An image of the International Space Station as it passed over the region on 2020-07-16. In addition to the space station modules, solar panels, and ammonia panels, a Soviet Progress 75 supply ship can be seen docked at one end and the Crew Dragon capsule can be seen docked at the other end.

Celestron Super C8 Plus with Canon 20D at ISO 800, 1/2000 second exposure, manual tracking.

I found this printed image of comet Hale-Bopp among my old film astrophotographs. It was dubbed the Great Comet of 1997. You can see the coma, the bright dust tail, and the blue ion tail.

I don’t have image details other than it was taken sometime in March, 1997 with my Celestron Super C8+ telescope with Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector on Fuji 100 film.

Mars on 2020-10-03 at 09:56 UT, mean time of observation.This image shows Acidalia Planitia visible at the upper right, disappearing into evening limb haze. Sinus Meridiani is also disappearing into the western limb haze at the lower right. Margaritifer Terra and Aurora Sinus are central on the disk with the Valles Marinaris region branching off the latter toward the upper left. Solis Lacus projects out of the central region along the 9 o'clock radial. The Tharsis volcano region is at upper left.

Celestron Compustar C14 with TeleVue Powermate 2x and Point Grey Flea3 Color camera at 60 fps. Best 7829 frames from 11 videos, stacked and de-rotated in Winjupos.

Mars on 2020-10-08, 07:31 UT, mean time of observation, imaged under mediocre seeing conditions, but I was still able to pull out some details. This image shows Sinus Sabaeus central on the disk with Sinus Meridiani to its left. Syrtis Major and Tyrrena Terra are setting on the right limb with the Hellas basin below them. The darker area below Sinus Sebaeus and to the left of the Hellas basin is Noachis Terra (Noah's Land). Details were obscured along much of the lower left/eastern limb, likely from morning mists and clouds, but Margaritifer Terra can be seen emerging from them. The South Polar Cap is noticeably smaller than in my image from 2020-10-03. Celestron Compustar C14 with TeleVue Powermate 2x and Point Grey Flea3 color camera at 60 fps. Best 3379 frames from 5 videos, stacked and de-rotated in WinJupos.

Mars on 2020-10-16, 09:22 UT , mean time of observation. This image shows Syrtis Major central on the disk with the Hellas Basin below it. Tyrrhenna Terra and Hesperia Planum are to the lower right of Syrtis Major. Sebaeus Sinus extends to the left of Syrtis Major and Sinus Meridiani can be seen emerging around the left limb. The "Face of Mars" is a visible in the Hellas Basin, an upside triangular-shaped face, apparently a new feature caused by shifting dust in the Hellas basin. Terra Cimmeria is disappearing around the western limb.

Celestron Compustar C14 with TeleVue Powermate 2x and Point Grey Flea3 Color camera at 60 fps. Best 6491 frames from 8 videos, stacked and de-rotated in Winjupos.

This image was selected as Editor’s Choice on Sky & Telescope.com.

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Mars on 2020-10-27 at 08:29 UT mean time of observation. The image shows Mare Sirenum to the right side of the disk and Mare Cimmerium to the left. The dark dot below Mare Sirenum is the crater Newton. Amazonis Planitia is above Mare Sirenum. The bright oval at 2:30 is Olympus Mons about to disappear over the western limb. It is apparently very bright, with its eastern slopes reflecting the evening sun.

Celestron Compustar C14 with TeleVue Powermate 2x and Point Grey Flea3 color camera. Best 7233 frames from 9 best videos, stacked and de-rotated in Winjupos.

Mars on 2020-10-28 at 08:42 UT, mean time of observation. The image shows Mare Sirenium near the center of the disk and Mare Cimmerium to its left. The dark dot at the lower edge of Mare Sirenum is the crater Newton. The Tharsis volcano region is to the upper right of Mare Sirenum. Olympus Mons is the bright oval at 2:00 and Arsia Mons is the bright oval at 3:30. Variations in albedo can be seen in the Amazon plain.

Celestron Compustar C14 with TeleVue Powermate 2x and Point Grey Flea3 color camera. Best 4009 frames from 5 best videos stacked and de-rotated in Winjupos.

