The Great American Eclipse of 2017

I have now witnessed the transiting of all naturally occurring bodies of significance that pass between the Earth and its parent star.

I saw the transit of Venus in 2004 and 2012, peering at the sun through a filtered telescope for the first, and filtered binoculars for the second from workplace parking lots.

I witnessed the transit of Mercury in 2016, projecting the image of the sun through a telescope onto rear projection screen film wrapped around the business end of a Home Depot bucket for a class of second graders (Instructions here. Although I cut a hole in the bottom of my bucket to project through, attached an Arca-Swiss cleat to the side of the bucket, and mounted the whole thing on a tripod).

And last Monday, I experienced my first total solar eclipse of the sun with my family from a parking lot at Oregon State University. It was glorious.

Totality.

For the solar eclipse, I projected the image of the sun through a different telescope onto rear projection screen film wrapped around a long funnel (instructions here). I also pointed my camera with a solar filter over its kit 300mm telephoto lens to try my hand at solar photography. And I had some cardboard solar glasses to stare at the sun directly with.

The Gear.

The experts say that you should just enjoy your first solar eclipse, and try taking pictures at your second. You'll miss out on the extraordinary experience that is totality if you're busy trying to photograph it, is the argument. And they are 100% correct.

But I also knew I would feel bad if I did not try to take pictures, so I did it anyway. Now I kind of feel bad that I spent a lot of totality looking down at my camera adjusting settings instead of looking up at the sun and around at the environment. Totality lasted but a fleeting couple of minutes, and deserved to be relished. But I'm still glad I took pictures.

Next time, I will bring my computer or a Raspberry Pi with me and write a program to have it vary the exposure times and take the pictures. That way, I can experience the full of totality and get pictures at the range of exposures necessary to capture the full expanse of the corona.

My equipment didn't come away from the experience completely unscathed. While the camera, telescope, and eyeballs are, apparently, no worse for wear, the inside of the telescope eyepiece I used to project the image of the sun took some heat damage. Wear eye protection, people!

This is your eyeball after staring unprotected at the sun.

If you haven't seen a total eclipse in person, you owe it to yourself to experience at least one before you die. It is a singularly unique experience that words cannot come close to describing. The feeling is a lot like the first time you catch a wave and are able to stand on your board when learning to surf, only completely different.