As many of you know, I’ve taken a hiatus from WUWT for almost two months, and I offer my humble thanks to the many people that contributed of themselves to allow that to happen. I’ll be back at the helm soon, but for now, I wanted to share this video. Charles the Moderator (CTM) joined me in the desert wilderness of Eastern Oregon to experience the eclipse together….and we did. We set posts to publish ahead, and left the grid…it was the first time since the mid 90’s that I’ve been without Internet access for 3 days straight.
I prepped for months. Three cameras. Tracking mount. There’s no way to practice for this, all you can do is make best guesses. One of my guesses turned out OK. Not perfect, but I’ll fix it in post.
As for the total eclipse, it was the most incredible experience I’ve ever had – an intersection of science, technology, photography, art, and history. Literally, it was jaw dropping as I stood there gazing at the corona in awe. I saw the annular eclipse in 2012 – this was orders of magnitude beyond that experience. Here are some stills from the video.
And, at the end of the day, driving back on Highway 395, the sun gave us a second show, complete with crepuscular rays.
The place we were at, Deep Creek Campground in Ochoco National Forest, was not crowded at all. In fact, we avoided all the traffic, the gas lines, and the crowds. We were by ourselves – blissful solitude.
All for now. I’m zorched.
P.S. I apologize for leaving you all stuck with NASA TV while we were gone. I hear it was even worse than you’d expect…talking heads, inanity, small split screens….
UPDATE: Here’s another photo taken with a different camera (Nikon D1500 D7500). The exposure is reduced, and you can see prominences on the edge of the sun….these are magnetic field lines that are causing hot gas eruptions from the sun’s photosphere. Click to enlarge.
I did not get even close to seeing it. but listening to you guys enthuse… its put a big smile on my face
I viewed it with my wife in Fort Laramie WY. First time ever we witnessed a full eclipse. It was like a sacred moment and I will never forget the split second transition to darkness and the same when the lights were turned on again. And yes, the temperature dropped significantly. Maybe Gore should organize more eclipses to cool the earth.
AW: could you post hi res, suitable for printing / framing?
Thanks Anthony et. al. for the great pictures
Glad you could make it to Oregon. My brother, WUWT regular Ric Werme, joined me for a similar remote off the grid Oregon viewing. Well worth the trip.
Doug made this spur-of-the-moment video of the entry into totality.
I’ll be creating a web page with my photos and maybe some other peoples’ when I get home and get caught up. Probably this weekend.
Good one! These type of videos is what I expected to see more of with the TV and NASA coverage. They all tended to cut away when the crowd got in complete darkness. I heard that ABC had good coverage though – hope to see more of these types of videos with the actual human reactions. Maybe some will be posted on Youtube, etc. And thanks again Anthony for your expert coverage and descriptions…
Anyone else unable to play the video? It just sits there with the 3 dots in the middle bubbling away.
Magnetic, plasma even. Gases? No. Sun is more electric than we can imqgine. I can hardly spell. The earth is nearly roundoid, the press and pr are flat? Global warming is cosmic stirrings mostly. Pollution is not light. Get on the ball scientists. I can hardly science.
The vacuous network commentary was hard to listen to. The worst was when they started talking about “complete totality.”
I cannot believe what a perfect location Anthony scoped out. Here’s a shot of us fighting the crowds. That’s my travel companion in the middle, meditating during the eclipse. Anthony is under the awning.
It was truly an amazing day, and I was happy to have you both there with me.
Anthony,
Great event.
We watched the eclipse from a nice, uncrowded campsite at Sunset ranch 8-10 miles NW of Madras, Oregon and overlooking the canyon of Lake Chinook, 70 miles WNW of your Deep Creek campsite. My son and daughter-in-law served mimosas to several fellow observers during the event.
Other campsites in the general Madras area were enormous. After the eclipse ended, the highways morphed into giant parking lots. Tough drive home to Vancouver B.C.
Anthony,
So glad you and CTM had a good day. Sorry we missed you in NZ this time.
