2017 Total Solar Eclipse

Christa and I drove to Niota, Tennessee the day before the eclipse and slept in the Eurovan in a Pilot parking lot off of Interstate 75.  I chose Niota because it was almost exactly on the centerline.   The next day we drove to a local elementary school which they opened for public viewing of the eclipse, and were lucky to arrive early enough that we got a parking spot on a paved basketball court.  I set up a pavillion next to the van and then two telescopes with cameras.  Our skies were pristine, which fortunately were enjoyed by most observers in the southeastern United States, including those in South Carolina.

I set up my Nikon D40 on a C8 with full white light solar filter, and then a Canon Digital Rebel XT (modified for Hα transmission) on my 120mm f/5 achromat, also white light filtered.  It ended up being that all of the images I acquired during totality were from the Canon and 120mm f/5 scope.  With only a few minutes of totality, I didn't have time to operate more than one camera.  The views through binoculars were spectacular!  I also didn't plan my exposure program very well, because I thought I would be able to take an image, manually change the exposure, take another image, etc., but in the heat of the moment, I didn't recall that I needed to click the wheel several notches each time in order to get significant range of expsoures.  Therefore, I missed out on longer exposures to get a good view of the outer corona, which was very impressive this time.  Good thing seemingly everyone else got great pictures of the event!