One more solar eclipse post - or two … a final one tomorrow.  :)  It’s a busy photography season here in London, and so I’ve been slow in getting all my eclipse pictures posted from 2 weeks ago.  It was a magical eclipse, even though there were some clouds — in some ways, they made the images even more mysterious, and the sighting of the corona and moon during totality even more special.

I’ve shown these images to friends who’ve never experienced a solar eclipse to give them a sense of how it feels — the tone of the light as it disappears in the final minutes and seconds, the shadows on the horizon and approaching before and receding after totality, the degree of darkness in the middle of totality, the speed with which the eclipse comes and goes, and the intensity of the tiniest speck of light from the sun.

This is a series of 5 photos, taken in the final seconds, when I removed my solar filter from my camera, and then through totality until the sun re-emerged and I put the solar filter back on the lens.  I love these images for capturing the strange silvery light and the stages of totality.  I’ve put captions on each to explain what you’re seeing.

(click through the images by using the arrows on the right/left — much better if you click the zoom button to see the images large)

UPDATE:  appears some of the captions aren’t displaying fully, so here they are:

Image 1: The final seconds before the total solar eclipse.  You can see the shadow of the moon in the sky above, coming from the direction behind the camera

Image 2: The moment of the beginning of the total eclipse — second contact — as the corona appears and the last spot of the sun create a “diamond” ring for a brief moment

Image 3: The middle of the total solar eclipse, when the corona is visible and no direct light comes from the sun.  Everything is dark, but on the horizon you can see where it’s daylight with no shadow yet

Image 4: Third contact, as the sun emerges.  You can see it is now quite light above us, but on the horizon, where it had been light moments ago, the moon’s shadow has made it dark

Image 5: Moments after the eclipse, we’re bathed in a bright silvery light as the sun emerges again, the sky above goes blue, but on the far horizon, you can see the darkness of the moon’s shadow

All images Copyright © 2012 Deidre Sorensen

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  1. deidreworld posted this