Had a great family time viewing the eclipse at Clarksville,TN with 2 brothers from Toronto and son from Indianapolis.
One brother took a great viedo of the shadow bands…something I had never spotted in the other 2 eclipses I’ve seen. Well worth the trip from New Zealand!
PBS had an eclipse special last night that was quite good. I watched because of the team on Casper Mountain, but was impressed with the show. There was a lot of interesting information in it.
(It’s on again on Wednesday in my TV market.)
Yes, this was a very good program…I was astounded they put it together so quickly…I saw it in Tennesee only about 6 or 7 hours after the eclipse had ended!
Cool!
Magnificent returns for our pittances of donations!
Terrific work. Very, very nice.
In southeastern Washington State with 96.8% of total eclipse, a thermometer in the direct sun went from 76 F to 70 F. Also, as the sun set that evening, I observed two beautiful son dogs in the cirrus clouds.
Charles, where’s the solar-mobile? Anthony didn’t drive up in his EV?
The 2024 eclipse is going to just miss San Antonio and Austin (something like 99.91%?)
Hope I can hang in there for 6.5 years more and watch it from my patio. May drive into the hill country and catch 100%.
This eclipse was not my first rodeo. While I had invited Anthony to view the eclipse from Baker County viewing, he went elsewhere in Eastern Oregon, instead missing out on wood splitting opportunities during dusky darkness. My companion and I continued to split wood through the entire eclipse. In the near distance (next door) a rooster crowed afterwards. That would have been cool except for the fact this rooster crows all the time. As far as I could tell, Halfway remained a quiet conservative hamlet through the entire thing. Thank God.
So the invite still stands. Anthony, if life gets stressful or you just need a break, join my friends and I in this wonderful part of Oregon. Fishing is the order of the day.
I may very well take you up on that. This place also had the advantage of Altitude ~5000 feet, enough to get above the haze layer. Pretty important for quality solar
photography.
Did you notice that in the stills you posted of totality and of the diamond ring, you captured the star Regulus? (Near the bottom, on the left side).
It was definitely worth the drive, apparently I was in the same forest.
I feel sorry for my coworkers who bought the traffic Armageddon hype and didn’t see totality
Excellent Anthony and CTM. Seems the best part for you was not the eclipse but having it all come together so well. Nice. Thanks for the post and cool video.
Here in southern Alberta there was 82% coverage. I took a lot of photos with my DSLR in the driveway of our humble summer RV lot. Had to schlep my gear about 30 feet from my “office” to the driveway. ☺
http://cwrboatclub.weebly.com/uploads/5/0/6/8/50683553/eclipse-master-composite-f-1000_orig.jpg
Reply: It’s true. For me, there was a great deal of satisfaction in the plans coming together. There was so much uncertainty leading up to this: the traffic fears, inadequate gas supplies, my own photographic inexperience, aaaannnnnddd I haven’t been camping in 42 years. I was frightened and elated leading up to it.
I ate less than 10% of the dried food I purchased, and less than half of the refrigerated items, such as cheese and salami. We were prepared for various contingencies but between us, had all supplies we needed, including tools and craft supplies for cutting and assembling our solar filters. The location was amazing and the planned routes out worked perfectly to avoid crowds.~ctm
Saw this from N of Unity, Oregon on 245, right on the centreline. I was apprehensive about traffic but the trip there (from Boise) in the early hours was very quiet. The result was awesome, as we missed the full experience of the 1999 one in UK because of cloud. No such problems in E Oregon! The site was good (an ODOT road gravel pile) and not as crowded as I expected – does nobody research the NASA eclipse stuff? Surprisingly one party there were Brits living no more than 40 miles from us! This eclipse seemed quite good from the combination of features – corona & prominences. No doubt NASA will say more when they’ve done the analysis. Thank you US for hosting us for this!
I believe most of the traffic from the eclipse in Oregon went North. As I was driving from McMinnville toward Corvalis there was practically no traffic southbound and northbound was absolutely jammed so I think most came down from Portland with a relatively smaller number from California that came north. It was a long drive, about 12 hours from where I live to get there. Yreka is about half way for me. I did get a nice picture of Mt Shasta on the way home, though!