Mars on 2020-10-29 at 08:14 UT, mean time of observation. The image shows Mare Sirenum near the center of the disk and Mare Cimmerium to the left. The dark dot below Mare Sirenum is the crater Newton. Solis Lacus is disappearing around the western limb. Amazonis Planitia is above Mare Sirenum and the Tharsis region to its right. The bright oval at 2:00 is Olympus Mons and this image amazingly shows hints of the caldera at its summit as well as the contrast between the cliffs along its edges and the surrounding plains. Arsia Mons is the bright oval above the upward tapering tip of Mare Sirenum.

Celestron Compustar C14 with TeleVue Powermate 2x and Point Grey Flea3 color camers. Best 8035 frames from 10 best videos stacked and de-rotated in Winjupos.

This animation of Mars rotation is NOT made from individual images taken hours apart on the same night. Good seeing conditions don’t hold up long enough on any one night to make that possible. Rather, its done via an interesting trick. Mars rotates once every 24.6 hours. That means if you observe Mars at the same time each night, it will have made less than one revolution compared to the night before and the net effect is that Mars appears to rotate backwards. For this animation, I used images I took of Mars at roughly 08:30 UT on three consecutive nights from 2020-10-27 through 2020-10-29. Then, by sequencing them in reverse order in the animation, I made it look like Mars is rotating in the correct direction. Olympus Mons can be seen in the upper right part of the disk, rotating until it appears very bright along the right limb, probably from its western slope reflecting direct sunlight. Mare Sirenum and Mare Cimmerium are the chief dark features on the disk. Descriptions of other details visible on the disk and the exposure data can be found with the posts of the individual images on this website.

The pandemic precluded traveling to South America to see and photograph the 2020-12-14 total solar, so instead I decided to try re-processing images from a previous total solar eclipse trip. I photographed the 1999-08-11 total solar eclipse on the centerline just northwest of Kastamonu, Turkey. It was the preceeding eclipse in Saros 145 to the Great American Eclipse of 2017. Eclipses within a Saros repeat every 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours (one Saros), which means it was virtually identical to the Great American Eclipse with respect to its location in the sky (in the constellation Leo), duration (just over 2 minutes), and the path it traced across the Earth, except the path was shifted 8 hours to the east on the globe, which is why it was visible from Turkey instead of the U.S.

It is well known that no single exposure can capture all that the human eye can see during totality. Different exposures are required to capture prominences, inner, middle, and outer corona. If the required exposures are obtained with a digital camera, then the images can be combined into a single image approximating what the human eye sees using high dynamic range imaging processing techniques. However, I photographed the 1999 eclipse on film. So, all I have had for all these years are those individual exposures.

Now, years later, I am able to scan those film negatives ,converting them to digital images, and use high dynamic range image processing to combine them into an image of that eclipse like none I’ve had for the past 21 years; an image that looks like what I saw with my eyes and that no single film frame could ever show.

Celestron Super C8 plus telescope with Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector and Leica R3 camera with Fuji 100 film, multiple exposures ranging from 1/2000 to 5 seconds, median time of exposure, approximately 11:23 UT.

This image of comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) taken 2020-20-27 at a mean time of 07:00 UT, shows the comet is beginning to fade from its former glory as it recedes from the sun. The tail is dimmer and less extensive than in the image from 2020-07-19.. Despite this, the coma still has spectacular color, glowing teal-green due to the gasses carbon monoxide, cyanide, and diatomic carbon being stimulated by ultraviolet sunlight. The tail shows multiple streamers, one of which is the ion tail. The comet is drifting among colorful stars in the "hind legs" of the great bear, Ursa Major.

Celestron Super C8+ with f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector with Canon EOS 20D.

Exposures: Twenty-seven x 15 seconds at ISO 800 at f/6.3.

This image of comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) taken 2020-07-19 UT, shows significant changes from the image taken 2020-07-13. The tail is no longer bifurcated. Instead, it now shows multiple streamer rays. The coma now glows teal-green, due to the gasses carbon monoxide, cyanide, and diatomic carbon being stimulated by ultraviolet sunlight. The blue ion tail can be seen streaming from the nucleus in contrast to the major dust tail.

Celestron Super C8+ with f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector with Canon EOS 20D.

Exposures: Twenty-four x 15 seconds at ISO 800 at f/6.3.

This close up image of comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) was obtained soon in morning twilight in the few minutes between the time it rose above the horizon and morning twilight. It shows its nucleus, coma, two bright triangular fans projecting rearwards off the coma, and its unusual bifurcated tail, split by a long thin dark lane, amidst a few colorful background stars. A bifurcated tail is seen in particularly dusty comets after they pass perihelion. Mean time of observation~11:20 UT.

