At the time I am writing this, a cool new app I have, EclipseOne, tells me the next Great American Eclipse will occur in 12 days, 13 hours, 22 minutes, and 2 seconds at my primary viewing location. There is not much time left to do your planning and practicing!
This past weekend, I put in a practice session – testing out the lens and camera combination, the solar finder and solar filter that will be going over my lens, and most importantly, using my tracker to track the sun as it moves across the sky. If you have an astro-tracking device that you might use for applications like deep-sky imaging or astro landscapes, I highly recommend you consider using this for the upcoming eclipse.
I know the question you might have before you even ask it. But how do we polar align in the daytime? True, you won’t be able to get precise polar alignment without the nighttime stars to guide your efforts, or at least without a lot of extra work. However, precise P.A. is not necessary to enjoy the benefits. I simply did my best to align the tracker facing north using a compass. I then tested the amount of time it took for the sun to move one of its diameter with and without using the tracker. This was easy because in my particular lens/camera combination, the circle that represents the spot-metering option was almost precisely the same size as the sun. Without the tracker it took only one minute and 22 seconds to move one of its diameter across my frame. With the tracker engaged (don’t forget to put your tracker in solar-tracking mode!), it took 22 minutes and seven seconds to move the same distance. Yes, there is a bit of drift due to imperfect PA, but this means I need only reposition the sun to the center of my frame once or twice an hour while using the tracker as opposed to doing this step 10 times or more an hour. Saving this kind of time during the big event will be a great benefit!
If you are planning to photograph the eclipse on April 8th, hopefully you have gotten your planning done, dusted off your solar filter and gotten some practice. If not, there’s still time, assuming we have some clear skies between now and then.
Wishing you all the best of luck on the big day and that the only rain we’ll see are Sol’s golden rays coming down from the clearest of skies!
-OZB
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 