Solar Eclipse

I was with the Asociacion Panamena de Aficionados a la Astronomia at Penonome, Panama, on April 8 for the annular eclipse. We had not seen the sun for a week in Central America, but out hopes were high when about three hours before first contact, the sky was mostly blue. At first contact, we were set up on the airfield, and I got this picture. I had planned to make a collage of shots ten minutes apart, but, alas--the cloud god took over after about half an hour. Luckily, he relented just enough so that I can officially say I saw the eclipse, and was not skunked. Here is the first contact picture, and in the next post, I have the closest the camera could come to annularity.

Alex

(Canon 20D, 75-300 mm Canon zoom with Tamron doubler, 1/500th, I believe, 200 ISO, Baader solar filter. )

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And so, just a couple of minutes before second contact, the coulds thinned, but did not disappear. My camera was still on its tripod, and aimed and focused. So, I snapped off a series of exposures while I watched visually. This is one of the exposures. (Same details as before, but I believe this exposure is 1/400th of a second). The clouds were thick enough to ruin sharpness, and the whole sky was aglow, so we saw no corona or other phenomenom. Naked eye there was just a big glow, but with plastic eclipse viewers, or through the SLR's viewer, there was a ring. However, that annularity was most fleeting.

Alex

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Hi Alex and thanks for sharing with us the only pictures of this memorable event that the unfavourable weather allowed. It must have been quite frustrating, but at least you got to see some of it

Ciao Alex

Luca