Celestron Super C8+ with f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector and Canon EOS 20D.

Exposures: Twenty times 15 seconds at ISO 800 at f/6.3.

This is an image of comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS as it passes through the constellation Camelopardalis. It is inside the orbit of Mars heading towards perihelion in mid-May, 2020. There were predictions that this comet could put on the most spectacular appearance of a comet we've had in decades. However, the comet began to show signs that it was disintegrating. In this image, taken April 8, 2020 UT, the nucleus of the comet seen within the blue/green coma is elongated, which is a reliable sign of imminent break up. The Hubble telescope captured the break up of the comet into multiple fragments on April 20, 2020. Besides the elongated nucleus and blue/greencoma, a faint dust tail with slight reddish tinges can be seen trailing behind the comet as it passes through the starry fields of the constellation Camopardalis. Several small, faint galaxies lying approximately 500 million light-years in the distance are visible in the background giving the image an incredible depth of field.

Exposures: R:G:B = 30:35:30 =95 minutes total exposure at f/7.5..

This image of comet ATLAS was taken on 202-04-09 UT. It shows that the comet has an elongated nucleus within the blue/green coma, which is a sign of impending break up of the comet. The comet's disintegration into multiple fragments was subsequently captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on 2020-04-20. Here, the comet is traversing a starry field in the constellation Camelopardalis. In addition to the elongated nucleus within the blue/green coma, there is a faint dust tail trailing behind the comet which exhibits a slight reddish tinge.

Exposures: R:G:B =55:50:50 minutes = 2 hours 35 minutes total exposure at f/7.5.

This image was published in the September, 2020 issue of Astronomy magazine.

This sequence shows the progression of the lunar eclipse beginning with the full moon entirely in the penumbral phase of the eclipse at the top, through the partial umbral phases, and has the totally eclipsed moon in the center.

Transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are incredibly rare, with the transit of June 5, 2012 being the last in our lifetimes. For this event, I transported my Celestron Super C8 Plus to the summit of Haleakala in Maui, Hawaii because it was one of the only sites where the entire transit would be visible and, at 10,000 feet elevation, I'd likely be above any clouds. The result was this image, which is one of only a few published images showing the entire transit. Exposure: Celestron Super C8 Plus,  Canon EOS 20D DSLR camera, 1/1000 second at ISO 800. 

This image was published in the September, 2014 issue of Sky & Telescope Magazine. and the February, 2020 issue of Astronomy magazine.

This total eclipse of the moon, imaged February 21, 2008 03:53:15 UT, presented a large dynamic range across the face of the moon with deep copper red in the regions of Mare Frigoris and Imbrium and bright orange to pink in the southern highlands. A very pretty an enjoyable eclipse to observe and image. This is a photomosaic of two images images (upper and lower half of moon) with the Compustar C14 SCT @ f/7 with Canon 20D DSLR. Fifteen second exposures at ISO 200.

One of the benefits of travelling to Maui for the transit of Venus in June, 2012, is that it also afforded a superb view of the partial lunar eclipse of 2012-06-04, with the moon near the meridian, with the opportunity to capture some images of an eclipse that was not easily visible from the mainland Americas. Although this wasn't a particularly deep eclipse, this composite image showing the position of the moon every 20 minutes clearly shows the outline of Earth's shadow, the umbra, on the surface of the moon as it passed through it. Celestron Super C8 Plus Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope, fork mount with Byers Drive, at f/6.3. Canon EOS 20D DSLR. Exposures:All 1/1600 second at ISO 800.

This image has been published multiple times in Astronomy Magazine. 

The transit of Venus of 2012-06-05 in hydrogen alpha, near the time of mid-transit. The image shows the hydrogen-alpha network on the disk of the Sun, sunspots, which appear much smaller than in white light images, bright plages around sunspot groups, solar filaments (prominences in silhouette against the brighter solar disk, prominences around the edge of the chromosphere, and the silhouette of Venus.  Celestron Super C8 Plus/fork mount, Byers drive. Canon EOS 20D DSLR at ISO 1600, 1/1250 second exposure. Hydrogen-alpha solar filter at f/40. Photographed from Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii, 2012-06-05 12:28 16:03 Hawaii Standard Time. 

