~ The Great American Solar Eclipse of the Sun ~

​Wow, what a day it was at the St Joseph Rosecrans airport, where on the 21st August forty three very excited Aussie eclipse chasers waited for the skies to clear to witness the great American Total Eclipse of the Sun.
 
We left Kansas City for a 100 kms drive to St Joseph at 3.30am because of warnings about the traffic and we were lucky to have a clear run to the airport, because it was dark when we arrived I even got to see the constellation of Orion the right way up instead of upside down, like I see it here in Australia :-)
 
The skies became more cloudy as the morning progressed, but we had so much fun talking with all the media and giving lots of TV and radio interviews to explain what people would expect to see. We also made friends with a lot of the local people who were just amazed that we had travelled all the way from Australia to see the eclipse.
 
Just before first contact the skies become a lot more threatening and the local sheriff came along and told us that a storm cell with hail was about to hit, so for a little while we took cover but kept a watchful eye on the sky.
 
Because of the weather we missed the partials, but we kept telling everyone not too worry as they would still experience the amazing darkness of totality, and just a few seconds before the Sun was eclipsed it began…
 
It grew dark quite quickly with an eerie bright golden light all around the horizon and because of the cloud it got very dark, a group of little songbirds darted all over the sky not knowing where to go. We were all scanning the cloudy sky just hoping for a break in the clouds when all of a sudden we heard this mighty roar come from the other field, everyone over there had seen something, it was like being at a soccer match, it was just incredible!!!
 
We knew that they had seen something but the sky was still cloudy, and then it was our turn, a small break in the cloud and there it was, the total eclipse of the Sun in all its glory with its beautiful corona….Wow!
 
It only lasted about 5 seconds before the clouds started to roll in again…but Wow, we had all seen it, and everyone on the field was just in awe from the whole experience!
 
In the end because of the weather, both my husband and I just quickly grabbed our cameras and on video mode captured the whole event.
 
Please see some images below of our amazing day, I know it wasn’t clear, but the overwhelming changes in the environment around us still challenged all our senses just the same if not more, because it became a it became so much darker with the cloud… it was just awesome!!!

This amazing trip to the US was organised by the Sutherland Astronomical Society in NSW, we went all over American visiting the different space centres and also many of the historical observatories including the beautiful Griffith Observatory in LA, and it was a fantastic trip, I'll write more about it later....

Now, bring on USA 2024 for the next solar eclipse :-)

Our Australian group with the Mayor of St Joseph Mr Bill Falkner…Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!! :-)

St Joseph Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/Eclipse2017inStJoMo/​

How exciting to have the large sunspot group AR2671 in the middle of the Sun for this wonderful total eclipse of the Sun in America.
I’m one of 43 Aussies in our group, who have travelled from Australia to be at St Joseph in Missouri tomorrow to hopefully witness this spectacular celestial event, which will happen tomorrow. The weather forecast for St Joseph in Missouri is not looking very good; we’ll just have to see what happens…

Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens with a 2x converter, the exposure was 1/500th second and ISO320 and I used a glass solar filter on the lens for safe solar viewing and imaging.
How exciting to have the large sunspot group AR2671 in the middle of the Sun for this wonderful total eclipse of the Sun in America.

I’m one of 43 Aussies in our group, who have travelled from Australia to be at St Joseph in Missouri tomorrow to hopefully witness this spectacular celestial event, which will happen tomorrow. The weather forecast for St Joseph in Missouri is not looking very good; we’ll just have to see what happens…
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens with a 2x converter, the exposure was 1/500th second and ISO320 and I used a glass solar filter on the lens for safe solar viewing and imaging.

We flew into Sydney this afternoon as part of our flight to the USA for the total eclipse of the Sun and there were lots of bush fires in the mountains behind the city, I captured this image of the Sun going down in the smoky sky between the branches of an old Maple tree near the Sydney airport.

Only a week to go now for the Total Eclipse of the Sun…WooHoo!!!
​
Photo taken with a Canon 70D camera the new Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 400mm, the exposure time was 1/640th second and ISO 400.

This total eclipse of the Sun will not be seen in Australia as the path of totality (the Moons shadow) runs right across the mainland of America.
 
So I have to go and chase it….
 
My husband and I will be at a place called St Joseph in Missouri and we’ll be experiencing nearly the maximum time of 2 minutes and 38 seconds of totality…Woohoo!!

You don't have to travel this far to see this amazing event as NASA is going to live stream the whole eclipse
(weather permitting)

Please see the links below and enjoy the experience :-)

NASA’s Total Eclipse live coverage on the 21st August 2017
Go to the website at: 
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov
Go to the live streaming of the event at:
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipse-live-stream

I’ll be taking two DSLR cameras, which will be set up on static tripods. The first camera will be a Canon 70D with a Canon 100-400mm lens and a 2x converter making a variable focal length of between 320mm - 1280mm.
 
The other camera will be a Canon 700D with a Canon 17-85mm wider field lens, so I can capture the whole viewing area and sky…I’ll take some video and some time-lapse with this camera.
 
I’ve also got one of those tiny action camera’s that I’m going to just let run on it’s own to pick up anything that’s happening around us.
 
This is my second total solar eclipse, so I feel more confident now with my times so I can take a bit of time to just look up and enjoy the event :-)

I’m really hoping to capture some wonderful images of this eclipse in the US, like I did for our amazing
Australian Total Eclipse of the Sun that happened here on the 14th November 2012.
 
 Please see some images below that I took on the day at Ellis Beach just north of Cairns.
We were ever so lucky with the weather because it was so cloudy before totality!
 
Please go to my blog with more information on the Australian total solar eclipse day  :-)
http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/total-eclipse-of-the-sun-in-australia-2012

Author
Tanya Hill
Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museum Victoria

​Tanya Hill wrote an excellent article for ‘The Conversation’ explaining all about solar eclipses, she also used my award-winning image of the rare Annular eclipse that happened in central Australia in May 2013.

Please go to the article with the link or download the file which is below:
http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-solar-eclipse-33019

The prestigious David Malin astrophotography awards has now been held and judged and I’m proud to say that I received a ‘Highly Commended’ for my image titled
​~ Mars and Saturn’s glorious encounter with Scorpius and Rho Ophiuchi ~
In the wide field section.
 
The award is not one of the main awards,
but it's recognition that the judge Dr David Malin liked my photograph :-)

(Information for my image)
On the evening of the 7th May 2016 a beautiful cosmic show was going on in our night sky with the magnificent red planet Mars on show close to the stars of Scorpius. Also in the same wide field, was the pretty planet Saturn that was embedded near the dark dust lanes around the glorious area of Rho Ophiuchi,
​which is in the constellation of Ophiuchus.
 
The images were taken at my Stardust Observatory in a very dark sky with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 lens set at f4.5. The focal length was set at 73mm and ISO1600. There were 14x 5-minute light and 6x5 minute dark images taken, which were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in PS CS4. The camera was attached to the top of a tracking Meade LX200 10 inch telescope.

To see all the stunning images that won please go to the 2017 CWAS website at:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/astrofest/awards/2017_AstroFest_DMA.html
​