Tips for the eclipse

[Frankskywatcher]

Thought I would share this article.

[Lady Fraktor]

I hope you get to enjoy the show Frank.

[Frankskywatcher]

Unfortunately I’m out of its path here in Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA !

[OzEclipse]

Unfortunately I’m out of its path here in Myrtle Beach South Carolina USA !

Frank,

If you leave now on foot, you'll be there in 253 hrs or about 11 days, on April 4th. That gives you four days to rest your sore feet before April 8th.

Joe

[OzEclipse]

Hi Frank,
Thanks for posting this. I realise you are not an experienced eclipse chaser so I want to point out some problems with this video.

Watching it and listening to some of the presenters advice, I can't help but think this guy is more of a YouTube jockey chasing views, less of an experienced eclipse chaser. His info probably comes from a script assembled by reading other eclipse chasers websites or written by AI.

There are a number of serious problems I see with the detail he presents in his advice:-

1. He has a huge heavy camera & lens perched precariously on a small tripod. In my experience, this is a recipe for failure.

2. He's using a ball and socket for something so big and heavy. A three axis camera tripod head is much easier to pan and control to keep the sun in frame.

3. The eclipse is at elevations from 50 up to 70 degrees at some locations. Some ball and sockets will have difficulty pointing a long lens this high. He has solved this by extending the centre column, yet another bad strategy.

4. He recommends increasing ISO. The solar corona has a huge dynamic range so, for capturing totality, you want to put your camera on the lowest possible ISO to maximise the sensor's photographic dynamic range.

5. He says you will need an exposure of around 1 second at ISO 200 f8 to get the corona to show up. The inner corona begins to record at 1/2000 s ISO100 f8. At the exposure he recommends, the corona will be quite overexposed.


I produced the series of images of the corona below by processing a single ISO100, 1/2000s, 480mm focal length ED80 f6 refractor. I just stretched it harder and harder with each subsequent shot. Then at the end I combined the 5 stretched images to produce the composite. Naturally I can get better results from a multitude of images. I did this to demonstrate the error in his remarks.



This is the base 1/2000s exposure: no adjustments.

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Now using the exposure slider only:-

Exposure +1.5

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Exposure +3.0

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Exposure +4.5

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Exposure +5.0 Contrast Slider down a little

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Radial composite of the above 5 images

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This is a 1/30s exposure, no adjustments.

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Finally, here is the presenters recommended exposure to "record the corona," a 1s ISO200 @ f8
Quite overexposed??

Unfortunately this eclipse has been a party for misinformation. Here are two other memes circulating elsewhere (Facebook mostly) that are also false:

1. You have to be right on the centre line otherwise you lose 3 minutes of totality. FALSE

Take centreline duration in Texas 4m26s as an example. 20 miles either side of the centreline, the duration is 4m10s. This relationship holds (approximately) right up the path. If you are in Maine on the NB border, max duration is 3m22s and 20 miles of centreline it is still 3m10s


2. You can see comet Pons-Brookes 12P during the eclipse with the naked eye. FALSE

Unless it undergoes a HUGE outburst, the comet won't be much brighter during the eclipse than it is now. During an eclipse, the sky is as bright as twilight blue. If you can't see a magnitude 4 or 5 comet with your naked eye during twilight now, you won't see it during the eclipse. Just enjoy the eclipse.

Cheers

Joe