Background
In August 2017, I was blessed to witness the “Great American Solar Eclipse” from my grandparents backyard in small town South Carolina. From that day on, I was wholeheartedly committed to seeing the next one coming through the USA in 2024 on April 8th. I put the event on my calendar, “Only 6.5 years to go!” I thought.
During the next 6.5 years, I found myself diving head first into the realm of astrophotography where I learned how to photograph galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, Lunar Eclipses, different phases of the moon, comets, and many other astronomical objects. The whole time, somewhere deep down, I still had a great fascination with solar eclipse photography. As 2024 approached, it started moving to the forefront of my mind.
Inspired by the incredible eclipse images of Miloslav Druckmuller, Nicolas Lefadeaux, and Phil Hart, I knew I wanted to capture the eclipse in a unique way that only a few people have successfully accomplished. This would require me to learn a great deal about cameras, optics, and most importantly digital image processing. Successfully capturing a great photo of a solar eclipse is not difficult if you know a little about how cameras work, but to produce an image of extreme detail and dynamic range, you have to understand a great deal about a few things: the unique conditions during a solar eclipse, how cameras capture and process photos, and how to optimize both the quality and quantity of data you capture during totality. For the folks who have questions on the technical planning, execution, and processing of high quality solar eclipse photography, feel free to send me an email and I’d be happy to discuss with you.
Eclipse Planning
For the 3 years leading up to the 2024 eclipse, I read internet articles, watched tutorial videos, and studied research papers to make sure I had a great plan before April 8th. The biggest breakthrough I had came in late 2023 when I met a group of fellow eclipse enthusiasts on an astronomy forum called Cloudy Nights, led by Francois Ayello. These guys wanted to capture the eclipse in the same way I did, so I joined their group and we began working together on planning and writing custom software for our eclipse image processing. We would meet almost every week to discuss image processing, coding strategies, and eventually our eclipse plans. Meeting these like minded, intelligent, and kind individuals was such a blessing to me and without them, I wouldn’t have set my goals as high as I did.
One of the guys in this group, Colin Legg, was unable to travel to the USA for this eclipse, but still wanted to take part in the opportunity to capture it, so we decided to put our brains together and plan a collaborative imaging effort. Colin brought years of imaging experience to the table, particularly in the realm of capturing eclipses. Colin and I would frequently meet apart from the main eclipse group to discuss lens/camera options, potential shooting locations, and how to optimize our capture sequence. I would like to extend my utmost gratitude to Colin for mentoring me and helping me learn what would have taken years of trial and error to do on my own. Check out Colin’s excellent work on facebook and vimeo.
As we refined our eclipse plan, we decided it would be beneficial to test if a few lens/camera combinations met our requirements. We tested several cameras, lenses, and capture sequences and ultimately decided to go with the Nikon D850 for our main imaging cameras and 5 different focal length lenses. Capturing the eclipse with multiple focal lengths is ideal to capture all phenomena present during an eclipse. Depending on your capture sequence for each focal length, you can even blend different focal lengths together to maximize signal and detail in each photo. Here was our final gear setup:
Inner Corona | Nikon D850 | Nikon 800mm f/5.6 |
Middle / Outer Corona | Nikon D850 | Nikon 300mm f/2.8 |
Outermost Corona / Stars | Nikon D850 | Sigma 105mm f/1.4 |
Planets, stars, comet, ultrawide eclipse | Nikon Z6ii | Nikon 20mm f/2.8 |
Timelapse | Nikon D750 | Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 |
The gear had been reserved, the game plan had been made, travel arrangements were set in stone (or so we thought). My parents, wife, and I had booked 2 rental homes for the eclipse, one in Little Rock, AR and another in Cedar Hill, TX so that before the cancellation dates, we could choose whichever one had a better weather forecast. Several months out, the rental in Arkansas canceled on us due to a complication on the renter’s side (they were a brand new rental property). “No worries, we have the Texas rental!” we thought. So we finalized our shooting plan for Cedar Hill, TX. About a week and a half before the eclipse, we got a message from our Texas rental saying they had canceled our reservation due to “maintenance,” which seemed pretty fishy to us this close to the eclipse (and we had gotten the rental for a much lower rate than most of the advertised rentals in the path of totality…hmm suspicious if you ask me). We scrambled to find arrangements in Texas (since it still looked the best for clear skies) and eventually got connected with one of my Wife’s family friends in Rockwall, TX; they were extremely kind to offer us a place to stay on such short notice! Now that the day had been saved, we could relax and resume our constant checking of the weather forecast.
