The diamond ring and the solar corona. Photo by author. Do not copy without permission! Thank you!
Today was an exciting day -- my fourth total solar eclipse and my son's first. We woke up early to drive from Denver into Wyoming. Our intended destination was Casper, where coincidentally I used to work when I saw my second total solar eclipse. But traffic on I-25 was slow, and we could not reach Casper in time. So, we decided to stop in Wheatland, just on the edge of totality, so we could catch the entire show.
Along with many other keen observers of all ages, we set up in the yard of a friendly Arby's restaurant, and ate lunch while we watched the Sun get eaten by a tremendous dragon.
OK, just kidding about that last part.
This shot is just before totality, when the Moon has not entirely covered the Sun's disk. Some of the Sun's light can peek out, creating a "diamond ring" effect. Also, with the Sun's glare almost entirely gone, its outer atmosphere, the corona, can be viewed without special equipment.
The day got darker and cooler as the Moon slowly covered the Sun up, until it looked like night time. There were many gasps and cries of surprise and joy as our fellow observers witnessed totality. Unfortunately, in Wheatland, totality only lasted about 1 minute, so our view of the show was all too short. Folks in Casper got twice as much time as we did.
I took many other photos, but I plan to put them up on my blog, Wheat-dogg's World, so that my followers on Twitter and Facebook can see them at the same time. Please wait about an hour or so, because I have not uploaded them yet. I'm giving Steemit followers a preview.
Technical details: Nikon D3300, Tamron 70-300mm VR zoom lens (at 300mm), ISO 400, f/10, 1/60sec. Image cropped from larger frame, no other post-processing. I used a tripod and a remote shutter release to minimize camera shake.
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