The Great American Eclipse, visible in totality from Texas to Maine, was an event not to be missed! We, like many others, put our bets on Texas weather being clearer in early April than anywhere else in the country. …in a weird twist of fate, those in Ohio and Maine had clearer weather. From our vantage point in San Saba, Texas we had clear skies right up until about 15 minutes prior to totality, when a big cloud rolled in! But the cloud wasn’t completely dense, so we were able to see and photograph all the major phases of totality and get some interesting “eclipse in the clouds” images.
In spite of…or maybe because of the clouds, the images are more interesting??
As you saw in the previous blog, I was able to capture images of each of the major phases of totality: Baily’s Beads, Diamond Ring, Chromosphere and Prominences, and the Stellar (Solar) Corona. Once I finished processing and posting the individual images, I turned my attention to creating a collage. It’s taken me awhile to figure out what I wanted it to look like and to put it together.
In the gallery at: https://beersastrophotography.com/gallery/total-solar-eclipse-8-april-2024/ you can see the collage and all of its individual images (except the full sun) I borrowed the full sun image from the 14 Oct 2023 eclipse images because we didn’t have any of the rigs set up and running before the eclipse started and didn’t stick around until the end because the weather was getting worse.
The backdrop for the collage is the wide-angle lens image I took during totality (below) with the hopes of catching the eclipse, the planet parade, and the Pons-Brook comet. The clouds blocked everything except the eclipsed sun and Venus (the white dot to the southeast of the sun), but I think provided an interesting backdrop for the collage.
