Astronomical League Live XXXIV

Transcript:

ever yeah but even if it's kp1 or two we're getting great displays I bet how do you get to
Churchill isn't it kind of hard to get to this time of year or do you have to take a TR harder than any other time of
the year other than weather delays which can happen anywhere you're traveling in the north uh you there's two ways you
can take the train VIA Rail from Winnipeg two-day trip or fly calm air
from Winnipeg it's you know two hour flight oh do you fly up usually yeah always
yeah I never take the train I'd want to take the train I love
train I took the train out of um Anchorage up to Fairbanks one March in
the winter and it it really was an experience they' actually the engine got a flat tire and they had to stop one of
the engines and pull it off and then we hit blizzard conditions and the heat
went out of the train maintenance had to come down the track to meet us to fix
the heat the heater or whatever it was there was no heat at all in the train and we sat out there and this just
blizzard conditions and it was amazing just to watch it you know it didn't really affect the train that much but it
was something else well that's that could be your Churchill train experience as well from
what I understand just last year last year there was a train arrived and uh it
had had mechanical problems so it couldn't leave until the next train came up with the spare parts to fix it so
there two trains in town for a for a couple of days yeah
yeah yeah I don't know how they got a flat spot on one of the wheels but they had to pull one of the we had two
engines and they had to pull one off yeah it was it was an experience but
it was pretty cool just sitting at the window watching the world go by yeah
yeah must have been Unforgettable it was I really did enjoy it it took 12 hours
it took every bit because of the problems we had it took 12 hours to do it and they were picking up off grids
along the way
so you did tell Ellen that his presentation
has to be in Latin right uh I want to understand
it we better keep it in English how we doing on time can I test
my screen sharing just to make sure it's working all right desktop one I'm never
quite certain which I need to share uh share
oh nice are you seeing the title SL it it's beautiful beautiful okay all right
that's that's good all right just just wanted to make sure I always get
confused with zoom in terms of sharing what you share yeah I'm actually disconnected from my secondary screen
just to make sure there's no confusion about what screen I'm actually
sharing okay Carol is joining us yeah Carol's back there
somewhere yeah I get confused when they do Microsoft teams are the I'm so used to zoom when I get on something else I
get lost I mean I'm so used to being here it just yeah yeah I just when you
get used to zoom they go and change it are you on you or something or other but yeah like everything
else but what would we we do without it now you know three four years ago we didn't have this at all I know and now
we upon it that is the one thing I think is good that came out of covid we all
learned we could reach out a lot farther you know ju and it's amazing I mean we
would never never be able to listen to you I mean to bring you here this is
just amazing God what a what a what a disadvantage of Co you get to
listen to me but no we think that's a good Advantage no it is it definitely is
but you know we couldn't do all these kind of programs and like Richard and kalamazo they couldn't do that kind of
exensive Outreach and and bringing in speakers well last week or two weeks ago
whatever it was they were trying to bring in physically Jay Anderson from Winnipeg well the weather was so bad
everywhere they they forget it they couldn't do it and so he just zoomed in and they did the talk anyway it was fine
yeah yeah it is amazing I mean the people that we've had speaking at alcons when we had our Alcon virtual just when
we do this monthly program my gosh it's been amazing and finally I got to meet you up at Aurora Summit so you know I've
seen you online spoke with you online but now I you know could actually sit down and talk to you so it was amazing
yeah yeah it was neat actually it is still nice to meet people face to face it definitely
is y starting to get cold
outside how cold is it it's so cold
cold there was something about a well Digger that I remember but I won't talk
about it on you can't take him anywhere
astronomical League live that's
right yeah it's like 48 degrees still here so that's that's not bad at all
uhhuh put my Eclipse hat on there you go okay he had 48 de once and they had to
close down the entire state so Allan I've been watching these Tik Tock videos and it shows people
pouring what looks like boiling water out into the air onto the ground
and one of them was they just made like this long Spike that came up and then this other one would look like a a loop
like a a spiral that froze as you're pouring it is this a real effect uh I
can't say about what those are I don't know if it's boiling water I thought what people seem to do when it's like
minus 30- 40 is yeah is it detergent in water or something I forget what what
the concoction is that will freeze and crystallize very quickly um is people make these bubbles
uh and and yeah these were like these were like sculptures that they were making out of yeah okay I think I saw
what you're talking about uh where she took like water and just made a circle and it was it was yeah that was really
cool I have seen him do that in Alaska when it was freezing Is that real I mean that can be done at whatever they did
froze at least somewhat So and I've heard them say they can leave a banana out there and drive drive a nail through
it when it's frozen um you know I I've heard all kinds of
things as liquid nitrogen in the winter here so I mean it look I mean it looked
spectacular but I was like how is this thing supporting itself you know it was like a circle like a a spiral you know
like you were pouring water around a you know a circumference like of a barrel or
something and then and it and it was just suspended in the air by its own
strength you know okay iy Frozen
strength I saw a video of a girl that took a pan of hot water and she had the sun her body was behind so there's
backlight on her and she just flung the water out of the pan and it just evaporated right above her head now I
don't know anymore you can see anything can be anything you don't know what to believe because they do such a good job
think being deep faked these days yeah yeah well you can certainly we've done this in Churchill when it's minus 40
where you take hot water and you just throw it into the air and it just freezes and crystallizes instantly and
in a shower of particles and you have the sun backlit uh it's a beautiful
effect and we did that and we shot a video and put that online and it goes viral immediately you know something hi
Carol yeah good evening everybody joh the gang's all here good evening
David Ley and it is uh we're about three minutes away from top of the hour yeah
and we will get started this image that you're seeing Alan um uh this is the uh
can you can you see it yes you can yeah so uh can you tell us a
little bit about this image of uh your image this the you using a background
well I see this got to be the 2017 Eclipse um so it's uh the center image
must be a composite which I'm going to talk about flanking by the two two
diamond rings either side and I'll talk briefly about you know how you do that
but uh um but you got to take the pictures first and so uh right that's
the thing with an eclipse there's so many ways to shoot it and tonight I am concentrating on the close-up shots
through telescopes for shots like this to get a set of images that you can then layer and make a composite like this
great what what I like about this image and images similar to this is that you can see markings on the moon I guess
that's due the the full Earth shine I'll talk about that it's just barely visible on this there's ways of bringing that
out uh if you go for a long exposure and there's you know that's that's a little demanding to do that but I'll I'll talk
about that yeah you can see the Earth shine you know on the moon so it's the only
time you know you get the new moon and totally lit by just nothing but Earth shine yeah see it always has the same
face towards us even even during New Moon yep yeah Carol and John have you
met Alan have you yes uh we've been on with other broadcasts in fact he was on
with askc not too long ago maybe two months ago something like that yeah I was good to see you again yeah I've done
a couple of uh webcasts for Al um maybe two years ago now I
forget yeah yep so John John gos is our media officer he does all of our well
the announcement for your speaking yes he's the one that does he does fantastic
announcements uh and else we need done he's a real Rock for us yes definitely
yeah okay I hear a little bit of background
sound not right at the moment but I was hearing it so
um so if you think you have some background sound just uh mute till you're it's your
turn and uh we've got somebody here oh somebody wants to sell us
something we're gonna block you I'm
sorry go sell on somebody else's Live program okay so there you go uh although
I you know maybe just for fun I could bring a bunch of insurance salesmen on or something like that to do live chat
no some like just a special guest or something to talk about some sort of
mutual of whatever you know as long as the cut is
good well guys we are going to get started I have a little feature from uh
your friends at Nasa so here we go did you know that you can participate
in solar eclipse science with NASA NASA's citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and
members of the public no matter your citizenship several volunteer science projects are are gearing up for the 2024
total solar eclipse that you can join total solar eclipses don't just
look cool they provide a rare chance to see the sun's faint outer atmosphere using telescopes and cameras
that are safe for viewing the sun volunteer scientists across North America will capture images of the total
solar eclipse scientists will study these images in detail tracking how plumes of solar material move through
the sun's atmosphere but be careful without proper tool tools and techniques you can damage your eyes and your camera
did you know you can listen to an eclipse too amateur or ham radi operators will send radio messages to
one another during the eclipse to see how changes in the upper atmosphere distort radio
signals as the moon blocks one portion of the sun it can make other portions easier to see working with local
scientists at an observatory in Southern California participants will observe magnetic hotpots on the Sun as the moon
passes over them revealing details they normally can't detect want to learn more follow D NASA
science on X and Facebook to see how you can get involved in NASA citizen
science [Music] well everyone this is Scott Roberts from
explore scientific and the explore Alliance and we're proud to be the uh broadcaster for the astronomical League
live program uh this is their 34th program uh and I'm going to turn this
over to Terry man Terry thanks for coming on and hosting yet another one of these well
thank you for broadcasting it Scott we definitely appreciate all of your help and all of your support so I hope
everybody's doing okay out there and gotten through all the snow and the cold weather and probably still under clouds
but we're all back again and hopefully warming up so we've got a really exciting program tonight I think um we n
we have David Levy with us and we always enjoy David and Carol ore president of
the astronomical League and John gos which is our media officer but we're really excited to have Alan Dyer here
tonight um he is like one of the eclipse Masters and one of the Aurora Masters
I'm always so impressed with his work so we're so glad to have him tonight so without further Ado how about if we go
to David and let him start us off for tonight David how about you thank you
thank you mucher and it's good to be here and it's really good to be here
especially with Allen who has been a very good friend of mine for many decades
