I want to do a quick post to close the loop on the eclipse. It was, without hyperbole, one of the greatest experiences of my life. Perhaps short of seeing my children born, but definitely better than any other natural world experience I’ve ever had. Totality was amazing. Don’t let anybody ever tell you that it’s almost as good to see it at 99%. I’ve seen both, and I promise you, it is night and day different (literally, and figuratively).
We had a long car ride home, but it was TOTALITY worth it.
Without further ado, some photos:
First, through the solar filter as the eclipse began; you can see a few sunspots in this one:
Later, with the sunspots on the “limb” clearly visible:
I managed to get “last light” through the solar filter:
Of course it’s impossible to describe what happened during the eclipse. It got cold. The streetlights came on. There was a 360-degree “sunset.” And the stars came out, as you can see in this one (four or more “stars” if you look closely, including Venus to the right and Mercury to the lower left):
This is my favorite; Mercury is very prominent to the lower left, and you can see a lot of structure in the corona.
Finally, I tried to get the “diamond ring.” I didn’t time it quite right, but here’s what I ended up with. I purposely edited it so you can see the structure in the corona, though it makes the central part over-exposed. You can also see some visual artifacts from diffraction in the camera (?) from the bright part of the diamond ring:
