Partial Solar Eclipse - Cape Town RSA

[Ohan Smit]

Cape Town - Partial Solar Eclipse by Ohan Smit, on Flickr

I was up at 6am this morning expecting some semi clear skies and minimum amount of wind and clouds.

To my surprise the whole setting was perfect except for the huge amount of high altitude clouds in the sky.

I spent the first half hour setting up the telescope and planning my trajectory for when the sun would peak out from behind the neighbor’s roof.

Whilst waiting for the sun to appear from behind the clouds and the roof lining, I went and grabbed my 300mm and the Nikon which was sitting idle on telescope.

With the Nikon and 300mm in place I attached my 10 stop ND filter and had a peak through the viewfinder.

What a brilliant sight!

Throughout the next ninety minutes I got 52 shots. All in between various phases of the eclipse and with varying cloud cover.

This picture is a composite of nine pictures of which eight are shot at 300mm focal length and the last at 1400mm.

The first shot on the right bottom was shot at 07:19.

The last shot was shot at 07:58 and was a merciful gift from the sky gods after disallowing me the moment of maximum eclipse 5 minutes prior.

The final picture is a white light picture from using the baader solar filter on the telescope.

Nikon D800, Nikkor AF-S 300mm f/4D IF-ED, at aperture of f/8, B+W ND3.0. 

Celestron HD 8, Baader Solar Film

Regards

Ohan

[JamesF]

That's a lovely set of images.  Well done.

James

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice, despite the clouds. Lovely presentation

[laudropb]

Great set of images, very well presented. Thanks for posting.

[JB80]

Agreed, great captures well presented.

The clouds almost make the whole piece more atmospheric, no pun intended.

[Ohan Smit]

Thank you

Haha, indeed it does add a certain atmosphere

[xtreemchaos]

very nice image Ohan,  i think the clouds add to it, thats one to get printed and put on your wall,  well done.  thanks for sharing   charl.

[Ohan Smit]

very nice image Ohan,  i think the clouds add to it, thats one to get printed and put on your wall,  well done.  thanks for sharing   charl.

Thanks Charl.

I think I will have this one printed

thanks for the thought 

[Davey-T]

Congratulations on a great capture Ohan.

Dave

[TheBug]

Awesome pics Ohan!!! We had clear skies in Pretoria as well.. Just a bit foggy. Overslept a bit but did get a few nice pics eventually!

Glad to see I'm not the only SAffer on the forum

[1parsec]

Very nice compilation.

[Pete Presland]

Superb image very nicely put together the clouds are annoying , but they give a little atmosphere as well to the photo.

[Montana]

Absolutely stunning photography and beautifully presented, you can't beat a good solar eclipse :)

Alexandra

[Ohan Smit]

Awesome pics Ohan!!! We had clear skies in Pretoria as well.. Just a bit foggy. Overslept a bit but did get a few nice pics eventually!

Glad to see I'm not the only SAffer on the forum

Thanks, Yeah I believe there are quite a bunch of us here, we just need to come out of our shells, winter has been long and "frustrating" 

To the rest, thanks for the warm hearted comments

Have a nice day