Eclipse 2017

Took a long lunch to watch the eclipse today. My mom got me some of those eclipse glasses, and it was very visible through them. This in contrast to everything else, which was not at all visible through them.

Since we didn’t get the full eclipse, it looked similarly interesting for a good hour before and after the peak, just a normal sun with a dark circle covering part of it. Things didn’t even seem any different than normal without viewing helpers.

I attempted to photograph the eclipse, with no special equipment (eg solar filters) beyond my mirrorless DSLR. The dark side was still too bright for the camera to be able to pick up, so the direct photos didn’t work well. I did get a few where it looked a bit off round, like this:

I also was able to get some with a bit of lense flare that showed the shape, like this:

I created a quick pinhole in a piece of paper and tried to take pictures of the camera obscura. The contrast wasn’t that great, but a few turned out okay. This was the best of them:

Hopefully the direct shots didn’t damage my sensor.