es um I have to say in anticipation of this fascinating presentation I'm about
to hear is that uh I am not an astrophotographer I'll take a picture of
the eclipse next couple of months but I am primarily a visual Observer and that
much said I have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures of the night sky
mostly when I was observing with genina and Carolyn and that was 30 years ago
when we had our um Magnum event that took place uh 30 years ago with the
Collision of a comet with Jupiter for my quotation today I'm going all the way to
uh Charlotte bronte's book Jane air and
if you not you know it's been Wendy and I had a little little tradition that once a year
when the sky when the day would done gray and rainy we would just spend the
day watching the BBC production of Jane air I didn't do that last year so this
year I really really enjoyed it I enjoyed it so much that I watched it a
second time the following day unfortunately we had the Cloudy damp and dismal weather to support it but here is
the quotation that I'm going to to read to you and she is just had her first
meeting with Rochester and where Rochester accuses her spooking of bewitching his horse oh
we had so much fun teasing her about that and she's about to go back into um
thornfield I lingered at the gates I lingered on the lawn I paced backwards
and forwards on the pavement the shutters of the glass door were closed I could not see into the interior and both
my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house from the gray Hollow filled
with rayless cells as it appeared to me to that Sky expanded before me a blue
sea absolved from taint of cloud the moon ascending it in solemn March where
orb seeming to look up as she left the hilltops from behind which she had come
far and farther below her and aspired to the Zenith midnight dark in its fathom
of death death depth and measureless distance and For Those Trembling stars
that followed her course they made my heart tremble my veins glow when I
viewed them little things recall us to Earth the Clock Struck in the hall that
sufficed I turned from the moon and the stars opened a side door and went in
thank you very much and Terry back to you thank you David we app appreciate
you being here and I think you have been at every one of our programs and we really appreciate that I know it takes
some effort to do it so thank you very much it's so much fun thank you for inviting me thank you all right how
about next if we go to Carol ore the Carol is the president of the astronomical League Carol what's going
on with the league well lots of stuff and uh I'm excited that we are still uh
we're we're almost out of the Deep Freeze here in the Midwest and hopefully better days are ahead for us uh the
major thing we have coming up in Kansas City where I'm based is Alcon
2024 and that will be in July and I'd like to share my screen
Terry
Hang on we're just almost
there yeah I can see the building okay let's go back one here we go okay that's
where we're going to be is on July 17th through the 20th 2024 and Overland Park Kansas is a
suburb of Kansas City it's just on State line we're a big metropolitan area here
and but it's almost like it's two different countries between Missouri and Kansas uh uh there's a even a Road
between the two that says State Line Road and so it's just like night and day
we have uh uh people in Kansas uh trying to pull our Royals away and our Chiefs
away occasionally so we have some friendly competition that goes on the area anyway it's going to be a fun time
it'll be held at the Double Tree by Hilton in Overland Park we have an exciting lineup of speakers who are
going to be there and I'll get into that just a second here uh one of the things that's
different about this particular convention is we are going to be live streaming the event uh for those who uh
aren't able to be there for one reason or another so stay tuned on that we have a a tremendous amount of of
great speakers and now I'll uh say more about that in just a second Union Station is one of our main uh meeting
points in Kansas City it also has a planetarium got lead planetarium uh
which will be the site of our uh meeting at the planetarium and are having a show
that night first night of the convention in Kansas
City and uh the speaker right before me is going to be there as well
uh anybody know that guy in the middle there uh he's uh uh is well known at lenda
Hall Library which is where we will be on the second night of the convention Linda Hall library has the depository
for David's very first telescope as well as his observing logs through all all of
his comment activities and it's going to be a real thrill we've had lots of good comments and all do when we uh talk
about Linda Hall because that's such a a great
place what would be Kansas City without barbecue we think we do a fairly decent
job of making barbecue although some cities disagree when we get into uh the
Super Bowl and so on and they're having contests they like to rib us a little bit on that but we will be meeting at
the local Arboretum which is about five miles away from Kansas it's very
close and that's where we'll have the star beue as we call our barbecues on
Friday night pal Observatory uh the
Astronomical Society of Kansas City has had this as their primary uh location for over 30 years
and we will be having a trip down there after our starbq at the Arboretum and we
will have a speaker or two there and also we'll have a brief introduction to the
observatory one of our uh visitors one of our speakers will be Star Trek actor
Tim Russ he's a very varied person uh in addition to being a a St a treky he's
also an amateur astronomer musician and writer and we anticipate having at the
banquet a jazz band uh reflecting the the heritage of Kansas City one of our
heritages and he's uh if his schedule works out he's going to be playing in
the jazz band that's going to be there as well so that should be
fun and that's it for now here back to
you that sounds so exciting I'm confused Carol is isn't Kansas City Missouri that
you're the club is from is it or is it from Kansas Kan City Missouri there you go it just so happened that we uh uh had
to sneak across state line just commission okay yeah I I thought for
sure we were in Kansas City Missouri and when I saw Kansas I thought oh boy I'm gonna have to think about this a little
more we get a ton of confusion about that uh often uh people come in and says
are we in Kansas is that uh we go to Kansas uh they they forget about the
word City and they say Kansas so we tell as long as they spend money in the hotels and the the restaurant we
don't care oh all right well now I know I'll be in Kansas in Overland Park okay
that sounds great I look forward to it I'm sure a lot of other people do too that sounds like a lot of fun we
anticipate having registration available in the next couple of weeks we're putting the final uh touches on that
right now so okay stay T yeah it's really nice because it's in the middle kind of in middle of the US it makes it
a little bit easier for people to come in from all directions like I know I'm going to drive out just so I can take my
time and you know just enjoy the drive I think it's like an eight hour drive for me so that's not too bad I know we've
got two Canadians on here but I know of one other Canadian that is going to be
there uh yeah one of our award winners of alcom 2023 uh from Canada he says I'm going to
go a special effort to be there so I think we're gonna have one Canadian besides David there of course would like to come on
down that would be great as well yes we definitely yes definitely all right
thank you very much Carol appreciate the update on Alon and so from there if we
go to John gos um not only is he the media officer for the astronomical
league but he's also a lunatic the master of the Moon lunatic type person
yeah see I I brought it back again John never live it down he has done so many talks on the
moon for the league for the astronomical uh live show astronomical League live
that I called him the master of lunacy so he'll never live it down you might as well get used to
it well there's something I'm I'm not going to really talk about here but I will say that Terry asked me a lunar
question yesterday and I I dug up some information that I didn't know before so
thank you Terry you me as well well no problem you helped me too so I always
wonder about that it just shows you that we've been in the hobby for a long time
and yet we still running across stuff we don't we don't know we we've never heard about and yet evidently it's it's not a
secret so I learned something so thank you that's one of the cool things about astronomy we always have new stuff we
learn new things you know it's never stale it's always something new and challenging a lot of times so thank you
John I appreciate that no no no um tonight I'm I'd like to I won't talk for
too long but I'd like to say a few words about a subject a lot of people a lot of clubs
don't like talking about and because it's uh it's something that's kind of it's crucial for for Club
operations so let let me start my
presentation make sure I get this thing going right essentially it's
volunteerism you know most clubs well I would say all clubs are are run
exclusively by volunteers and some sometimes it's hard
to find new volunteers you know I this is part of a much larger
talk and I start out by talking about my home town uh fin Castle Virginia It's a Small
Town it has roughly 400 people I I'll make this briefer than I normally it has
about 400 people and a number of years ago the the people who run the town called a big meeting saying hey we have
been doing this with the same people for many many years we need new people to
step up to be the mayor the vice mayor you know the council members and all all the other officials in town um so you
know we please please step forward and I thought at the time you know they sound like a pretty like a large astronomy
club there are are clubs across the country which have problems getting new volunteers new officers uh new people to
step up and do things not necessarily officers but people who do the nuts and bolts of what the club is supposed to do
they have a hard time hard time doing that so i' I want to talk a little bit about it and I think one of the the
reasons one of the problems is that we've heard this adage many many many times never volunteer for
anything and I believe this really came out of the military in which if you
volunteer for something you would probably be given a pretty onerous task
that nobody wants to do and so it kind of stuck with people never volunteer for anything and then
there won't be any problems but but really you know it it is that how hobby
clubs work you know it do hobby clubs give people who volunteer onerous tasks
that take too much time to do no you know you know that cannot be that way
because a hobby club like an astronomy club or larger organization like the
astronomical league would soon come to a halt because no one would want to do all that stuff so that model just clearly
does not fit uh amateur astronomy and you always got to remember that nothing ever gets done without volunteers so
they are crucial for the club to have um so it's essential for the club to
treat their volunteers nicely correctly respectfully um to make sure that they keep signing
up to do the tests that need need to be done but you know never volunteer for
anything okay scratch that one off but there are other reasons why people don't volunteer and I think they're they're
pretty valid because it's it's it's all all personal stuff and you can imagine what what they would be um you could be
intimidated just by the fact that if you're fairly new person in the club or the hobby you don't know all that much
well you think I can't volunteer for this because I just don't have have what it takes okay well that makes sense but
you know that the organization uh should be set up to help people in that that fashion to provide them guidance into
becoming more active club members uh perhaps giving them smaller uh easier uh
jobs to do uh volunteer roles to fulfill such as let's say um you can organize an
