Monday, May 21, 2012

The solar eclipse of 2012

I have not taken anything worthy of either Sadie or Katie in the last couple of weeks.

But there was a partial solar eclipse visible here in southern California this past weekend so I tried to get a few photos of that. Fortunately, clouds were rolling in off the ocean in early evening (normal for this time of year) so I didn't need any eye protection. Still, I refrained from looking at the sun directly, and looked at the edge of the viewfinder while focusing on the sun.

It didn't turn out too badly:

The partial solar eclipse of 2012

Since I was using the spot meter the camera made silhouettes out of everything.

One method that was suggested to use to watch the eclipse was to use a white background and binoculars or a telescope to project the sun's image onto the background. I didn't have a white backdrop handy, so I had Gayle hold our binoculars and used Sadie as the backdrop:

Sadie

Sadie was a little confused about why I was having her stand still on the front lawn as I snapped a few frames.

7 comments:

  1. Very cool. We didn't get to see it on the East Coast. Bet Sadie thought she was getting an eclipse tattoo :)

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    1. you've probably seen pictures taken of the eclipse by people who live where the eclipse was visible at sunset. wow...those are some cool pictures.

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  2. That is very cool! We didn't get to see it here, either, but I'm so glad you went out and got cool pictures of it!

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    1. it might have been one of those times i wished i lived in new mexico or texas: maximum coverage of the sun was right around sunset. take a look at spaceweather.com's eclipse gallery or at astronomy picture of the day's website.

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  3. Replies
    1. desperate times require desperate measures. sadie had to stand there for nearly a minute while i tried taking a few shots. she was a good sport.

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  4. I live in a vacuum, I didn't even know there was a solar eclipse:( Love your photos of it. Sadie makes a good backdrop in an emergency:)

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