August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse!

The day we all were waiting for finally came. And it was definitely worth the wait! Living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa I had only a few destination options to view the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017 because I only had that day off from work. One of the least desired was SE Nebraska, and the other SW Illinois. The better prospects were the Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis areas of Missouri. 

I selected the Kansas City area on the early morning of the 21st, and our car of four passengers headed west on Interstate 80. At Grinnell, I received a text from my son indicating that the Columbia option was probably the better choice because of probable better weather. We backtracked a few miles then headed south for Columbia. As we neared Columbia, we researched areas there to view the eclipse and found the sprawling Columbia Cosmopolitan Recreation Center, which was actually promoting eclipse watching. As it turned out, the Columbia option WAS a wise choice. The Kansas City area experienced heavy traffic on Interstate 35 and a heavy cloud cover. Though Columbia was not itself devoid of clouds, it would allow wonderful views of the spectacle. 

The image above is a ten-shot combination of the eclipse progression, starting at 12:15 pm CDT (lower left), and ending with the total eclipse image at 1:12 pm. Each shot was the best selection from a Nikon D7200 DSLR 9-stop bracket. I used a 62mm solar filter for the partial phases threaded over the 300mm lens. Settings were f/5.3 and 640 ISO, manual focus. Haze and light drifting clouds prevented me from capturing a "hard" focus of the sun's disk. 

This iPhone 6-Plus image of the sun at 1:02 pm--ten minutes before totality--shows a sun halo, and a curious lens light flare shaped like a crescent (arrow), which the sun actually looked like at this moment.

1:12 pm and the beginning of totality. Closeup of the "diamond ring" effect. Solar filter was now off the Nikon camera. Image captured at 1/125 second at f/5.3, 640 ISO. Again, passing thin clouds prevented a clear focus.

1:12 pm. GoPro Hero 4 Silver video frame capture of totality. The image is skewed because I hastily mounted the suction cup to a slanted Playmate cooler. My bad!

1:15 pm. Members of our eclipse viewing group observe the ending moments of totality. iPhone 6-Plus camera. The experience was a satisfying and awesome one--even in a spiritual sense--but in the end many of my photography goals did not meet up to expectations...but there is another US total solar eclipse in seven years...maybe then!