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Total Eclipse

Where I live it'll be nearly total, 93.79%. I plan on getting a few photos, but my last attempt was a disaster, so I'll need to study up a bit first.
It's too bad you can't get to totality. "almost total" is not even close to the experience of actual totality.
 
When I shot the Total Eclipse in 2017 (from near Gelnrock, Wy) I thought I had captured something called "Baily's beads" and even labeled one of my images as such. Turns out, it was not Baily's beads I captured, but rather the Chromosphere. "The chromosphere is a thin layer of plasma that lies between the Sun’s visible surface (the photosphere) and the corona (the Sun’s upper atmosphere)."

The events leading up to totality should be as follows: Just before totality, the sun becomes a thin crescent; then there appears a phenomenon called the "Diamond Ring", which is a uniform bright spot at one point that looks like a diamond shining. As the diamond ring shrinks, there e appears "Baily's beads" where you see separate little blobs of sun shining through the peaks and valleys of the surface of the moon. Not as bright as the Diamond ring and looks like a string of pearls. After the Baily's beads dissipate, you will see, very briefly, the Chromosphere. It was this that I managed to photograph in 2017, which I incorrectly labeled Baily's Beads.

This time, I'm hoping to capture all three of these pore-totality events, but settings need to be changed on the camera in a very short period, so I'll be out practicing a lot between now and then. The challenge is part of the fun.

Total Eclipse 1000.jpg
 
"Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun"

clouds in my coffee ...
 
Good advice for many. I'm lucky in that I'll be staying (in my renter Tab 320 camper) at a friend's property. Trying to find anything in a hotel anywhere near totality at this point is going to be next to impossible and/or very costly (I have a friend who decided late on the game to fly into Waco and was only able to find a B&B for over 800 for two nights.
 
"Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun"

clouds in my coffee ...
You wouldn't need to drive too terribly far to at least get into the path of totality.
 
Thought I had posted it but, evidently not. We live here:

house eclipse.jpg
 
Not for an English field trip, unfortunately. Anyway, I'd have to bring all of my kids along, and that's over 100 students.

Walt - here's a reason for an English class field trip to see the eclipse:

 
Yes, you did post it. -Take a boat out to the middle of Lake Ontario so you can get totality for longer!
cccccccccoooooollllllddddd

1711110482114.png
 
For those who think being where you will get 99%, trust me it is not even close to the same experience as totality. Something magical happens at the moment of totality that you have to experience to understand.
99not.jpg
 
How on Earth (Moon?) does anyone figure that out?! All I could imagine was a camera behind a glass plate coated with soot.
 
I live about 20 minutes drive from the edge of the projected path. Have to work that day so can't get away to go over, and they're saying the long range forecast predicts cloud/rain so might not be able to see anything anyway...
 
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