Juliancolton

Yeah, that may well be the defining shot for me as well... I love all the human activity and the fact that there are some actual landmarks connecting the eclipse to a real place. I was slightly worried the sun would be too high to capture any foreground elements, but I actually visited this spot with my widest lens at 2:40 on Sunday and confirmed that I could get the shot. Overall I'm pretty thrilled with how I managed to successfully take several different types of pictures while still enjoying the event with my own senses. My goal now is to be fully automated for the next one so I don't have to concentrate on the cameras at all during totality. Very much a fan of your photos as well. That most recent one is spectacular with how brightly Regulus is shining.

Took 16 hours to get home from Greenville and I'm only now getting to process my photos from the event. A couple of my favorites... Outer corona, Regulus, Mercury, and some earthshine on the moon: Gorgeous prominences just after second contact: Wide-angle view of the Reedy River and thousands of spectators at totality:

Even all the way to the shores of SC you only have 6 fewer seconds of totality than the point of greatest duration near Carbondale. That's totally imperceptible, so chalk it up to jackpot fetish.

Oops. What are we payin' the mods for if we can't even get an old thread locked? smh

No accommodations anywhere except SC. This was always a multi-purpose trip so I don't have much freedom to deviate from my itinerary unfortunately...

SC looks like crap again after some pretty encouraging runs yesterday. The GFS in particular has a nasty stratiform overcast with pretty much no hope of mitigating factors verbatim. I was planning on leaving this evening but I think I'll wait to see the overnight runs before starting the 12 hour drive... if the outlook gets much worse I may cut my losses and start planning for Chile in 22 months.

Go to an eclipse party/viewing event/popular destination and bum a pair off someone. Most folks I know who bought eclipse viewers bought them in packs of 5, 10, or more to guard against damage and to share with observing neighbors.

Let's see if we can decouple the BL.

The Euro op is pretty miserable looking on the synoptic scale for SC. Let's not do that solution.

The Disney parks will see over 6 minutes of totality in 2045, so that should be quite the show. That's approaching the maximum possible duration for any total solar eclipse, I believe. I can only imagine the festivities they'll host leading up to it.

Eh, I'd trade this for the '66 Leonids outburst without a second thought.

Anybody else noticing some color showing up on maples? I'm sure it's not stress from lack of rainfall...

Just about an inch here. It was needed for sure.

Damage

Yeah, nice double rainbow and some sprinkles here as well. Apparently it got pretty intense just to my SW.

I decided to sleep-in this am and look what I missed...

We dry I think. Tonight's sunset was epic due to the cirrus outflow from the storm and I suspect sunrise tomorrow could follow suit... might head down to Constitution Marsh or somewhere nearby for some shots if the sat loop looks decent at 4 am. A comforting thought... with July ending shortly, snow prospects start becoming plausible in just three months. August should fly right by thanks to the eclipse and then we're home free.

I may prop my phone up somewhere and shoot some quick video during totality for the sentimental value, but otherwise I plan to focus on still photography and just observing. That may change if I find myself stuck in dodgy wx and only get to see the fully eclipsed sun through breaks in the clouds, in which case it would make more sense to record just video and extract the clearest frames later... wouldn't want my eyes glued to viewfinders the whole time.

You can record shadow bands, but they're so faint that they'd be imperceptible in a still photograph. The effect is mostly one of movement.

I guess "call before you dig" doesn't apply to professionals... what a disaster for the local economy.

Not one of my favorite storms. To get almost 3" of liquid without any mixing and not break 20" is a pretty huge fail. Tracking it was the best part of the whole event... though I suppose that's true more often than not.

Oh what could have been (and this wasn't even in the core of the CME as far as I can tell).

That's good advice for most but even though this will hopefully be my first TSE, photography will be a big part of the day for me. I work as a photographer so I'm intimately familiar with my camera gear and can operate it in the dark or under pressure, etc. I plan to have three cameras set up – one mounted to a telescope for close-up views, one with a 300mm telephoto lens for imaging the outer corona, and one with a wide-angle lens to capture the scenery at totality (this one might get axed depending on my viewing site. Hotel parking lot? meh.) With semi-automation and remote shutter releases, it'll be doable. I'm positive that not every shot will be a success... my biggest goal is merely to learn as many lessons as possible so I'm better prepared for future eclipses.

I'll be getting in early on the 20th, so hopefully it won't be too crazy yet.