solar filter in front of the camera lens (400 mm), while the other would focus at infinity, frame the shot, and click the shutter. My friend, Rusty, was equipped with solar viewing glasses so that he could help with the positioning of the camera and the filter.

 

We took a single frame of the sun about 10 minutes before the eclipse started, to have something to baseline from when I did the scans. All of our exposure settings were taken right out of Covington's Astrophotography book. We shot the whole eclipse at 1/125th. All of the photos were taken approximately 10-18 minutes apart, so that the final collage would show the progression of the moon's shadow across the sun. While we were shooting the eclipse, several neighbors stopped by and wanted to look through the camera and solar glasses to see the event. Most just happened to come by at the point of greatest shadow, about 43%. Our families ventured out into the cold Christmas morning to witness the event also. At any given time, there were 5 or 6 of us watching the eclipse through our glasses and enjoying the spectacular view that the Lord had given to us. After returning to Siloam Springs, I scanned the photos in to make the collage that you now see.

 

This was the second greatest gift I received this Christmas. The first was the chance to reflect that on this day some 2000 years ago, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came to the earth to live and die as a man, just so we could be saved from our sins. What a precious gift, and what a great reminder I will always have of the Christmas Solar Eclipse.

 

 

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