This image is a composite of 5 planetary images all taken at the same magnification, so it shows their relative apparent sizes. They are from left to right, crescent Venus, Mars with its north polar cap, Jupiter with its great red spont and moon Io to its lower right, Saturn, and Pluto.

This exposure of totality is 7 seconds, compared to than my other submission, which was 15 seconds. It isn't overexposed in the sourthern region of the moon, but is correspondingly darker in the northwestern region.

First published in Sky and Telescope Magazine.

The moment of central annularity of the May 20, 2012 annular eclipse as seen from Redding, CA, which was slightly south of center line. This sequence was shot with a Celestron Super C8 Plus and f/6.3 focal reducer and Canon 20D DSLR. Exposure was1/1000 sec at ISO 800.

This sequence shows the majority of the annular eclipse of 2012-05-20 photographed at intervals. The sequence begins in the upper left hand corner showing the full solar disk with sunspots before first contact. The last image in the bottom row was taken just before the Sun became covered with clouds during the last half of egress. The three central images of the middle row show second contact, mid annular eclipse as seen from Redding, CA, and third contact, respectively. This sequence was shot with a Celestron Super C8 and f/6.3 focal reducer and Canon 20D DSLR. Exposures are all 1/1000 sec at ISO 800.

Comet Holmes was a very unusual comet that appeared in fall of 2007.  While at about the distance of the orbit of Mars, it suddenly burst forth with an eruption and brightened with a dramatically enlarged coma surrounding its already bright nucleus. It was essentially spherical in shape, with no discernible tail. It was visible to the naked eye and a grand sight in binoculars. Image obtained on 11/02/2007 07:39 UT Canon 20D DSLR, 30 sec exposure, ISO 1600.

A large solar prominence on the near side of the solar limb, left, is seen projecting into space and exchanging filaments and clouds of plasma with a large prominence beyond the solar limb, seen somewhat more face on, right. Together, they form an enormously large arch. Over time, several filaments and clouds of plasma could be seen passing from one prominence to the other along the arch and I was able to make a frame by frame animation of that from several video clips. Although hydrogen alpha solar images are often obtained as grayscale data, I shot this video in color in an attempt to convey the actual visual appearance of solar prominences through a hydrogen alpha filter.  Celestron Compustar C14. Camera: Point Grey Research Flea3 Color Video Camera. Best 300/1194 frames. Hydrogen-alpha filter, 1 angstrom bandpass. Three-inch energy rejection filter, rendering the system at f/51. Date: 2012-04-21 20:42UT.

Comet Hyakutake on March 26, 1996. The bowl of the Little Dipper is below the coma and Polaris is near the upper left corner. The tail stretches across the tail of Draco and well beyond the handle of the Big Dipper, which spans the right side of the image. Earlier that day, the comet had a tail disconnection event as it crossed from a regoion of one polarity of the Sun's magnetic field to the other. The ion tail will then disconnect and a new tail begins forming immediately. The disconnected old ion tail can be seen arcing toward Mizar and Alcor near the right edge of the photograph. Camera: Leica R3 with 50 mm lens at f/2.8. Telescope: The camera was riding piggyback on a Celestron Super C8 Plus with Byers Drive. Film:Kodak Gold ISO 400 color print film. Location: Sunriver, Oregon. Date/Time: 03/26/1996 08:30 UT. Exposure: 30 minutes.

This image was published in the October, 2013 issue of Astronomy Magazine. 

The circular outline of Earth's shadow in space, the umbra, can be clearly seen in this sequence of 3 images from the total lunar eclipse of 2014-10-08. The moon at maximum totality glows a coppery orange from sunlight refracted through Earth's atmosphere. Celestron Super C8 Plus with Byers Drive, f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector
Camera:Canon 20D. Exposures: Partial phases:1/320 second at ISO 800; Totality 3 seconds at ISO 800.

This image was published in the April, 2015 issue of Astronomy Magazine. 

Earth passed between the Sun and Mars, known as opposition, on 2012-03-03 and made closest approach on 2012-03-05. Around these times, Mars ‘disk is illuminated in full phase and exhibits its greatest apparent diameter. Subsequently, Earth pulls ahead of Mars and we look back on the morning terminator of a waning gibbous Mars whose disk shrinks as it seemingly recedes in the distance. These images show that even small changes in disk size have a profound impact on the apparent sizes of surface features, like Acidalia Planitia, Margaritifer Terra, Sinus Meridiani, and Syrtis Major, making them progessively more challenging to capture. Celestron Compustar C14 Telescope/Mount with Tele Vue 2x Power Mate (f/22) Point Grey Research Flea3 Color Camera. Best 300 frames out of 1500 at 24 fps for left image, best 400 frames out of 3000 at 60 fps for center and right images. Poor seeing conditions. 

Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) photographed on 2015-01-14. Exposures: Exposures: 101x30 seconds at ISO 800, unguided=50 minutes 30 seconds total exposure at f/7 using a Canon EOS 20D DSLR. 

This image was featured on a webpage about Comet Lovejoy on SkyandTelescope.com at:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/comet-lovejoy-shines/

The rare "black drop" effect photographed during the transit of Venus on June 5, 2012. Amazingly, Venus's disk does not appear to just touch the inside of edge of the Sun's tangentially for an instant, as expected. Rather, a dark bridge appears between them, so Venus resembles a black ink drop hanging from the inside edge. The effect lasts about a minute. This effect was noticed by Captain James Cook and other 18th & 19th century observers sent around the world to observer previous transits of Venus to determine the distance to the Sun or the astronomical unit (a.u.).  It prevented them from measuring the transit time with any degree of certainty. 

This image was published in the September, 2014 issue of Sky & Telescope Magazine. 

Mars during the 2012 opposition. The image shows the north polar cap at the top. The large dark area projecting up from the lower center is Syrtis Major. What appears to be a south polar cap at the bottom of the image is fog and clouds in the Hellas Basin.

Pluto on the night of the space probe New Horizons' closest approach, July 14, 2015. Pluto was located in a heavily populated area of the Sagittarius Milky Way, but is indicated by the 2 tick marks. Observations by my friend Sean Curry the following night from Pine Mountain Observatory showed that this dot had moved, confirming the observation of Pluto. Exposures:Exposures: 10x30 seconds=5 minutes at f/8.3.

After much hype in the media, Comet ISON turned out to be a huge disappointment. During almost all of its approach toward the Sun, it was cloudy in Portland, preventing me from imaging it. The skies finally cleared on November 21, 2013, only days before it's disasterous perihelion. That morning, the comet rose very low on the horizon during twilight and seeing conditions were very poor, so I could only image it through a great deal of roiling atmosphere with a bright background sky.  The comet was moving very rapidly, with noticeable changes in position on the camera frame in only a few seconds. After acquiring only 5 thirty-second sub-exposures,  the frames became overwhelmed with twilight and were unusable. Despite these difficult conditions, the color difference between the teal coma and the reddish dust tail, as well as detail in the dust tail are apparent in the resulting image. The next day, ISON was so close to the Sun that I was unable to acquire it. It subsequently broke up during its perihelion and did not emerge on the other side of the Sun. I have not found any "nighttime" image of ISON taken later than this one posted anywhere, so this image may be its final portrait. Exposures: 2.5 minutes at f/7 with Canon EOS 20D DSLR at ISO 1600. 

During the lunar eclipse of fall, 2015, the moon rose in Portland, Oregon while already immersed in totality. The local media had really played up the concept of a “Blood Moon Rising” and thousand of people flocked to the Portland Heights to see the blood moon rise over the city on the eastern horizon just north of Mt. Hood, including me. However, twilight still lasts a long time on September 15, and the darkened moon was virtually impossible to spot in the bright sky, particularly when viewed through so much of Earth’s hazy atmosphere. The crowds were immensely dissapointed, almost riotous. I was essentially the first in my local crowd to spot it, only because I had a polar aligned telescope aimed at the moon’s coordinates. Photographing it was very difficult, not only because the crowds wanted a look through the camera on the scope, but because typical exposures for a total lunar eclipse were still overwhelmed by evening twilight and heat waves in the atmosphere blurred details. Accordingly, this is a stack of 8 shorter exposures to reduce the effect of twilght and to increase the signal to noise ratio from individual blurry, dim images.

Celestron Super C8 Plus with f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector. Canon EOS 20D camera. Stack of eight 2-second exposures at ISO 800.