Outreach event you know gather people together set something up and take care of that that's a small thing to do but
it has to be done and if Nobody Does it it's not going to get done another reason would be you just
don't have enough time to do the job or do it well that's understandable you know we all have have busy lives but I
think the truth is is that most of us do have an hour or so a week every week or two to devote to uh helping out uh an
organization such as your local astronomy club so you know don't don't toss that out
immediately I think it also comes stand the reason that um clubs that that
some people they don't want to be an officer hey I'm not in the club to do this I just want to see the programs I
just want to go to the events that type stuff okay not everyone has the temperament to be an officer I
understand that and um but I think most people could they can maybe not be an officer but they can
certainly volunteer to do some of the tasks that need to be done one's kind of embarrassing thing is
is you don't want to go through the election process process you know you don't want to put your name out there and and then find out that you lost you
lost the election to somebody else it's kind know you don't want to have hard feelings and all that and know I don't
want to hurt anybody's feelings and this this is tough but all I can say is that the club has to be prepared to keep
welcoming these people and giving them comfort that even if they don't win the election they are still needed and
there's always next time
this is one which I think is a big one that we we don't like talking about it
has to do with my small town here it's that yes does not mean forever you know
you raise your hand yeah I'll I'll run for office I'll be a secretary or some
some other position but you know that's just for two years three years four years maybe not for 10 years and some
people see officers in the club that have been in those fulfilling those rules for a long time and they're going
to get turned off for that I understand this one so let's let's talk a little bit
about what why why people have been officers what what what got them started
when I mean officers not just officers but just volunteers they don't have to be an officer but volunteers to help the club out in some way one way or
other uh and I will say all these I'm going to list apply to me and I bet you
they apply to a lot of other people too know they like enjoying they they enjoy working with other people other other or
the officers or the members they like organizing stuff they like talking to the people seeing what they want uh
laughing and having a good time with them they like getting people together that's understand understandable at
least for me because that that applies to me and learning something new you know
as I was just saying uh talking to Terry before we all began here uh we learned something new about the moon this week
you know I've been doing this for for many years and there's always something coming up that I don't know and uh it's
it's it's fun to find this stuff out and I I have seen people come into a role as
being a volunteer and doing a fine job at it and it really builds their confidence um they they're not so I I
shouldn't use the word shy because people call I used to call myself a shy person um well maybe I am but in many
cases I I'm I should be more shy than I am but uh anyway it builds your
confidence in astronomy and in life in general and getting things
done and I personally like being part of something greater you know I I was a a volunteer for Art Club for a number of
years and then I got interested in the astronomic league and getting bigger and bigger across the country meeting new
people finding new stuff learning learning about more about about more stuff across the country and I I really
like that so I I like bringing astronomy to my area to my uh Club to the public I
find that to be a lot of fun and it gives you a deep sense of of satisfaction there another reason why
officers do it or why people do become officers or they just volunteer in
general in a way might be the biggest reason of all so pay
attention positively influencing a young person's life you know I think I think
all the people out all you officers out there who are listening to this I bet you each one of you have influenced a
young person's life that somebody has come up to you later on and said you know thank you for doing that thank you
for showing me whatever is in the telescope you know thank you for talking about this particular subject in
astronomy or the universe or whatever I really enjoyed that and it really got me thinking and it it it it really affected
me when I hear stuff like that that has happened to me I uh I feel pretty good about it and it it helps me understand
why people should become actively involved in their astronomy club or whatever hobby organization that that
you're involved with okay let's kind of Flip Flip the
coin here see what the other side says so you want to volunteer well what type of traits are
are we really looking for you know not maybe not everyone's suitable for the P
let's look at these there there are three traits you should have you got to have the ability to do
whatever has to be done I me that's pretty obvious you got to have the time you know some of us are overworked as I
was saying a little earlier but you got to have the time to do it and you got to have the desire you really want to do it
and if you don't have one of those three or two of those three or whatever something's G not GNA gel right
something that's just not not not going to flow so if you have those three things and there really is the fourth
which I don't like talking about but people should be um a team player you got to be able to work well with others
that's part of the fun behind it anything so think about
that so you think you uh you need someone to volunteer for something and you got somebody in mind or you don't
have mind how do you build a a pool of of possible
candidates well one thing I do is always keep it keep in people's minds that that
that that there's always a need for volunteers that maybe maybe they
shouldn't do it right now but next year at this time maybe uh that would be a
good thing for them to do volunteer for whatever position is open and another thing to do which I
think is really critical and a lot of clubs miss out is that you got to have smaller tasks for people to accomplish
uh um they build up their their confidence and they build up um their their knowledge of the club um as I
mentioned earlier about maybe get an Outreach director uh typical example I use is
maybe have a club photographer you know doing stuff like this you meet more people in the club you you feel more
more comfortable being in it and uh help helping manage it direct
it but really the bottom line is this is the one that's it's it's tough but it
isn't so tough I'll explain that in a moment the most important and most effective way of persuading someone to
volunteer is ask you know a lot of people they don't
want to step forward they're they feel uncomfortable they think oh you know what I think I'd like to do it but I
don't know if I can and uh I don't know if I if I should do all this and then you come up and say hey would you like
to step forward for this position we need help here and from what I've seen you can do
it um I'll say most of the time 80% of the time someone's going to say yes sure
I'll do it and that gets me going going on onto on on the road to uh fulfilling
your need for a club leadership so starting small working the way up but
you got to ask um so many people they just they aren't going to volunteer uh
some people will um but no yeah ask and you'll you it'll work it'll
work on that happy note I I want to just conclude things by by saying you know
volunteerism is it's it's fun um if you have those three traits as
I was talking about that the ability to do the task the time to do the task and
the want the the desire to do it you'll you're undoubtedly going to do well at
it and um it's going to benefit the club as well as yourself as you're going to
benefit your community and uh it's a good thing
so uh what we're in January now this many clubs organizations have upcoming
elections in the next three four five six seven months uh give it a thought give it an
honest thought because clubs need need your help they need someone to step forward and fill those offices and do
the tasks that need to be done thank you Terry for giving me this x amount of time to do all this but uh you
can see this is an important thing and it's something true to my heart that I I want clubs to succeed and this is one
way of doing it so thank you thank you for your time thank you John that's so much of
what you said is absolutely true um you know it's I think a lot of us got into
astronomy because we love astronomy if we did not really enjoy this hobby you
know I would wouldn't put as much time in it is what I do and I don't think any of us would but we enjoy the people I
mean there is an astronomical community and you know it it is you go to the
conferences and you meet the same people over and over you know and and you become kind of family extended family
where you keep in touch maybe you've got the same astrophotography or visual or you're interested in whatever part you
share that and you build on that and you learn just like we were talking about the question I asked you know yeah we
both been we've been here quite a while but yet there is always something to learn and it's just like listening to
Allan and some of these really good speakers I learn so much you come away from that excited because you've got new
ideas new things to try and it's exciting you know and that's a great thing about astronomy no matter what you
do with it yeah that I think one of the things I I I like about it it is the
people are the people uh but not not just people around me but all around the country and really
International as you were just saying you going be listening to Allan here in a few minutes we heard something from
David we see Scott we see all these people every week every two weeks or whatever from all over and you think
gosh you know 30 years ago that that certainly wouldn't have been it would not have been possible that's right yeah
no there's a um we also have live chat going on right now and someone asked if
that slideshow that you put on John could be made available for download and I was suggesting maybe uh it could be um
posted on on the League's Facebook page or um or the website uh but uh people
want it well certainly uh they're certainly not copyrighted or anything like that but uh yeah I can make them
available great thank you John that's great you're welcome all right well up
next is Alan Dyer and welcome back Allan it has been such a pleasure to have you
on I enjoy everything you speak about um he's not only an eclipse Chaser oh my
gosh he's a master photographer at Aurora so many things he is so full of
knowledge it's amazing um and tonight he's going to speak to us about photographing the 2024 solar eclipse so
Allan is well known as an astronomy author and astrophotographer with Terence Terrence
Dickinson he co-wrote the popular book the back yard astronomer's guide and
contributed new content to the new edition or the edition of nightwatch he
serves as a um okay he serves also as an editor
contributing Editor to Sky and Telescope magazine and authored the new ebook how
to photograph the solar eclipses he has traveled the world to chase the Moon Shadow to witness 16 total eclipes of
the sun asteroid 7843 4 is named dire and Allan's website
is amazing sky.com and I'll tell you what every book this man has touched has
been amazing and I have got his ebook on how to photograph solar eclipses and
there are so many ideas and techniques I can't wait to try so Alan welcome and
thank you so much for being here well thank you Terry thank you for the invitation to speak uh it's always a
pleasure to speak to the league and uh and this is of course the topic of the year or at least for the next couple of
months is the solar eclipse and uh so that's the topic tonight and photographing it so let me just share
the screen and um get right into the into the
talk there we are hopefully that's coming