As April 8th drew closer, the weather forecast began to worsen for Texas and most of the path of totality. Winds from the Gulf of Mexico were going to bring humid air, clouds, and storms for almost all of Texas. Knowing the forecast beyond 48 hours was “voodoo” territory according to our beloved Alabama meteorologist James Spann, we decided to hold onto our hope and cross our fingers that Texas would clear. Unfortunately, the weather forecasts continued to predict clouds for Rockwall, so less than 3 days out, we decided to pivot our plan and drive north to the closest area with a low cloud forecast - North East Arkansas. My parents were able to find a hotel just outside the path of totality in Union City, TN where we would stay the night before the eclipse and plan to drive into the countryside westward on the morning of April 8th. After calling several audibles and being flexible at the mercy of the crazy April weather, we had a finalized plan! So, on Saturday April 6th, 2024, we loaded up the car with hundreds of pounds of camera and astronomy gear (and of course a tent for some shade) and got ready to embark on our eclipse journey early the next morning.
The Adventure Begins
On April 7th, we left our North Alabama apartment early in the morning to avoid any traffic and so we could scout some spots in North East Arkansas before checking into our hotel for the evening. We scouted several spots outside the small town of Corning, Arkansas, including a few rural churches and an outdoor sports complex, looking for a remote location with a clear view of the whole sky. After searching for several hours, we finally chose our ideal spot (with several backups of course): a small rural church on a gravel road off of County Road 135 named Big T Apostolic Church.
Satisfied that we had found a great spot to watch the eclipse, we headed back east to our hotel to eat some food and rest before the big day. Our hotel was lively with families who had also come to watch the eclipse and the hotel staff had even set up a table full of eclipse decor and moon pies for the guests (which we promptly grabbed several of).
April 8th, 2024 at 5:30am: my alarm goes off. The day is finally here. My eclipse countdown has finally reached 0 days and we are only hours away from a stellar show. We had a quick breakfast and set out towards Corning. The forecast was still looking questionable, but the models were still predicting mostly clear skies for our shooting location at eclipse time, so I crossed my fingers. Union City, TN was completely overcast and densely foggy as we left our hotel, it seemed completely opposite of what the weather predictions said, but as we moved further westward, the blue sky began to slowly peek through the clouds. Before we knew it, the sky was almost completely cloud free; what an answer to so many prayers!
After about 2 hrs of driving, we made it to our shooting site and began setting up all the imaging systems. Setting up astronomy gear in the daytime is unusual for me since typical astrophotography requires the darkness of night, but I really enjoyed being able to see everything I was doing instead of relying on the soft red glow of my astro headlamp! However, setting up in the daytime has a big challenge of its own: polar alignment. In order to track the sun accurately across the sky, astronomers have to use an equatorial mount which slowly rotates the telescope at a rate specified by the user (solar, lunar, or sidereal) and the mount’s axis of rotation needs to be in line with the north star to mirror the earth’s axis of rotation. During the daytime, you obviously can’t see the north star, so I had to point my equatorial mount as close to magnetic north as I could and manually approximate the latitude. After I made several small accuracy adjustments, I had a close enough alignment for good solar tracking. Next, I configured my cameras, lenses, intervalometers, and solar filters according to the plan Colin and I had spent several months planning. I focused all 5 imaging systems on the sun about 2 hours before the eclipse and took my flat and flat dark calibration frames.
To minimize the effects of radiative heat transfer on the optics, I kept the main imaging systems in the shade of the tent up until 20 minutes before totality. When we hit the 20 minute mark, I refocused my 800mm and 300mm lenses on the sun using homemade Baader SolarLite film, turned all the cameras to live view (for silent shooting), and re-centered the sun in each of the frames. All the prep was done and my capture sequences were counting down to take their hundreds of images.
