Category: Sun`

For any given location on Earth, a total solar eclipse will occur on average once every 360 years. And for parts of Australia and New Zealand it will be their turn on Saturday 22nd July 2028.

To provide some idea what 4 minutes of darkness would look like, I decided to created a composite image of the event combining it with one of the most iconic scenes known across the world, that of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Creating an accurate composite

So you are probably asking yourself, how accurate can this image be 5 years out from the event even occurring? Well I must admit I can’t predict the weather and that will truly be in the hands of the gods on the day. But I’ve tried to make everything else in this shot as accurate as possible.

Let me take you through the process.

Planning the shot

The first tool that I used was Sun Surveyor on my iPad. This allowed me to determine the location of where the Sun and Moon will be and then looked at the best spot to start planning out where to take a photo from. It was pretty obvious that a location in the Royal Botanic Gardens was going to be ideal with uninterrupted views across Farm Cove.

Taking the shot

Next step was to take some photos down at Farm Cove in roughly the same position as Sun Surveyor. It was just a matter of utilising the live augmented view to ensure that I had the framed the shot and included the patch of sky where the Moon and Sun would be.

And this is the beautiful thing about using the tool, being able to set the date/time five years into the future.

I captured a number of pictures across a variety of shutter speeds to ensure that I had captured some additional stars and planets. These would later act as reference points in post production.

Post production workflow

On reviewing the 40 or so pictures that I had taken I settled on the one that had what I felt was the right exposure along with some visibile starts and planets.

The next tool that I planned to use was Stellarium an open-source planetarium. Similar to Sun Surveyor, it also works by utilising your Earth based co-ordinates and either current or user specified date/time to display to display what the sky would look like. It was then just a matter of grabbing some star fields, one for when I took the original photo and the second for 22nd July 2028 @ 2.01pm AEST.

Then it was over to Photoshop to do the following.

• Add original image as background layer
• Add star field image for current date/time as a new layer
• Add star field image for 22nd July 2028 as a new layer
• Position, rotate and scale star field layers to align to stars and planets on original image
• Remove existing stars from original image background layer
• Add image from August 2017 total solar eclipse as a new layer
• Position and scale August 2017 total solar eclipse image layer to align with camera lens of original image
• Add planet to represent Mercury position at time of eclipse
• Add star to represent Pollux position at time of eclipse

Final tweaking of the image was then performed in Lightroom.

• Apply linear gradient to have a darker sky to represent the umbra (total eclipse) on the right hand side of the image, whilst the left hand side is lighter representing the penumbra (partial eclipse).

Final thoughts

I’m delighted with the final product. It’s by no means perfect and assumes that the weather will be kind to observers on the day.

If you are interested in learning more about the path of totality then I highly recommend this interactive Google Map.

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2028_GoogleMapFull.html

Simply click on the map to see how long the eclipse will be for a particular location.

Enjoy!

I left my decision to travel to Chile for the 2019 total solar eclipse to only a couple of months out. I felt very fortunate to be able to book myself onto an organised Intrepid Tour with renowned eclipse chaser Dr John Mason and felt confident that his expertise in picking a viewing site would guarantee success.

I flew out of Sydney to Santiago about a week out from the eclipse and this gave me the chance to experience a day in Santiago before joining up with the rest of the tour group. We were convenient split across a number of buses for the journey up to La Serena where we enjoyed day trip up to the Elqui Valley to experience the local food, wine and finishing the evening off at under the stars at one of the local observatories high in the Chilean mountainsWe then had one final day to prepare and relax in back in La Serena and I made the most of this by walking around the town and enjoying the atmosphere that was building.

The next morning we all boarded the bus for the journey up to the planned observing site. It turned out to be a local football pitch and part of the payment to the local team was that they would each receive a jersey of their favourite team, Manchester United.

We were then kept well fed with deliveries from local suppliers and it was a great chance to chat with people from across the globe. Then around mid-afternoon people started taking up their positions prior to the main event. Everything went perfectly to plan, not a cloud in the sky and even though it was winter in Chile, it was very mild. I captured some amazing pictures and can’t wait to do it all again.

And here are some photos from the main event. Click the image to load a larger version.

After experiencing my first total solar eclipse in 2012 I had to wait till 2017 to experience my second. I was able to convince a friend who is currently living in the US to join me on a journey to Alliance, Nebraska where we experienced clear skies and 2 and a half minutes of totality.

I was quite shocked by the beauty of the event as the 2012 TSE in Port Douglas was partly obscured by clouds. I then set myself a goal to see as many as possible.

Followed the usual routine this morning. Got up early and confirmed the suns position for eclipse zero hour tomorrow. All looking good. Did my normal run into Port Douglas before coming back and parking the car in the spot from where I plan to watch the eclipse.

Headed back up to the room and then completed my setup for the Eclipse Orchestrator application. Did a number of simulated runs which is a great feature of the applications. Allows you to make sure that the gear is ready.

Dropped over late in the afternoon to Four Mile Beach. This was so that I could manually set the 100-400mm lens to infinity. Used a large passenger ship that was off the coast before using electrical tape to ensure that the focus wouldn’t change. Chatted with a few people on the beach about their plans. Do you drive looking for clearer skies or do you sit tight? I have chosen to sit tight and take what comes.

Took down all the tripods and mount attachments and stuck them in the back of the car before returning back to the hotel room to put away a couple of vodkas in readiness of the big event early tomorrow morning.

Clear skies!