through are you are we seeing the title slide
okay fine yes good all right well it's photographing the total eclipse coming
up um and uh that's the that's the topic uh and I'll I'll talk about seeing the
eclipse but but the topic tonight is is photographing which is what most people want to do and there's easy ways to do
it and I outline many ways in in my ebook as Cherry mentioned uh uh that's
that's available from this website here and links to get it from Apple or or
e-commerce service that I use to for a pdf version of it and it goes into much
more detail but tonight I'm going to focus on a couple of specific techniques first of all my my CV Eclipse CV I can't
put all the eclipses up there but in the last few years these are highlights turkey and 1999 pet Karen Island in 2005
over Antarctica in 200 three in Libya in 2006 Chile in alapo in 1994 and over the
Canadian Arctic in 2008 so I've seen it from the literally the ends of the Earth
Arctic and Antarctic from air and by sea and by land as well and all are fabulous
and all are unique and that's one of the great things about eclipses is the eclipse site where you go to is is a big
part of the experience but this year of course we have a chance as we did 7even
years ago and many of you may have been in that lunar Shadow the umbrell shadow
here in August 21st touching the coast of Oregon and then on its way across the
United States for a a cross continent but strictly in the US in 2017 you were
maybe in that umbrell shadow path and uh I was certainly I was in Idaho was a day
and a half Drive south of me so it was great I'm in Southern Alberta in Canada and uh it was a fabulous experience but
a con as you see in Eclipse you always want to see another one there's no no question especially for this audience of
amateur astronomers there's no convincing that that you want to get to the eclipse path and in on in April 8th
it's going to be at the sort of the great North American Eclipse because it crosses Mexico United States and for the
first time since 1979 then Southern Canada I saw one from up an Arctic Canada in 2008 but first time in 79
since 79 for southern Canada it will cross six Canadian provinces uh as well
and so millions of people live in the path and millions more can get to it quite easily but you got to get to the
path I I just I'm I'm sure this audience knows it but there's just no such thing
as 99% totality some places are advertising come see the eclipse at our place here we're 99% of the effect no
you're not you're outside that path you're 1% of the effect you've got to get inside the path of totality to see
the total eclipse and get the total experience it's uh the the difference is night and day literally you don't have
to be at the center line of the path but you need to be in the path at whatever site is going to work out most
convenient but now I'm going to concentrate on photography and a goal to tonight in the talk tonight is to get
closeup shots the kind of technique most amateur astronomers are going to want to do with a telescope or telephoto lens
close-up images or movies I'll talk about that using methods that are fairly
simple requiring a minimum attention during totality so the least can go
wrong because believe me if anything can go wrong it will a few minutes before
the total eclipse begins so how can you get great pictures fairly simply that's the FOC tonight I'll talk about a couple
of more complex options so so tonight's options that I'm discussing is a telephoto lens on a tripod for movies
and stills maybe putting on a tracker for tracking the sky it has its
advantages or using a telescope on a larger tracking Mount of some kind and
so close-ups of the eclipse Sun show the Corona and the prominences really well
and it's the kind of images most amateur astronomers are going going to want to take these kind of close-ups so that's
what I'm focusing on tonight the options I'm not discussing tonight but it's all
in my ebook are the wide angle shots and I always take a shot like this at every clipse sometimes it's the only kind of
shot I take wide angle images or movies or time-lapse images they're fairly easy
to do and effective and I explain those methods so they can be done quite easily and and leave you total freedom to look
at the eclipse because the camera is running on its own but tonight I'm talking about the sort of close-up views
and I'll end with a brief overlay overview of processing options as well
once you get a whole set of eclipse shots uh taken in closeup through a telescope or a telephoto lens but you
got to get your solar filters you need it for only the partial phases not for totality and I find in testing that the
glass or myar type filters the Silvery kind of myar it's actually polyethylene
but it's not anyway but it's it we call them myar filters they're the best for photography in terms of the sharpest
most contrasty types of filters there's another type called black polymer filters which are the kind used for the
eyeglasses and the handheld types uh and they're perfectly fine for that but they tend to be a little soft and low
contrast for photography especially long focal lengths close-up views so the glass or myar types are the best and get
your filters as soon as possible if you don't have them now get get them right away CU all the dealers and companies
that sell them they're going to get in short supply and you be have a tough time getting the size and the type that
you want for your so decide what it is you want to shoot through and get a filter for it you need it for the
partial phases or for focusing during the partial phases even if you're not shooting the partial phases you need to
uh get it all focused so you need the filters the myar types generally Give A Whiter bluish sun which is a more
natural color at least white is is but you can tint it later in processing whereas the the uh the the glass filters
coated with metal or or indeed the the sort of polymer filters give you a more yellow sun which kind of people expect
the sun to look to look like but get those filters now and practice with them
there's thread-on filters that will go on a lens uh thread on a on the front of
a lens just like any other camera filter you can get them and they are like end
100,000 so if you think you're going to use your neutral density filters that you've bought for other photographic
purposes stack a bunch together no don't do that uh they may not even be safe to do to aim at the sun you need a filter
made for the purpose it's nd1 100,000 and they're several filter manufacturers
for camera filters like case and Nissi and knf concept that have come out with
100,000 ND filters in the last couple of months or you get the filters that sort of clamp on over the over the front of a
lens or a telescope and and uh and those are very common and and pretty versatile
or the kind that I I use certainly at the annular eclips in fact this is the one I shot the annular Eclipse with last
October is again A myar B myar but it's in kind of an open cell with a little
sunf finder on the front and that's very handy because sometimes finding the Sun at the last minute can save you uh and
so it's handy to have that get your filter and now test because the sun is the same brightness now as it will be
during the eclipse and test what exposure because it does vary from filter to filter what exposure is going
to be best for the partial phases you don't want to get the image too dim but you don't want to get it too bright and
Overexposed and and you're not seeing the sunspots or things like that so figure out what that correct exposure is
for your filter and your camera and your telescope now and and test on partly
cloudy days because you might be shooting through some Cloud um and and typically those are the kind of
exposures you need through a solar filter but I would always bracket if you're taking a set of shots of the
partial phases throughout the partial phase to make a sequence and then at the after totality for the last half of the
eclipse take shots at that predetermined best exposure but bracket as well and
you can set up cameras I'll talk about that to take automatically take extra exposure at a different exposure setting
you don't need darker ones but you might need brighter ones so uh an exposure
taken at the correct exposure and then plus one and plus two stops perhaps because you might be shooting through
some Thin cloud or Haze or something like that the transparency isn't as good as it was during your test test days and
so our bracket is set is uh good to have in case you are shooting through a bit of cloud of some kind and then practice
removing that filter but don't do it when your telescope is aimed at the sun now but uh but practice removing the
filter and putting it back because that can foul people up where suddenly the filter gets stuck and you're panicking
you can't get the filter off just as the totality is beginning and suddenly your plans are out the window so practice
with that um is simply getting the filters off and then putting it back because you don't want to keep a a
telescope or camera in at the unfiltered Sun for a long time after totality
ends and then the solar filters must be removed for the diamond rings and of
course for totality itself but if you want to get shots of those diamond rings which are technically before totality
begins and after totality ends then you need to have the filter off the
telescope or telephoto lens for about a minute or two and it's perfectly safe to
have Optics aimed at the Sun for that couple of minutes or so for the diamond
rings you have to do it it's not safe to look through a telescope or binoculars
while that diamond ring is happening not until totality is actually begun officially but it's safe for Optics uh
for a camera or whatever because if you want to get a diamond ring shot like I show on either side here you have to do
that those are just before totality Begins for about a minute and just after totality for about another minute or so
so you want to get those diamond rings we call the Bailey's beads the last bits of sunlight disappearing or poking out
from through mountain and craters and valleys on the moon the other thing to test is focusing
as well uh if you're an experien lunar and planetary photography you're kind of familiar with this but but you got to
practice focusing through your filter what other Optics you're using because
it could be kind of hard especially in the daytime when it's bright and it's hard to see your screen or whatever but
people fuss and fuss and fuss about the what's the the best exposure for the total eclipse there isn't a best
exposure as I'll explain in a sec but there is the best Focus it's got to be in Focus if you're a little out of focus
that'll ruin all your shots and it's really hard to fix that later in post
production and so the focus will not change when you remove the filter so you
can focus with the filter in place and it not going to change when you remove
the filter because the filter is over the front of the Optics deep Sky photographers are familiar with the fact
that you're putting a filter in between the Optics and the sensor and you're changing filters to take your oxygen and
hydrogen Alpha whatever and the focus keeps shifting that's not the case here because the filter is over the front of
the Optics that does not shift the focus what can shift the focus is the
temperature changes is throughout the morning or the day or the afternoon of the eclipse the day gets warmer but it
can also get colder as the eclipse predes and so you might Focus very precisely at the beginning of the
eclipse think you've got it by the time you get to totality an hour an hour and a half later it's shifted out of focus
especially with a long telephoto lens and Telescope they're the most susceptible to shifting in focus and so
by the time you get to totality you're just a little out of focus so a few minutes before totality refocus recheck
your focus focus on the little thin cusp of the Sun or a sunspot or the edge of
the Sun and practice on that as best you can now with the sun un unclips Sun now
to to get that Focus as precisely as possible because the poor focus is what
ruins most Eclipse shots not poor exposure the other practice Target is
