Eclipse - Not Even Plan C!

[Luke]

HI All,

So plan A for eclipse was Quark and Equinox 120 - why not do some close-ups, they shoud still be cool? Plan B - full disc with white light! Late addition of a plan C - full disc h-alpha with SolarMax 60. Of course, it turned out to be far too cloudy for all of the above, but thin enough to rush off and grab the DSLR... Plans are a complete waste of time, not at all to be recommended.

Well there were a very late few grabs with the Quark, hope to process those before 2015 is out Thanks for looking, Luke

[dazzaa1966]

Nice one Luke.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Good shots there. I only had planned A and B: white light with APM80 and H-alpha with SolarMax 60, but neither worked. Should have brought a DSLR with telephoto or simply my little Nikon P90 bridge camera. As it was I had no way to record the fleeting glimpses we got

[Steve Ward]

Can't beat a little cloud for adding to the atmosphere ... 

[Peter Drew]

Yes Steve, I far prefer a bit of cloud background, clear images, to me, just look like cardboard cutouts. 

[Pete Presland]

Still nicely captured.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I love the purity/rawness of these images. By "purity/rawness" i mean the clouds. For me personally many of the best images of the eclipse were taken through clouds. Even Pete Lawrence's images were taken through cloud and they are fantastic.

The last one is my favourite.

Nicely captured. 

[Montana]

Some lovely Cheshire cat smiles :)  

Alexandra

[Luke]

Thanks, all!

Michael, I was just lucky I was at home and could go get the DSLR, it had not entered my mind at all. Glad you at least got some glimpses, when it looked like it might be nothing, I would have settled for a quick glimpse.

Paul, if I had known it would be mostly cloudy like that, I would have been really disappointed. But it actually worked quite well, the sun had a magical glow about it and "natural" look. I should say of course you have to be very, very careful observing the sun.

I judged that there was plenty enough cloud, nothing was visible in the eclipse glasses, and even though the sun was fairly dim we wore quality sunglasses with UV/IR protection. I read that invisble light can pass through clouds more easily and you won't feel a thing so you have to play safe.

I was a little shocked to learn that my Mum observed an eclipse many years back with the naked eye, she says her eyesight has never been the same since. I never knew until now.

When it did start clearing up we did take a view with eclipse glasses (before I rushed to my Quark for imaging the last moments). There was an interesting illusion: The sun looked so much smaller through the eclipse glasses, isolated in darkness!