Was working on a project in SLC and decided the least-crowded relatively nearby place to see it would be near Howe ID.
Got up there Sunday morning, found a lone juniper tree on a desert hilltop and 4x4d up to it on an obscure and little-used dirt road and made camp. Over the next 22 hours watched wildlife, drank beer, relaxed, read some history and watched a slow trickle of campers/RVs/Motorhomes etc. stake out spots all around us.
I delayed too long and missed out on the approved safe viewing lens so borrowed my friend’s arc-welding mask which was shade 10.
I started out looking at the western sky away from the sun just before totality started based on something I read on the internet about the best way to experience the “snake shadow” phenomena. I was greeted not only with that absolutely freaky scene but also the sensation of the sun suddenly being turned off and stars being visible in an instant, which along with the corona were the highlights for me.
I didn’t stare the whole time at it, never looking longer than maybe 5 seconds at a time. So far I am experiencing none of the symptoms described for doing damage. One thing I read that was surprising is that ophthalmologists can tell sometimes just by examination of the eye if someone has ever viewed an eclipse without proper protection.
The sensation of the people around me (screams/hoots/whistles) when the corona appeared was almost as memorable as the scene itself, no words do it justice.
And the sight of Venus further away than the sun and so very bright was a real surprise – I had not done enough homework on what to look for.
Historically, eclipses altered history. Nicias, for example, during the Peloponnesian wars between Athens and Sparta, decided to stay in Sicily for 30 days extra after seeing an eclipse August 28, in 413 BC. End result was his army was totally annihilated by the Sicilians (with a Spartan general leading). It became Athens’ biggest defeat ever.
On the the same August date was also the WWI August 21, 1914 total solar eclipse,
https://www.universetoday.com/113882/remembering-the-world-war-i-eclipse/
I was able to enjoy the 2001 eclipse from a unique vantage point in the Zambezi valley inside Zimbabwe. I flew my trike microlight straight at the sun in the hopes of being at altitude sufficient to see the shadow moving over the ground.
Totality was incredible with the corona and the stars shining. A very strange sensation in many ways. At about 5000 ft above ground level, 6300ft AMSL, I turned off the engine and just glided along staring at the moon surrounded by a glow. Peaceful and awesome.
I was so keen to see the shadow moving across the land that I convinced myself that I had. My buddy in the other trike said he didn’t see it but he was lower than me so who knows.
Restarted after several minutes and turned away as the sun began reappearing. Went down and landed in twilight. A very singular experience in my life.
Warm Regards Anthony.
A page on the technical aspects of the photography/videography – shutter speeds, apertures, filters etc would be of great interest.
Hi ThinkingScientist
Photos were a bit of a crap shoot. I took a few test shots the day before. My DSLR has an EVF which is a boon for things like this…I shot in M mode (always shoot in M mode) and could look at the flip screen with no problems…although it was still to bright to actually focus. I tried welding glass but the sun sdges were soft with the glass.
My half-decent pics during the eclipse were taken between f29 and f32 and between 1/5,000 and 1/8,000 second and a 400-mm lens. Because I could not actually see the sun on the screen..white blob…I used manual focus from ∞ and backed off a bit. Of the 150 photos I selected a few and made a composite picture (posted above.)
If the crik don’t rise I hope to do this again in 2024 (age 77), however live in a mere 20% zone. Oh well.
Clice
“but the sun sdges were soft ” should be “but the sun edges were soft ”
Bad morning..can’t even spell my own name! ☺
Clive
Anthony, thanks for sharing this — beautiful timelapse!
I had the fortune of enjoying the total eclipse just west of the Grant Teton mountains, south of Rexburg near the center of maximum totality for that longitude. Definitely worth the trip (despite horrendous traffic afterwards). Perfect weather with completely clear skies. Awe-inspiring experience!
Texas 2024 or bust!