the moon the Cresent Moon is great or even the full moon now but the Crescent Moon is great because it's got a range
of brightness from the very bright cresant to the Earth Shine On the Dark Side of the Moon so practice on the ease
of removing your filter without jarring the camera and bumping it and all is all your gear solid and easy to aim and
practice setting it up does everything connect securely can you focus accurately with that camera that you're
planning on using on the moon in this particular case as you're handling the camera and changing settings as I'll
suggest will that blur the image if you're handling it too quickly and not allowing vibration to dampen down so
practice with that and then the motion of the sky uh if you're not on a tracking Mount how long and exposure can
you go before the gets too blurry because the sky is simply moving and
typically it might only be a fraction of a second or half a second or a quarter of a second but you can practice with
that now on the moon uh and then you can take a range of exposures and practice
shooting through a whole range of exposures from very short to very long and uh and and practice adjusting your
camera for that and uh and then seeing if there's any odd lens flares because
that really bright Cresent if it gets really Overexposed is kind of a standin for those diamond rings you might find
that you get kind of some lens flares or ghost images from that uh if you really
overexpose was that bright cresant and then learn to operate your camera by feel you know how many clicks does it
take to go from one settings to another and then do it all in a hurry in four minutes you only got four minutes to do
this so practice again and again you might get it all right but you've taken eight minutes to sort out your program
and that's no good you're going to miss the diamond rings you're going to miss the opportunity to get the shots that you want so practicing on the Moon is
really essential now that sounds really complicated and and tougher so here's
here's a simpler method I'm going to suggest that you might want to consider again again a close-up view through a
lens like this a long telephoto lens on a tripod and this is an example this is
video this is real-time video and I'm now removing the filter from the camera
and it's this the the the frame went bright for a moment or two but then Auto exposure kicked in this is a VR recorded
in 2017 in 4 C video with the state-of-the-art Canon camera at the
time and I just set the exposure on auto exposure and then focused however on the
moon uh or on on the on the Cresent Sun rather uh with a filter in place focused
on it but then sinky took the filter off and just let the exposure be what it may
and just let the camera run and I after remove the filter I didn't touch it at all the camera was just running uh on
its own and it was recording the sound which I'm not playing here as well but that's great to record the sound and
this is Real Time video now as the as the diamond ring gets smaller and
smaller and smaller here and eventually turns into into the total eclipse uh we
should be getting in in in here tight pretty soon there it is there it is there it
is whoosh there now you're in totality now it is safe to look at the sun
through Optics or whatever you might have but your camera is okay shooting for that minute or two before totality
begins to get the diamond rings and this is realtime video in this particular case and I just let it run and let it
drift across the frame so the steps for that are like a 300 to 500 mm telephoto
lens or a telescope on a fixed tripod in this particular case to keep it simple
and I'm just letting the sun drift to the frame I'm not worried about tracking it and then I'm setting the aperture
fairly wide open if not the absolutely wide open to avoid defraction spikes
coming off those diamond rings and then low ISO ISO 100 and aperture Priority
auto exposure I'm just starting the the movie with the solar filter on and taking it off and I'm not even adjusting
the exposure at that point the camera compensates quite well I found I've shot two eclipses like this and it works
really well and then just remove that filter about a minute before totality and you can just forget it and leave it
until after totality just don't forget to put the filter back on or cap the
lens or whatever turn it away don't leave it aimed at the sun well after
totality so that works pretty well and this is the kind of focal length you need 135 is pretty small 200 300 as you
go to longer focal links you are obviously framing in Tighter and Tighter but I find for that kind of movie and
also still images that I'll talk about next 300 to 600 is about the best uh
focal length you don't need a lot of focal length and um and and with a 600
millimeter lens on a fullframe camera this is how much the sun will move across the frame over 8 minutes and this
is from Texas where the sun is almost due south and and and moving
horizontally left or right across the frame and so it's four minutes of totality couple of minutes either side
and so if you're taking that kind of shot you don't want to put the sun dead center at the start of the sequence a
couple of minutes before totality because it'll drift off and maybe be off the frame by the time totality ends so
you want to plan your framing to put it on to one side and let it move across the frame hopefully so that it's in the
center when it's the middle of totality and so it takes a little bit of planning with planetarium software like I used
here Sky Safari to plan how you should frame it at what point to start the eclipse and so it works pretty well and
uh and but you need a solid mount and and tripod head to make this work or an
Al Asm with Mount as I show here on the right uh something that's easy to aim
precisely because you will have to not during the actual totality you don't need to move the Sun or or Mo move the T
scope rather but you need to aim it and Frame It precisely at the beginning before you're starting your sequence and
if you've got a sloppy loose ball head or something and it flops around suddenly you're panicking because you've
lost sight of the sun which is hard to find when it's nothing but a black sky
with the filtered sun in it and so having like a geared tripod head where you can PR very precisely aim and frame
get it exactly the way you want and it's solid as well and then just let it drift across the frame or the setup on the
right here with a little alasm with telescope Mount and telescope and it you
it's just kind of a a smooth motion that it makes it still fairly easy to exactly
aim the telescope in this case where you want now for video settings as I said
aperture Priority auto exposure can work really well uh this is an example from a
sequence like that in Australia in 2012 with the filter on took it off off the
frame goes bright for a couple seconds and then the auto exposure kicks in and gives you a pretty well exposed diamond
ring shot and as that disappears and you go to to Corona the exposure opens up a
bit and you get a nicely exposed solar Corona as well so uh the video works
pretty well now modern cameras now mirrorless cameras in particular have
what's called a log profile option for a little more advanced videography and
that can give you better results a little more a little less contrast and a little more dynamic range shooting in
what's called log profile it takes a little more processing and video editing but it might produce better results I'll
show the difference in the next slide here that's an option mostly for the mirrorless cameras I think have that
option but whatever camera you're using and I'm talking about dslrs and mirrorless cameras not dedicated video
cameras per se but they all have movie modes of some kind and shooting the best quality available HD they all have that
but most of them have 4K and some cameras even have 8K video now or the movie crop mode where it's shooting
video from the center of the frame that can help give you a little more reach frame the Moon and the Sun and the
Corona in a little bit tighter perhaps or there's also high quality modes where
it it does take a 4K video but it down samples it from a larger 6 or 8K sensor
that can give you better image quality but test on the moon or the filtered Sun now to see which of these video modes
might be the best for your particular camera this was some test shots I took
just a couple of nights ago on the gibbus moon with a a Canon R6 camera I'm
planning to use for video and in the standard profile contrast profile on the
left and then in the log profile on the right and it does pick up a little more
detail in the bright parts of the Moon and also in the in the in the shadow in the darker parts so it's picking up it
will pick up more of the Corona and and not blow out the highlights uh as much
but they they tend to be noisier when you use cameras in these log profile settings so that's why you test now to
see which kind of settings might be best for your particular camera if you're trying planning to shoot video there may
be some options on your camera especially if it's a new camera that you haven't played with before but it's worth playing with to see what might be
best for the eclipse that solar Corona is a demanding subject now I threw this
in because suddenly as of this year uh this is going to be an option is using
one of these smart Scopes and I have both of these and they work great and they'll aim with the sun sometimes
you've got to manually aim the Sun and find it or whatever they don't necessarily go to the Sun but and so
that can be a bit of a panic but once you're on the sun and you can get the tracking going they'll keep the on on
frame pretty well how well would they work through totality no one knows right these have
come into the hobby since the last solar eclipse I think somebody a few people might have used a little dwarf scope on
the right there at the eclipse in Australia in 2023 but for the most part this is unknown territory we can test it
now on the sun and the moon and and see but how well is it going to work the auto exposure modes as you take the
filters off same thing take the filter filters off during totality what's going to happen who knows but it they can
shoot very nice 4K videos and uh it might be an option as well perhaps
particularly a family member you know uh that you can put in charge of of your
smart scope and and see what you get but it's unexplored territory because these
telescopes are are so new but they should give you some nice results now
sometimes amateur astronomers they've got these H Alphas Scopes these are you know fabulous and they say oh I'm going
to use them for the eclipse sure for the partial phases they're great because you can see the prominen you can kind of
know what prominence are going to appear as soon as totality begins but don't use them for totality you won't see anything
sh them very much at least nothing worth looking at because the prominence you can see naked eye or through binoculars
or a telescope without any kind of special filtration that's the point so you can have an Hal Alpha scope per
perhaps at your rig or whatever just to preview where the prominence is going to be once totality begins but don't use
them for totality itself now the other option is the same kind of rig but using it to take still
images which is what most people are going to want to do rather than movies
to get the Ste images and here I'm just talking about on a static tripod a non-tracking mount once again solid as
possible easy to aim and frame and and and whatever as you have to continue to
follow the sun to keep it centered and as you continue to shoot through the
partial phases or even through totality this is where you might need to keep reentering the sun perhaps uh and it
needs to be amount that's as easy to aim precisely as possible and for a telescope a little short Focus refractor
like that is great in fact that very rig is what I used in Libya in
2006 uh and it was a nice compact Airline portable and a little 66 mm
Apple refractor and you could just push the mount around and aim it precisely to reenter the sun through totality two or
