The sun before totality.

August 21, 2017 was the Great American Eclipse. It was my first total solar eclipse. I made the trip to a great location in Kentucky with not too many people around. Traffic getting there was awful, pretty much like everywhere else along the path of totality. The eclipse was such a stunning experience, visually and photographically, that I could not pick just one favorite photo for the day. But if I was forced to choose just one it would be the image above of the sliver of the part of the sun that is not yet covered by the moon, just a few minutes before totality. I love the sunspots.

So here is a series of images. Click any image to see a larger version.

Solar eclipse time lapse sequence.

The image immediately above is a time lapse sequence. I set one of my cameras take a photo every five minutes from the beginning to the end of the eclipse. This is the result. The exposure for every photo was the same except for the photo of the corona during totality. The sun is more orange than yellow/gold for the last third of the eclipse. Some high clouds were rolling in and the sun was not as bright, changing the exposure and resulting in the orangish color.

The sun during totality.

The sun during totality. I exposed for the solar flares erupting from the sun’s surface.

Solar flares.

A closer look at the solar flares.

The sun’s corona.

This image was exposed for the sun’s magnificent corona. The exposure for the corona is much longer than the exposure for solar flares, so the solar flares end up being overexposed and almost lost in the corona.

During totality it is like night and the street lights came on. This is a screen capture from a GoPro video.

The “Diamond Ring”

As the sun emerges from behind the moon, you get the “Diamond Ring” effect.

Diamond Ring and solar flares.

A closer look at the Diamond Ring and solar flares. Note how there is a distinct arc in the corona around the larger solar flare at the northeast (upper right) limb of the sun, and fainter arcs around some of the other solar flares. You can see these arcs in some of the other photos in this article.

The sun with sunspots near the end of the eclipse.

The eclipse is almost over and just a bit of the moon hides the sun’s western limb. You can see a whole string of sunspots across the surface of the sun. The eclipse happened to occur during a period of high sunspot activity which added to the eclipse experience. The amount of sunspots varies dramatically over time. There are times with no visible sunspots at all.

Links

Series: Favorite Photos by Date

To learn how to photograph the sun, which is great practice for the next total eclipse, go here:

The Great American Eclipse Series (August 21, 2017)  – The August 2017 eclipse is over but the sun is still there. You can still do solar photography and this series of articles will show you how.