another eclipse
Wednesday, February 20, 9:45pm, sitting in the car in front of the house at Red Bird Ridge. Just glanced up to see the eclipse make a brief appearance out of the clouds and disappear again. I did already get several good photos, I think, but I’m hoping for a couple more. I got out here just a little before nine, had to feed Buddy first thing, since I’m sure he had been waiting since mid-afternoon. I took one handheld shot just at the beginning of totality, then fished a tripod I had noticed the other day out of the shop and set it up. It makes all the difference with my little camera. I can go to full zoom and then shoot a 6-second or 10-second exposure.
It’s a bit odd to feel the increasing breeze, getting much chillier while I have been here (though still not really cold, maybe 60 or a bit cooler) on my left shoulder, out of the north or a bit northwest, while watching the clouds aloft scud briskly from southwesst to northeast. At the beginning of the eclipse there were just scattered clouds, but they kept thickening up till the coverage was almost total about 9:30. It even seemed that they were down to ground level creating obscuring haze for a bit, but that may have just been the effect of loss of my dark vision after I went inside to retrieve the computer.
I was about to disassemble the tripod setup after taking a couple of time exposures of the house in the dark, when a hole drifted past and I got one more exposure of the eclipse. So then I decide to sit here in the car mostly out of the wind and write it up, in the hopes that I would get some more chances to see the end stages after totality is over. But according to the clock (9:59), that should already be beginning, and the cloud cover appears total.
10:06 — well, maybe not. A couple of holes just obligingly passed by. letting me see the reappearing bright crescent; when an actual clear area opens up, the red umbral-shadowed disc is still visible. There are more dark patches of holes in the clouds. I’ll give it another five or ten minutes and then try again.
10:27 — OK, I’ve done this eclipse. I did get some probably over-exposed images surrounded by illuminated cloud of the bright disc reappearing. Now it’s halfway out, covered by clouds more often than not, my shin is hurting, and I’m getting cold. Next time, 2010!
It’s a bit odd to feel the increasing breeze, getting much chillier while I have been here (though still not really cold, maybe 60 or a bit cooler) on my left shoulder, out of the north or a bit northwest, while watching the clouds aloft scud briskly from southwesst to northeast. At the beginning of the eclipse there were just scattered clouds, but they kept thickening up till the coverage was almost total about 9:30. It even seemed that they were down to ground level creating obscuring haze for a bit, but that may have just been the effect of loss of my dark vision after I went inside to retrieve the computer.
I was about to disassemble the tripod setup after taking a couple of time exposures of the house in the dark, when a hole drifted past and I got one more exposure of the eclipse. So then I decide to sit here in the car mostly out of the wind and write it up, in the hopes that I would get some more chances to see the end stages after totality is over. But according to the clock (9:59), that should already be beginning, and the cloud cover appears total.
10:06 — well, maybe not. A couple of holes just obligingly passed by. letting me see the reappearing bright crescent; when an actual clear area opens up, the red umbral-shadowed disc is still visible. There are more dark patches of holes in the clouds. I’ll give it another five or ten minutes and then try again.
10:27 — OK, I’ve done this eclipse. I did get some probably over-exposed images surrounded by illuminated cloud of the bright disc reappearing. Now it’s halfway out, covered by clouds more often than not, my shin is hurting, and I’m getting cold. Next time, 2010!
posted by AbigailM | 11:51 PM
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