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Old 03-09-2017, 09:37 PM
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OzEclipse (Joe Cali)
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Flying to Arcturus

Weather forecasts showed a small possibility of cloud hanging around Jackson so leaving at 430am we drove 160km west to a spot midway between Terreton, Idaho
and the I15 driving under the two threatening cloud bands in the process. Once clear of those two cloud bands, we were assured of 100% clear sky.

Great visuals of the eclipse but I had a bad day with the cameras, left the solar filter on my refractor and messed up another camera. So I only walked away with one decent shot, well about a dozen of them all the same actually. The intervalometer driving this camera worked perfectly.

Joe
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Old 04-09-2017, 06:05 AM
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Great image, Joe!
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Old 04-09-2017, 06:46 AM
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multiweb (Marc)
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Top shot Joe. Great context.
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Old 04-09-2017, 07:42 AM
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Should have stayed in Jackson?

Sorry to hear about the tech problems...but at least it looks like you have some great wide field images of the event....Without a speccy backdrop I decided against using a normal lens....but wonder whether any Aussies managed to get themselves to the western edge of Lake Jenny/Snake river.

Sadly the traffic made getting about the Grand Teton park just too hard.
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Old 04-09-2017, 11:59 AM
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OzEclipse (Joe Cali)
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Quote:
Should have stayed in Jackson?

Sorry to hear about the tech problems.
Thanks Pete.

They were finger problems on my part not tech problems. Can't blame the camera for failure to remove a filter. Combination of fatigue and distractions. Pity, I had the camera technique for close ups worked out so that 3 clicks of a dial and 4 presses of the cable release captured every shutter speed from 1/8000 to 8 seconds. Focussed carefully about 90s before totality. The problem is that being so simple, I didn't look at the camera during totality. hence didn't pick up my error.

Regarding weather & the decision to move, hindsight is a wonderful thing but the reality is making a choice beforehand. At 3am on eclipse morning, Bengt& I looked at the College of Dubois NAMNEST cluster. We looked at the simulated IR satellite photo output. It was as far as we could tell given the map scales, identical to the current real time 3am IR satellite photo showing 2 bands of clouds moving across east Idaho into west Wyoming. So we felt it had the best handle on the current situation. Running the model forward showed it moving across IDaho towards Jackson stalling and beginning to break up over Jackson Teton around eclipse time. When forwarded to eclipse time, it showed some clouds hanging around Teton/Jackson. A 100mi westward shift put us into completely clear air. We had tickets to go to Rendezvous Mountain (10500 ft) and our condo was walking distance from the base station so we didn't make the decision to move lightly. Going up the mountain meant a risk of an obscured or hazy eclipse with the reward of a spectacular high altitude view. I explained this risk/reward choice to our group of about 40 people(the Tony Crocker and Liz O'Mara group) the night before the eclipse and we emailed out a final weather summary at 4am before choosing to leave ourselves. Many of the group chose to go up the mountain with Tony and Liz and fortunately, it did clear for them. Going west meant dropping to a lower altitude but a guarantee of clear sky. We chose the latter and we're happy with our choice.

One spectacular effect we saw was that prior to totality, the Tetons were obscured by smoke. When we and then the smoke were obscured by the umbra, the absence of light hitting the scattering particles resulted in the Tetons suddenly becoming visible. They lit up as though someone switched on the lights. Fantastic!

Traffic
We drove 105mi west. I think we left at 4:45am arrived in the area around 6:45am, stuck to the speed limits all the way. Can't say I noticed any traffic that slowed us down at all.

Coming home was a bit different. We were 3 miles west of the I15. People jumped in their cars and traffic was banked up from the I15 three miles back to our location and perhaps another 0.5-1 mile west towards Terreton from about 5 mins after totality onwards. We stayed until C4 then ate a lunch we'd packed. The traffic queue varied from 3-4 miles as traffic from farther west arrived in pulses. The attached panorama was taken 30 mins after totality.

However this was being caused by a road works flagman at the I15. Why they chose that day to work there is beyond me. We left our site from a side road to this queue at about 2pm, someone let us in straight away. It took about 3/4 of an hour to clear this 3 mile jam then it was a clear run for the next 97 miles all the way back to Teton. Because I was tired and the only registered driver for the rental car, we took several rest/coffee breaks along the way, plus several photo stops as we approached the west side of the Tetons. I think we got back after about 3 hrs.

