Following on from the lunar eclipse earlier in October, much of North America was treated to a partial solar eclipse this afternoon, where the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth.
Vancouver has been having some pretty bad weather for a couple of weeks now, and it looked very likely that the solar eclipse wasn't going to be visible with all the cloud around. However, I really wanted to get this, so I studied the weather maps and found a chance of clear skies near the US border at around the peak of the eclipse (roughly 3pm in Vancouver). It was a bit of a long shot, but I figured I'd give it a go.
I was open-minded as to where to go as I drove down, and followed the gaps in the clouds until I got to Boundary Bay. On arriving there, the sun was behind clouds, but it looked likely that the situation would improve in a few minutes, so I set the camera up and waited.
I hadn't got a proper solar filter, so instead relied on my 10-stop ND filter, which I had to tape to the front of my lens as I don't have a holder big enough for the telephoto! This wasn't enough filtration to safely look through the viewfinder, so I relied on the Live View functionality to protect my eyes, and also directed the camera away from the Sun whenever I wasn't shooting.
Although there were only a few complete gaps in the clouds, the clouds thinned enough to allow the sun to be visible for a good amount of time around the peak of the Eclipse, and the cloud I was shooting through added some additional filtration of the light. I took the first three photos as the eclipse progressed, with the second photo being taken at roughly the time when the eclipse was greatest.
I was also able to capture some sunspots. These were mostly obscured a little by the clouds, but the bottom right photo, taken in a brief gap with no clouds at all, shows a number of sunspots very clearly, with one very large one visible just where the moon intersects the sun, in a region known as AR2192. This sunspot has the chance of also providing some incredible aurora displays, if it happens to flare while pointed at the Earth.
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
If you're interested in any...
Thank you for sharing this wonderful event....you captured perfectly, as usual!! I was reminded of it around 4 PM, and went outside to have a look, but I had no eye protection, and for the brief moment that I glimpsed at it I was blinded, so I stepped away. So good to see it through your photos....and, much safer, too!
@mzzhope Thank you! I've fixed the issue and it's now running again. Unfortunately it won't pick up old photos that it missed, but I've manually added your missing photos so they show up (although I can't absolutely get the times it was added and removed, so those are fudged). Sorry for not noticing sooner! Let me know if I've overlooked anything!
November 19th, 2014
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