In the past few years, the media have created quite a bit of hype about “Supermoons”. The moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical. It has an eccentricity of 0.05 and its distance varies from 364,397 kim at its closest, to 406,731 km at its fartherst. If the full moon occurs when it is very close to Earth, it is dubbed a “Supermoon”. Given the name, people expect it to be spectacular in size. Full moon’s that occur at other points in the moon’s orbit are regular full moons. Currently, there is no special name for a full moon that occurs when it is farthest from Earth (Whimpy moon?). These are images of the full moon taken when it was near its farthest from Earth, left, and when it was near its closest to Earth, a “Supermoon”. The maximum difference in size can be about 7%, similar to what is shown here, and is hardly likely to be noticeable to the average naked eye observer.

This is a collage of all phases of the total solar eclipse of 2017-08-21. My good friend Captain Nicholas Clarke and his wife Michelle came from the United Kingdom and joined my son Gabe and his friend Nick White and we took part in the eclipse expedition led by Lowell Observatory held in the Madras, Oregon, High School football field. This gave us an excellent, enclosed, protected location with excellent views from which to photograph the entire eclipse. Nicholas had a superb telephoto lens on a Star Tracker polar aligned mount to give wider field of view of the corona and I had my Super C8 Plus with f/6.3 focal reducer also on its polar aligned fork mount for higher magnification views of the sunspots, inner corona, and prominences. We both used Canon DSLRs.

Image credit: Nicholas Clarke and Rod Pommier

This collage of images shows the last few seconds leading up to totality of the 2017-08-21 total solar eclipse. As the moon just about completely covers the Sun, bits of the photosphere shine through valleys between mountains on the edge of the moon, creating a chain of bright spots known as Baily’s Beads. For a few brief seconds after the photosphere is completely covered, the magenta chromosphere peeks out from behind the moon as a very thin crescent. Ultimately this gives way to totality, revealing the inner corona and solar prominences in the image at far right.

Celestron Super C8 Plus with f/6.3 focal reducer and Canon EOS 60D S R camera. Exposures: 1/4000 second and 1/2000 second.

This image was published on the cover and the pages of the book Your Guide to the 2024 Solar Eclipse by Michael E. Bakich and also in the April, 2024 issue of Astronomy Magazine.

Of all the total solar eclipse images I’ve taken, Michael Bakich, photo editor of Astronomy magazine, says this is the one of which I should be most proud. Capturing the magenta chromosphere peeking out from behind the moon in the fleeting moments after the photosphere is completely covered, yet before it too becomes covered by the moon, is difficult. He says few images he has seen show it as well as this one.

Celestron Super C8 Plus with f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector. Canon EOS 60D S R camera. Exposure 1/2000 second.

This image was published in the book Your Guide to the 2024 Solar Eclipse by Michael E. Bakich and also in the April, 2024 issue of Astronomy magazine.

When all of the photosphere is covered except perhaps a few Baily’s Beads peeking through a valley on the edge of the moon, a phenomenon of total solar eclipses known as the diamond ring effect occurs. The Baily’s Beads constitute the diamond and the inner corona begins to shine around the remainder of the moon, constituting the ring. The diamond ring occurs twice during each total solar eclipse, just before second contact and just after third contact.

Celestron Super C8 Plus with f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector. Canon EOS 60D S R camera. Exposure 1/2000 second.

This image was published in the book Your Guide to the 2024 Solar Eclipse by Michael E. Bakich.

No image can capture all of the dynamic range of brightness in a total solar eclipse that the human eye can see. Accordingly, many images of different exposures varying from 1/4000 of a second to several seconds need to be combined into a single image to approximate what the eye sees. This image is a combination of more than 20 different exposures captured by my friend and astrophotography colleague Captain Nicholas Clarke of the U.K. and myself during the Lowell Observatory Expedition at Madras, Oregon. Nicholas used a massive telephoto lens to capture the outer corona and Earthshine, while I used a Celestron Super C8 Plus with f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector to capture the chromosphere, prominences, and details in the inner corona. I combined images from both datasets using special techniques I developed into this single image of totality.

Image Credit: Nicholas Clarke and Rod Pommier

This image shows the inner corona and the prominences that were visible on the west limb of the sun just after onset of totality.

Celestron Super C8 Plus with Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector Camera: Canon EOS 60D S R.

Exposure:1/2000 second.

This image was published in the book Your Guide to the 2024 Solar Eclipse by Michael E. Bakich.

This image shows the middle corona and solar prominences by combining longer exposures to capture the middle corona.

Celestron Super C8 Plus with Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer/corrector. Camera: Canon EOS 60D S R.