Joe
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Old 04-09-2017, 03:52 PM
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Nice shot Joe.
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Old 04-09-2017, 06:20 PM
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really nice shot Joe!

Russ
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Old 04-09-2017, 06:35 PM
kkara4 (Krishan)
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sorry Joe, i completely missed your thread before replying to your post on mine! looks like you werent at the Tetons afterall.

sorry to hear your cameras didnt work out, but im glad you got the beauty wide angle that you did here, its awesome!
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Old 05-09-2017, 09:48 AM
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Beautiful photo Joe!

Sorry to hear about your troubles with your other cameras. The short duration of eclipses makes them unforgiving of glitches whatever the cause.
Hope you get over your jet-lag soon. I'm finally starting to feel normal after being back for a week and a bit.
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Old 05-09-2017, 12:04 PM
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That was a bummer Joe but still a great pic capturing the atmosphere. I had a number of close calls with faulty gear for this eclipse. Usually any one of these were enough to sink my efforts but with some luck and fudging I got through the event with results.
Ted
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Old 05-09-2017, 12:23 PM
Star Catcher (Ted Dobosz)
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That was a bummer Joe but still a great pic capturing the atmosphere. I had a number of close calls with faulty gear for this eclipse. Usually any one of these were enough to sink my efforts but with some luck and fudging I got through the event with results.
Ted
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Old 05-09-2017, 07:58 PM
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OzEclipse (Joe Cali)
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Thanks Krishan, Ted and Pete for the commiserations but it's not necessry.

I guess the thing that surprised and disappointed me was that I made this very basic mistake after so many successful eclipse captures.

But the most important thing is always to see it, experience the wind, temperature changes, see the umbra engulf the sky and all the eclipse phenomena. The photography is obviously important but secondary to a great sensory experience. That’s why I don’t do eclipse flights even when a flight is the only way to see an eclipse. Too much of the experience is missing. The experience this time was fantastic.

Before the eclipse began, the Tetons, about 80 miles away, were barely visible as the palest of outlines on the horizon due to smoke and air haze between us and them scattering light. The umbra passed over our heads and swallowed the sun, diamond ring. The true temperature dropped and the apparent temperature dropped even more thanks to a cool breeze. I love that cold, always gives me a little shiver. Adds to the drama.

The umbra continued its sweep eastwards shading that smoke and denying the smoke and air particles of light to scatter. The Tetons, still lit by the shrinking sun suddenly lit up as though someone turned on flood lights . They briefly glowed bright orange until the umbra reached them and they fell into darkness. Then they became silhouetted against the burnt orange sunlit sky coming from perhaps two hundred kilometers away. It was spectacular. After the eclipse, I began to doubt my memory, wondering if I had actually seen that or just imagined it. But on reviewing a voice recording I made, I heard Alex Scutt, the third eclipse chaser in our group also remarking with great excitement about the very same spectacle.

The air over our heads was relatively clear. We arrived early and drove around and found that location with a lot less smoke than other areas not far away. As a result, the umbra was visible to a large solar radii multiple. I didn't get a good estimate but it was the second largest corona I've seen and I thought about 3/4 the size of the one I saw in Bolivia in 1994.

cheers

Joe
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Old 06-09-2017, 10:55 AM
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Hey Joe,

Thanks for the great description and commiserations, although as you say, it's the overall experience that counts. I can relate to your mind numbing experience, during the May 2013 annular I left my prime focus cam at iso 25600, having upped it a minute beforehand due to low cloud darkening the horizon. I remember thinking I must set it back before the sun appears, but as soon as it did I was mesmerised and didn't realise the mistake until a couple of minutes in.

Loved you description of the Tetons. Sounds similar to this Mt Jefferson vid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPKakZ1PHbA

Colin
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Old 06-09-2017, 11:12 AM
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OzEclipse (Joe Cali)
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Hi Colin,

Nice to hear from you.

Was it all due to low cloud in 2013? Near the south limit, we had clear horizon yet the horizon was still dark 2 mins before sunrise because the Sun was ~ 89% eclipsed. Like you, I couldn't see my surveyed horizon markers to prepoint the camera for sunrise. Fortunately for me, the under exposure warning started flashing bright yellow. In that yellow was the outline of my funny shaped tree that marked my horizon point. So I didn't need to up the ISO.

FWIW I never picked the ISO25000 section in your video.

Video :
Unlike Ruben's video, in between the Teton's being hazed out and being in silhouette, the side facing us were very briefly sunlit. Ruben's video does not show that.

Cheers

Joe
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