As the moon covered most of the sun near C2, we were treated to a beautiful display of the diamond ring and Baily’s beads. The sky immediately went dark and out came the solar corona. It was intensely bright (much brighter than the eclipse in 2017) and the streamers extended several solar radii from the “black sun” disk. The innermost portion of the corona was so bright that it was somewhat uncomfortable to look at for long periods of time. We could see several planets and a few stars in the surrounding sky along with a beautifully vibrant 360 degree orange and yellow sunrise. In the age of digital photography and wide angle lenses, I had forgotten just how massive the sun appears in the sky during an eclipse! In my opinion, a solar eclipse is the most beautiful natural phenomena the human eye can witness, and this eclipse certainly reinforced that belief. This eclipse was particularly special since it was both my dad and my wife’s first total solar eclipse; watching and hearing their reactions filled my heart with great joy!
The Final Results
800mm image (left) & 300mm image (right)
Images from the 105mm system and several others are still to come
As the sun reappeared at final contact and the temporary night time turned back to day, we all caught our breath as we processed what had just taken place. I think one of the first things we talked about afterwards was where the next eclipse would be.
As I reflect on the entire 2024 eclipse experience, both technical and experiential, I’m truly grateful to have been able to share this incredible memory with my awesome family. We are already discussing our plans for the next eclipse and you should be too. I urge everyone to see at least one total solar eclipse; you have to see it to understand why it’s such an incredible experience. I’ve heard it said that the difference between totality and 99% eclipse is like watching a movie in IMAX versus standing outside the theater.
God has blessed me in countless ways through this whole eclipse journey; in particular the way he provided new friends to plan with, the finances to be able to rent top quality gear, a wonderful place to capture the eclipse amid numerous scrapped travel plans, the wind and sun to clear the clouds at just the right time, and safety traveling to and from new locations. He’s also taught me many lessons both spiritually and intellectually that I thought I would never know.
Lastly, I’d like to thank all the folks who made this imaging project possible: Colin Legg, for his mentorship and financial support; Francois Ayello, Davide Del Vento, Deepanshu Aurora, Ludo, and David Ackerman for our many great discussions on eclipse image processing; all the great folks at Lensrentals.com, for the high quality rental gear and customer support; my wife, Elizabeth, for being my rock and enduring countless hours of eclipse ramblings, gear testing, coding, and planning; and finally my parents, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and many cousins, for your constant encouragement and support and for being excited on my behalf. I’m sure I’m forgetting some; there were so many folks who were a part of this journey and I’m forever grateful. Here’s to the exciting adventures yet to come chasing the next eclipse!
Clear skies!
Jonathan
Image Processing Notes:
PixInsight: Image calibration, debayering, and stacking
Custom MATLAB software: Image registration, HDR composition, and Enhancement
Photoshop: Final adjustments
Lessons learned from the 2024 total eclipse
I made several imaging mistakes during this eclipse, but thankfully nothing was too detrimental, and it showed me what I should do differently next time. Here are some of the lessons I learned:
I made the mistake of refocusing the 800mm on a large sunspot instead of the horn of the moon. Due to turbulent seeing effects causing lots of blur on the sunspot, my focus was just slightly off on all the 800mm images. If I had checked the horn of the moon in addition to the sunspot, I would have noticed the focus shift.
For some reason, I turned off the alarm which would have reminded me to take the solar filters off of my lenses. I realized about 2.5 minutes into totality that they were still on and was able to remove them before totality ended, but I lost 3 minutes of images in the process. If I hadn’t canceled my alarm, I would have removed my solar filters at the correct time and in the correct sequence.
Once I had taken my flat frames on the 20mm system, I removed the camera and placed it in the shade to keep it from getting too warm. This was a mistake because I disconnected my intervalometer cable to move the camera. Once I reattached the 20mm camera and configured it for the imaging sequence, I didn’t take a test frame to ensure the intervalometer was plugged in correctly. This resulted in the camera capturing no images.
These are all very small mistakes that cost a great deal in the quality of my imaging sequence. It just goes to show you how complicated and elaborate eclipse imaging is (especially when you’re operating 5 imaging setups simultaneously)! Regardless of the losses, I’m extremely grateful everything else went smoothly and for all the images I did capture of this very unique eclipse.
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