three times so if you're traveling or if you're flying or whatever a little rig like that would be excellent uh on a
nice solid but easy to move alasm with Mount and people then Wonder okay what
exposure should I use it's all over the place it's
no one exposure can record everything that your eye can see this is where where the deficiency and the of cameras
shows up is that your eye can see this whole dynamic range from the bright inner Corona the prominences out to the
you know the outer streamers or whatever no one exposure can capture all of it
you need something as short as a thousands of a second for the prominences or the diamond rings and as
the exposure gets longer and longer you're simply recording more and more and more of the outer Corona and then
even as long as one second talking about typically ice ISO 100 for all of these
shots and f4.5 f56 something like that typical of a telescope or telepal lens
but a low ISO people think it's going to get dark I need to Sho at a high ISO no
this is not the Milky Way this is this is the that Corona is as bright as the full moon on average it's bright you
don't need to use a high ISO low ISO 100 maximum dynamic range least noise and uh
but but exposure as long as 1 second is going to now really show those outer streamers and the Earth shine you can
see features on the moon there that's Earth shine bouncing off the Earth
sunlight bouncing off the Earth lighting up the Dark Side of the Moon and so a
long exposure of like a one or two seconds it's what's needed to record that Earth shine there now now if you're
not tracking the Sun a long exposure cut just blur and I'll talk about that in a
sec so that's where tracking comes in if you do want to do those long exposures
but for still images of any kind just tracking on a mount that's tracking or not tracking shoot raw always shoot raw
don't just shoot jpegs uh you get the maximum control afterwards in processing
with raw with DSLR cameras don't use the mirror lockup that just complicates the
exposure and slows down the exposure just lock the mirror up put the camera in live view that locks the mirror up
prevents that vibration and you can now watch the eclipse on your screen and uh
and don't make the mistake I did in 2017 where you spend too much time looking at that eclipse on the screen and not up at
the sky uh but with a mirrorless camera there's an electronic first cut first curtain shutter mode where it starts the
exposure electronically so what little vibration there might be from the shutter itself opening you avoid that
and so those are settings for mirrorless and DSLR cameras both types to make it
easier to shoot a whole range of exposures you can always set up what's
called Auto exposure bracketing where it automatically steps through a range of
five seven or nine depends on the camera exposures automatically sort of 2/3 to
One Stop apart this is what you can preset ahead of time and assign to what's called a custom shooting mode so
you switch to that C1 or C2 in the case of a Canon or U1 or U2 depends on the
camera but you you preset all that and just quickly click to that user custom
user mode and all that bracketing and and settings and it takes four or five different settings to get it all right
and what that initial exposure is as well and you can get all that preset and
then if you have the self timer on two seconds you can press the shutter button once with a remote release not on the
camera itself remote release and then it fires the the shots automatically in
quick succession faster than you could ever do one by one and with less vibration so you can get a whole set of
exposures very quickly using Auto exposure bracketing so it's a little more work but you can automate it to
some extent and and then as I said with the self timer on uh at least with Canon
I think with most cameras you just press the shutter button once that it automatically goes click click click click click click and just gradually uh
it changes the shutter speed you're changing the shutter speed from you know quite short to much longer as we saw to
record the full range of brightness of the corona now that's during totality
itself for the diamond rings you don't really want a whole range of exposures
one exposure and typically very short a thousandth of a second or something like
that is all you need but takeen in Rapid succession to capture the diamond ring
gradually disappearing in the last little Bailey's beads and then the prominence is appearing and then the
opposite at the end of totality as well so a way to do that is to put the camera
in continuous shooting mode so once you press and hold the shutter down it's automatically firing a whole bunch of
shots as fast as it can uh with high speed or not so high speed Contin mode
but even in a slower speed you're getting five frames a second something like that which is more than enough to
get a nice sequence of shots of the diamond rings to turn into a little time lapse or just to pick the best ones as
well and then be ready to do that again at Third Contact when the eclipse ends
and that's a mode you can assign to another custom shooting mode to quickly go from that before totality to the
other bracketing mode during totality and then switch back to continuous mode
for the diamond rings that's if you want to get that full Suite of shots through the whole range at totality and as I say
that can be a little harder even automating it as best you can because it requires attention to the camera you
can't just get things running and walk away and just look you're having to pay
a little attention to the camera but once you get a an auto exposure bracketed sequence of shots from short
to very long just that's it leave it and then quickly
set back the camera to be ready for the third contct diamond ring uh the mistake
you make is he keep shooting and shooting and shooting and you're not ready to shoot the diamond ring when
Third Contact it appears you don't have your camera set right so take those shots get them in the bag get your shots
and then just look and take the last part of totality to just look and then have your camera ready to get third cont
when that diamond ring and you'll see it through the eyepiece if you're using a rig like I'm going to show you in a
moment you'll see suddenly the chromosphere starting to light up on the edge of the Sun and that signals that
you've got you know totality about to end another option is using a star
tracker of some kind like a a tracking Mount of some kind but a small star
tracker like this is nice and portable if you're having to fly or whatever the disadvantages of using these is that
they can be shaky because you're operating the camera to some extent and they can bounce around if you got a ball
head on it you trying to aim and frame the sun accurately as I said that can be hard to do suddenly something slips
something comes loose and you're panicking the last minute and they're going to need to be at least roughly polar aligned now you can't do that
during the day but you can set them at the right latitude and then aim them as due north as you can as closely as you
can because you just need to keep the sun kind of centered and track tracking for a few minutes basically with a
Tracker um the advantage of doing that going to that effort is that it it allows those longer
exposures in order to pick up the Earth shine or the outer Corona without the the motion of the sky blurring the image
otherwise your maximum exposure is maybe a quarter of a second perhaps depends on the focal length of the lens and it
keeps the sun centered or at least Clos to centered to make it easier to later stack them for exposure blend
and some sort of tracking is kind of essential if you are planning to shoot with quite long focal lengths as well
and you could shoot video that way as well if you wanted to in order to keep the sun centered and not drifted off but
it's it's not really that essential the other option is to you
know Notch it up a little bit more and in amateur astronomers we probably got a lot of this gear is is a is a proper
equatorial Mount of some kind uh and an apple chromatic refractor is what I like
to use uh but again don't have to have a great long focal length telescope and so
now you're a little more serious and if you're driving the eclipse well you can take as much gear as as you want in this
particular case however you may be familiar with this gear and but I would
still practice with it now on the sun and the moon and operating in the camera and making sure you're you're not
introducing vibration but practice with the Mount set to the latitude you're
going to be at if you're driving to the eclipse from you know Northeastern us or something and you're going down to Texas
or Mexico or practice with it set to that Latitude because you might find
that somehow with it angled at that lower latitude and aim du South which is
where the sun's going to be from Mexico or Texas at Mid totality something isn't
working right something is colliding something isn't hitting which worked fine at home but it's not going to go
from a Mexican latitude perhaps so practice with it set to the latitude and
where the sun's going to be at totality these two mounts stop tracking soon as
they hit the Meridian or in the case of the GTI mount on the left about 15 degrees past the meridian and you don't
want to find that and be surprised about that uh during during the eclipse or just before totality that your Mount
stops tracking so that your Mount will in fact continue to track through the
Meridian if that's where the sun's going to be at uh at totality and it well
might well be and and people often think they're just going to go huge with they think the biggest telescope the biggest
is the best and it's going to be the best pictures no don't don't I would say no don't go with a big long focal link
Schmid Crain telescope uh they're going to crop the Corona and the corona is the star of the show and it it's going to
extend out all around the Sun pretty symmetrical at this solar maximum eclipse and uh and so extends several
degrees either side so you don't want to crop in Too Close um you can go with an
ALT aouth Mount like this uh for tracking the sun it'll work uh but not
if you're intending to do a timelapse sequence to photograph the whole sequence of the eclipse from start to
end because with an ALT asmith Mount like this The Field's going to rotate and the moon once you put the time lapse
together will appear to move in a curve curved path across the Sun so uh don't
use an alasm withth Mount like this a go-to mount if you're planning on taking a whole sequence throughout the whole
Clips in order to turn into a Time laap sequence use a proper German equatorial
Mount polar aligned that will keep north up and have the moon move in a linear uh
path across the disc of the sun if you're planning on that kind of sequence or you can go long if you
really want I mean if that's what you're after you want to get in close to the prominences and the inner Corona detail
that's fine go for it if you like that's what I did my first eclipse in 1979 in southern Manitoba there I am there on
the right there's my Questar three and a half on the linhof tripod on Kodak Chrome film and it got the prominences
really well so if you want to get En close fine shoot with a longer folk lengths but you're kind of sacrificing
the beauty of the outer Corona and the kind of rig I like to use is this dual
scope rig I used it in 2017 and in in next last year 20123 for the Ann Eclipse
a a scope to look through or a scope to shoot through the 4-in refractor and then a piggyback smaller scope just to
look through just so and then you can look at the camera and see what it's doing but also have the eyepiece only
inches away from your eye to look at the same time as well so that kind of dual
sculpt rig works really well that's sort of what I used last year the Ane eclipse and there I am with almost similar rig
in 1998 in Cura which was 19 years after the first Eclipse I saw in
1979 same telescope the astrophysics 4in refractor I used in in in Cura in '98 in
Australia in 2012 in 2017 and then last year in Utah
in 2023 the 4 inch astrophysics refractor and then little piggy refractor on top of it just to look
