Transit from a Volcano.

[JB80]

Ok, maybe not as dramatic as the title would suggest but still Santorini is a geo-active volcano system so I'm going to claim that one.

So as some of you may know we have just returned from holidays in Crete and went to Santorini for the transit, the whole place was spectacular. Truly a worthy place for witnessing such a special event. We witnessed some great sights too while we were there, the rising of a near full blood red moon and the dramatic sunsets but that's for another thread possibly.

We stayed in a hotel villa high on the rim of the caldera and had a perfect view eastward over the ocean, the weather leading up had been perfect and the morning before I had a succesful trial run in clear conditions and had everything worked out. Settings were honed, best location found etc...

However, that evening some disturbing developments were afoot which left me feeling a bit uneasy.

You guessed it, cloud.

It was the type of cloud that only forms at the top of mountains and nowhere else, lenticular I think. So to my disgust this was the scen that I awoke to in the morning.

Unbelieveable, there had not been a cloud in sight for are whole trip or the days after.

Thankfully though as you may be able to see(I do have better pics of the effect) there was a thin strip of clear air between the horizon and the cloud which was situated right over my head, although at the time I wasn't sure how it was going to play out.

So it was now a waiting game to see what would happen next.

Then at precisely 6:02am local time a first glimmer of orange began to peek over the horizon, YES!!!! I was going to be able to see it.

My first few shots however were way out... the change of seeing had dramatically changed the settings I had figured out a day before and this played havoc throughout the transit and my plans. But still I had some degree of success and I am thrilled to be able to of captured and share with you some of the photos I took.

Santorini Transit by Jarrod Bennett, on Flickr

I do have some white light pics as well which I'll post when I get around to checking all the SD cards. There was a good 30 min or so chunk of the transit that I missed due to the clouds as the Sun got higher but it reappered towards the end so I'll go through it all and see what I can come up with.

It's also worth mentioning that the Polarie performed reasonably well on it's solar tracking rate too.

All in all I'm ectstatic to have seen such a special event.

Jarrod.

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Awesome and on volcano aswell

[yeti monster]

Lovely shots, well worth the effort I'd say.

[JB80]

Thanks

It was definitely worth the effort, think I'll even print one of those off.

My wife even snapped a pic through the clouds with her canon IXUS.

[SkyJamie]

Great pictures Jarrod

Jamie

[David Smith]

Some great photos there Pibbles. Difference between yours and the others I have seen taken from the UK - it looks warm where you were!

[JB80]

Thank you Jamie and David.

It was quite nice during the day, I managed to get burnt on my belly the last day.

Although I did have to slip on a pull over transit morning.

[JB80]

Here is a few more taken with baader film and custom pringles container filter. I boosted the contrast a little to on the pics but that was all.

The orange is down to the Sun being still relatively low in the sky I suppose. I wanted to stack them but was having a right old faff trying to do it so gave up for now.

Taken at 300mm on the 450D.

[yeti monster]

I often get an orange Sun through Baader film when it's low, saves that much pp...

When the Transit was nearing the end, the Sun was directly over head for me, the weight of the 70-300 had the lens de-focusing and zooming out, I had to hold the zoom and adjust the focus with my left hand whilst I operated the remote shutter with my right, once again my angle finder earned it keep as I'd never have managed without it...

[JB80]

I often get an orange Sun through Baader film when it's low, saves that much pp...

When the Transit was nearing the end, the Sun was directly over head for me, the weight of the 70-300 had the lens de-focusing and zooming out, I had to hold the zoom and adjust the focus with my left hand whilst I operated the remote shutter with my right, once again my angle finder earned it keep as I'd never have managed without it...

I noticed the orange the last solar eclipse we had at sunrise, it's the only time I ever really view the sun when it's low. But yeah it saves just a tiny bit of PP.

I didn't have that issue that badly with the zoom although many people say the same thing, I must of knocked it and it moved out of focus just a bit though they are fairly touchy. It would of made ife interesting to have the zoom slipping.

Plus the filter I made needed refining, I should of cut the Pringles tube smaller as when I taped it to the lens it taped over the focus adjuster, not a big deal but I could of done without it.

The biggest issue for me was the variable conditions, I had the remote timer set but some pics came out over exposed when it cleared and under when a bit more cloud came in. All the settings I had figured out the day before went straight out the window.

[JB80]

Here is a rough sequence of the sunrise, you can just about see Venus in all of them.