By my first pass of online descriptions of L points and some other planet data, it looks like Mercury covers only 92% of the sun's diameter as seen from its L2. No dice, unless moving in somewhat closer than L2 can be done with reasonable stationkeeping fuel. OTOH, at Mar's L2 point, 103% of the solar disk is covered. This is a great start. But Mars has a significant atmosphere, which will light up its horizon and produce some interference. So the next question is, how bright will this backlit atmospheric ring be?
Urp... and I had an IR crop body camera body with me, and an extra 200mm, and a 1.4x TC, and an extra tripod, and I didn't even think of setting it up to shoot totality. Now that I see the image you posted, I am kicking myself.
I drove out to Hemmingford, Nebraska (a quick 1,000 mile jaunt) for the eclipse. Visibility was good, with the clouds moving out just prior to the beginning. I shot from full Sun, through totality, and back to full Sun again. The subs will be composited into a poster as I get through the editing. That's going to take a week, at least. One shot that I processed so far... I've got an HD 2.5GB 8.5 minute video of the moments going into totality, the total darkness, and moving back into bright sunlight. The audible crowd reactions are good. Totally Solar Solo Sojourn 2017 - DavidWatts And the gallery, thus far Totally Solar Solo Sojourn 2017 - DavidWatts
Beautiful shot. Well you made the correct decision. I was with your fellow Chicagoan's in Carbondale and we had clouds appear from nowhere exactly at totality...not sure if they condensed due to the cooling, we thought we had a clear sky...but I had a little time for some views like yours in my scope. Quite beautiful. I loved the pink around the edges which I suspect a photo does not quite capture as nice as the telescope. We considered flying over to Wyoming/Nebraska but then I would not be able to take the scope and all. We have fam in IL so that was what made sense. I am from Buffalo so I got cousins on the centerline for 2024.
I'm really fixated on that filtered through tree light phenomena now, eclipse or not. We've got a lot trees around here, walk our dog on trails. Never forget that.
The wildfire smoke is thicker today, with 57% solar attenuation compared to a few days ago. And the moon looks like it is undergoing a lunar eclipse. :-(. Fortunately for here, the thickest stuff is not at the surface, so air quality is merely moderate (yellow on the AirNow maps), maybe sometimes bordering on USG (orange, unhealthy for sensitive groups). But WA east of the Cascades, into ID and MT, lots of red (unhealthy for everyone), purple (very unhealthy), and brown (hazardous!). And Oregon is getting the really bad stuff west of the Cascades too. One of the times I looked earlier today, one of the ID monitors show PM2.5 at 495.
My wife and I were shopping way out west of the suburbs the other night and noticed the hovering setting sun in the horizon. A very dark red with some added clouds over it for an even more dramatic effect. I immediately knew what was causing it. I've seen this stuff before, but it was many years ago. Now I know how much light has to be cut to be able to naked eye stare at the thing for a half a minute without eye damage. Since I know how much light my solar filter cuts (1/100,000th), I can imaging the smoke dust density cut the light to about 1/50,000th of normal. It was an unreal sight. It looked like this picture, which was also from all the dust in the atmosphere: ^ real image - not Photoshop. Then, two nights ago, the low hanging 3/4 full moon was a very deep and dark red, with no other clouds in the sky. Could hardly see it at all due to the dust. End of the world kinda stuff.
If the smoke cut the light by anywhere near that factor, the foreground scene in such photos would be quite impossible to see with any sort of consumer market imaging equipment.
We were unusually socked-in today and thankfully cooler, after a few weeks of blue skies and very warm. Sun made occasional appearances, looking baleful red, fighting it's way through a mix of smoke and clouds, hard to tell which. Not sure but might be coming up from the west coast States, this time around.
AirNow @108 is a great resource, and we must hope it does not get 'redder' (or deleted by EPA). Let's suppose that you are in a smoky place. Low-end particle masks are improved by wetting, mostly because of fiber swelling, not chemical efficacy. If somebody sees a way to hack that, please post! We'd better start new thread to discuss breathing and surviving under adverse circumstances. May I say that healthy adults are very resilient against such inhaled challenges. Else there are young ones with non-yet-ready-for-prime-time lungs. Also, elders with lungs less effective because of reduced heart function. We are stuck with inhaling because of oxygen need. We might (expensively) oppose particulate lung damage, but other, larger deaths complicate this landscape.
David I see your ad sign there. I did not get any total eclipse photos due to lack of experience and lack of cloud-free time , but here is one of my partial eclipse. And shadows for Mendel...remind me to take a more photogenic piece of plywood next time. Big sunspots last couple days.
Southernmost 'spot' in DavidA's image just above was source of large X-class flare. This is not quite a quiet sun.