through it's a great way to shoot and look at the same time if you remember to
look that's the thing and so practice with it now however to make sure it's all solid and it's balanced it'll work
uh it'll track well especially again through the meridian and that was the setup I used last year in Utah uh for
the 2023 anular with that um you know veteran now astrophysics 4 in
refractor now people ask about this this camera control apps the Deep Sky photographers are familiar with these
kinds of apps that control their cameras for deep Sky photography don't use them
they're not designed for eclipses I would I I would not recommend using these these apps to control your camera
they can't fire the shutter fast enough or in quick sequence to allow you to get Bailey bees and diamond rings they're
going to be too sluggish and and and can only take uh shots every few seconds or so
and they have to be started at exactly the right time otherwise the whole sequence is for not it's not going to
take the right shots at the right time um I was just playing with this this morning because someone asked about me
asked me about this yesterday okay let me let me try this and uh no ASI a
fabulous little product and it's great for deep Sky not for eclipses you could
only take a shot every five or six seconds cuz I got to download the image every few seconds it's too slow it's not
going to work for an eclipse even if you program a little sequence of shots here it's not going to work it's not going to
do what you want as quickly as you want so don't use this kind of deep Sky stuff there are Eclipse control apps
specifically for controlling cameras during an eclipse where if they enter
the latitude and longitude precisely from where you are they know exactly
when all the events are going to occur and they fire the shutter at EX ex actly the right time in a scripted sequence
that you can set up and control a camera through a USB port for a DSLR or a
mirrorless camera eclipse orchestrator on the right there by Fred buun brunes
uh works for Windows but only select niacon on camera Canon cameras it hasn't
been updated for a few years and this last week a talk that Fred gave uh said
it should work for mirrorless cameras but he's not sure so you get the free
copy and you try it and for Mac there's a program called Eclipse Maestro Xavier
was also speaking last week at a talk I I zoomed in on and he hasn't updated
that in several years and it only works on the older Mac OS not the most recent
and he's doesn't have the time to update it it's so involved in keeping the software up to date as Windows and Apple
changes their operating systems so it might work if you got a older Mac it's a
very capable program but you got to try it and see if it will even run it doesn't run on this computer that I'm
using now so get them and test and then and then see because the the the goal of
this is that you just press go and it does everything for you and you just sit back and you watch the clips and the the
laptop is controlling the camera in theory for Max there's a new program by
Rob Holly called a capture Clips it's only for Max it does run on the latest
Mac even the M1 and silicon chip Max and it's only for Canon cameras however so
Nikon Sony you're out of out of luck but it does work I've tested it it it does work and so it's a possibility you know
we ask for photographers we like to throw as much technology at photography as possible it's it in theory could work
and automate your whole sequence perhaps and get all the diamond rings you need and all the totality shot you need and
then the dime Rings all automatically while you just sit back and relax and watch in
theory this is got you might be faced with right Windows not
responding oh no reboot your computer yeah right 30 seconds before totality
yeah so I I'm I've never used those apps I don't I don't trust that they're going to work an app that I do suggest however
by Gordon telepon and I had it running in 2017 and I'll have it on a phone or tablet it's just a a a timer app it
doesn't control anything but it just gives you audio alerts how many seconds to go before totality and and audio
alerts of what to look for look for shadow bands look for the Horizon colors
reminders that you need as to what to look for and then reminders of when
things are happening so you know it's 20 seconds until Third Contact and so you
you know to be ready because every Eclipse starts and ends sooner than you expect so it's a great app to have on
running with your audio prompts to help you in your timing and planning so the
last little section here to end off tonight is just I'm not going to go into detail processing tutorial that would
take a couple of hours but just processing Eclipse image particularly close-up images here if you shoot in raw
even with a single image you can recover a lot of detail in the highlights and shadows and really bring out detail as
long as you're shot raw and there's all kinds of adjustments with raw processors
I'm showing camera raw Lightroom is the same thing to really help bring out detail as much as possible in a single
close-up image during the totality but blending multiple exposures is kind of
what people want to do because that's why you take lots and lots of different exposures from short to long to stack
them and blend them together there's kind of four methods I'll talk about where you could blend them in camera raw
using its HDR function using specialized HDR software using what's called
Luminosity mass in Photoshop and then finally using stack modes in photosop so
say you've got a whole set of exposures 10 exposures here very short top left very long bottom right there and you
process them in camera ra to each look as good as possible then you can use its
own built-in merge to HDR function to produce and that's the result and it
looks pretty good you it's it's done a nice job blending them together and then you can further process that resulting
Blended image quite nicely except when you look close up this is what you might
see all kinds of little Edge artifacts there because even if you're on a
tracking Mount and you're tracking the Sun and it's keeping centered the Moon is moving moving separate from the Sun
and so those eight though any kind of images you take to stack later should be taken as quickly as possible bang bang
bang as quickly as possible as preventing vibration will allow that's why you don't want to have five or six
seconds between shots as this other software you know that I don't recommend using is going to do so you got to take
those shots as quickly as possible and so because what are you aligning on the
moon or the promin minces the Moon is SE moving separate from the background sun
and sometimes blending in a separate exposure just for the moon or just for
the prominence this is necessary to kind of get a final proper shot and so that
alignment can really be tricky but HDR software there's several programs this
is one from Nick collection HDR effects and it it did a nice job as well throwing those same shots at it but all
aligned because HDR soft has Auto align me uh routines they won't work on these
shots I've tried it they don't work you got to Manny align them and throw those images added HDR software it it does it
looks it does a pretty nice job this is a photomatic uh dedicated HDR software it
also did a very nice job as well but you've you've got to manually align images that you're sending to HDR
software and then another method is using luminosity mass in Photoshop on the right right there you brought in a
whole set of exposures from short to very long in a stack and then put what's called Luminosity mask on each of the
exposures in this c i i i created the masks with a one click using a special
Luminosity Mass extension panel called lumenia and each mask only reveals uh
the brightest part of each of that image but they all kind of blend together to give you an overall composite that shows
you the whole range of bright and so that's one method the last method is using what's called a smart object
you take the same set of 10 exposures in this particular case load them into
Photoshop as separate layers without mask on it select all the images and
turn them into what's called a smart object and then you apply what's called
a stack mode in this case a mean stack mode so it's averaging the the content
of those images together with a mean mathematical averaging mode and once
again it gives you a quite nice blend of the best of all those exposures that's another way of blending a whole set of
exposures which is why you take all that range of exposures so those are four methods for um U producing the the
Blended uh exposures and then you apply other types of sharpening and contrast
adjustments or even layer in an individual shot for the prominences or
an individual shot for the Earth shine in that particular case as well so you can go to town uh or as you've got a
whole full Suite of images like this of the totality the diamond rings either
side of totality the cresant partial phases either side of that and then you
can bring those in as layers into Photoshop you know layer by layer and
move them around and line them up and make a composite like this to kind of show you the whole sequence of events
that no one shot can do so you need a whole series of them Blended together to
gives you this kind of time sequence that can be really much harder in
Photoshop to do but you got to have the original shots to begin with to allow you to do that kind of more complex
composite but that's kind of uh more the the higher end here and if all that
works great but if it doesn't and something goes wrong Don't Panic don't fuss just forget
the photography and just look because the worst thing is coming away from an eclipse not with pictures you didn't get
because something worked but coming away not having seen the eclipse so if
something doesn't work just look and get have binoculars handy or a telescope or
whatever and just look and enjoy the eclipse and don't worry about the technology you don't want to be fighting
computers and things like that when you should be looking up at what is possibly a once in a-lifetime experience so
there's lots and lots and lots more information in my ebook and in in fact a huge chapter just on processing quar of
the book is just on processing all different types of images as well and lots more information about all the
other methods which I didn't get into tonight so that's my website as Terry
mentioned uh please visit and and check it out good luck to all of us on April 8th
wherever you may be and clear skies to all of us on Eclipse day and I hope we
all get the shots and the experience we're all hoping to uh on April 8 20124
so thank you very much thank you Alan that was really
interesting a lot of good information so Scott I'm going to go to you if there's any
questions yeah there are um uh let's uh let me scroll back a bit
here um we have David Warner and He is
wanting to know he's watching on Facebook he's wanting to know I'm hoping that the approaching solar maximum that
will have a good Corona question mark what do you think oh yes uh I mentioned
that briefly at a solar maximum eclipse what you get well kind of like the the
eclipse here in the background this was 2005 so I don't if that was maximum or not but but uh at a solar Max what you
get is a Corona That's symmetrical all around the Sun and so even north and
south of the sun whereas at a solar minimum eclipse what you get is the Corona stretching out in the ecliptic
along the ecliptic either side I mean it's that's a beautiful looking pirona as well and then not as much North and
South but at solar Max you get a very symmetrical eclipse of Corona all around
the Sun that's why you don't want want to frame in too tight and and crop off a good chunk of the of the Corona and it's
at the the solar poles where you get those polar brushes those beautiful kind of expanding brushes away from the the
sun uh at the North and South Poles so it'll be a pretty round and large Corona
how much Corona you see will depend on how clear your sky is here in 2005 it
was you know we just squeak seeing it as it come out came out from behind the cloud there so if you got Haze and stuff
in the sky you you don't see as much Corona but you still see Corona uh and
particularly the bright inner part even through some some Haze and unlik Cloud
so uh yeah it's going to be a uh and we hope huge prominences oh that would be
great just big arching prominences would
be fabulous at this Eclipse right uh and another question um maybe some
clarification uh you got into talking about the kind of cameras that you should use uh do you recommend DSLR
mirrorless type cameras over either one will be fine either one will be fine I mean I shot all the 2017 shots in fact
the last Eclipse I was at was 2017 all with dslrs Canon no I didn't have the
Sony at the time Canon and Nikon dslrs worked great this one was you know
2005 my 20da I guess it was at the time but now I would be shooting all nothing
but mirrorless cameras Canon mirrorless cameras I've got four of them and I'm trying I'm trying to think would I put
my couple I've got a couple sitting over there in the Shelf couple old dslrs would it put them to use maybe I don't
know maybe but uh but they'll either one will work just fine the mirrorless
cameras have the advantage of more movie modes and movie capabilities a lot of DSLR maybe it's just HD video perhaps if
they're a few years old um and so the mirrorless there's not a big advantage
to mirorless in terms of image quality I don't think for this kind of uh
photography other than in the video aspect I guess so use what you've got
don't buy a brand new camera two weeks before the eclipse just for the eclipse
you know that's asking for trouble as great a camera as it might be not familiar with it you'll mess something
up right what about the Astro cameras like uh zwo qhy these these um pure you
know dedicated Astro cameras what do you yeah that's what someone was asking me about yesterday and and I said there's
no reason the cameras themselves might not be perfectly great in terms of image
quality it's the Control software are used to run them that it's just not made for the purpose cannot fire the shutter
quickly enough unless there's modes that I'm not familiar with and someone expert on those programs might oh yeah you just
adjust this whatever but you got to for the diamond rings you got to Fire 2 th000 of a second exposure Bam Bam Bam
Bam Bam Bam Bam like that I don't think those cameras can do that or the
software can't do that to run them and uh and so that's that's the deficiency
they're not made for that purpose the that Control software is not made for the purpose and the software that is
like Orchestra or Eclipse Maestro or capture eclipse is only made for dslrs or mirrorless
cameras if that if they haven't been updated they may not even work with the newer models of cameras or in the case
of capture eclips only cannons because Rob Hol has only been able to get at the Canon SDK to allow him to write the code
to control that branded camera and the other cameras are just harder to control so um no I know and I just put a I just
updated the book today and up I put a page on in the ebook today and updated it answering that question I said the
the cameras are probably fine but the noise benefit of cooling the camera not
going to make a bit a difference for exposures that are no longer than two seconds so it's the Control software
that's deficient for for this kind of Photography and the Deep Sky photographers will learn the hard way at
the eclipse where something isn't working right right n just use your D
even if it's an older DLR it'll be better so buy the ebook Okay get uh
practice practice practice as much as you can before you go so it's muscle memory you know so yeah practice is the
big theme in the book I've got several sections and pages on that all kinds of thing and also checklists in terms of
everything that you need to check to make sure it's working right because uh trust me it's what will go wrong can you
what can go wrong with will and in clip so having backups and you know
redundancy or whatever right Steve Ziggler is asking on Facebook have you
tried sharp cap or fire capture with the planetary camera I haven't I don't even
do planetary photography at all and I know there's you know there that's a possibility uh it it might because
obviously those are designed to take you know rapid fire well videos uh I presume
and that could that could be fine but the video is like 160th of a second it's
not going to be fast enough no I don't yeah I don't know I mean you could you can you know try it now on the sun and
the moon and see what you get but yeah once again you're getting they're designed to shoot the planet and the
planet is one set brightness and in Eclipse that object is
changing brightness by dozens of f- stops in a few
seconds and that that's what you have to that's what you have to track uh you
certainly uh you know if you want to stream the eclipse out to a feed or something like that that might be the
great kind of technology to use but for actually capturing the eclipse I I don't
really think so uh they work great for the planets or you know moonar lunar
close-ups and they could be good for prominences real closeups on prominence if that's what you want to specialize in
that might work fine but those planet cameras are very tiny sensors and high
resolution but small sensors so you put them on any kind of focal length I mean they're made to shoot tiny tiny objects
the planets and you're shooting something that's five or six degrees across yeah okay lots of lots of great comments
about your talk and um so you know if you are going to the eclipse you should
probably watch this video again a few times so yeah definitely he spilled It
Off here so that's great yeah and I think the fact of having a list I mean
let's be honest we've all been imager a lot of us are imagers and you get somewhere and you have forgotten
something I have done that and it is so frustrating because you have forgotten this one little part that totally almost
keeps you from doing that plan that you had done I exactly right um and that can
happen at any photography you know Excursion but in eclipse
particularly I I went uh to Utah and unpacking Eclipse morning for the annual
Eclipse realized I forgotten the cable I need to go from the electronics box of
the mount to the motors on the mount I had the $6,000 Mount I was using it as a
tripod it could not track the sun luckily I was there not the total eclipse so all the exposures were short
and I had to keep pushing the mount around keep centering the Sun dumb dumb and as soon as I got home I
went downstairs there was the cable I had it on my checklist but I didn't actually use the checklist to say
pack it checked off pack it checked off right and and so practice setting up
your gear in your driveway or backyard or whatever putting it all together yeah I got everything yeah it's working now
put it in the car so you know you got it yeah that's
going to be the plan because done this before too you know and you you don't want to miss this I mean this will be
the last big one in the US till what 2045 I think 2044 it goes right over my
home right here in Southern Alberta and then down into Montana it's right at Sunset it's an odd Eclipse it comes down
from the north over the Arctic and comes down so that's technically in the US there's one in
2033 I think it is in northern Alaska like way up in northern Alaska so but
you know it's the US uh and and and but 2045 is the next big one in the US in
terms of right across the US I think it's like 2017 or like this one yeah
yeah I can see a lot of people that have never seen this Eclipse before or never seen an eclipse that realize that this
might be their last Eclipse I can see them packing up the family and just driving or going to the C line I can see
where tra in 2017 in Casper we saw a lot of traffic you know a lot of what had
friends that drove from Casper to Denver that got stranded basically on the highway for hours trying to get to
Denver and I could see that happening you know I mean that's always a possibility something to prepare for
just in case it does I didn't speak about the logistics at all but yeah you want to you know pick a site and and
that you can get to and and and rulers don't sleep outside the path the night
before the eclipse so at least if if there's a complete standstill you can
still get out and watch the eclipse from where you are if you can't drive to your site for some reason uh or plan on
certainly staying at your site because it'll be a traffic jam like the biggest football game traffic jam afterwards
trying to get back to where you uh where you were staying or whatever um and so
all those Logistics that was the case in 2017 to some extent it'll be more because there's just more big cities in
the p and but but I have found at a lot of eclipses that
the the predictions of massive traffic jamps now we did get them in 2070 to
some extent as you say Terry but haven't proven quite as immense as because most
people kind of get to a spot and they stay there or or whatever or they're happy to be where they are or they
mistakenly think oh I'm at 99% told I'm good fine fine stay where you are yeah
that's true whatever go early and stay late would be
yeah that's what I plan on doing too Alan what a fabulous talk I learned a
ton from your presentation something new every time yeah
yes it's a it's a it's a it's one of the most demanding types of astronomical
events or objects to shoot it can be as easy as setting up a camera and let it
run and time lapse and I didn't even get into that tonight I talked about the close-ups so it can be quite easy like
for this kind of shot I got in the background where you just set up the camera and let it run you walk away and that's it that's your photography and uh
it can be easy but if you want to go for those close-ups and take lots of exposures then that becomes more
challenging because of the pressure of time you know that's the thing it's just you're under this pressure and and and
and pressure to look and see and take it all in and after the eclipse is over you realize you missed half of it it's
always even four even the four plus minutes we're going to have on this one it's going to go so rapidly yeah twice
as much long as the what we had in 2017 but still Yes four minutes was is is
really generous but it'll go by every eclipse last 30 seconds you
know and uh and then but that's when you say you know and even the die hards you
say ah you're dragging me to the eclipse what am I going to do you know it's just going to get dark it gets dark every
night no not like this even though Die Hard say wow that was great where's the
next one can we go I've just I just put my deposit down
on August whatever it is 12th 2026 in Spain yeah yeah that's that's the next
one ss goes over Spain in mayorca or something like that so yes it's sunset in mayorca it's low in the west from
Spain and the group I'm with well if I go through with a trip we'll be seeing it from the ramp parts of a Spanish
Castle North of Madrid oh wow
nice locations are fabulous and then in 2027 the lucky few who pay the price
will see it straight overhead from within the Temple of carac at Luxor oh
my gosh cool wow how much is that gonna cost yeah I don't know a seven minut or
more yeah yeah it's a seven minute Eclipse it's the longest one of 21st
centur be insane that's great um there is one last camera question and from
Alan Goldberg watching on Facebook he says can you use a full spectrum modded
camera and will it show prominences better no what what Allan's talking
about is is the modified dslrs or whatever that are modified to record more Hal Alpha light or in the case of a
full spectrum one as Alan's talking about it's modified to also record infrared light for people like to do
infrared photography you know landscape photography whatever and then you put in other filters to block the infrared if
you don't want that those will work fine you don't need them for the prominences
believe me those prominences are brilliant and they're not red they're pink because there's a lot of age beta
in that light and so they're not the Deep Red you expect them to be from looking at them through with h Alpha
Scopes they're actually flaming pink and every camera will pick them up so you
don't I don't I've shot eclipses with modified cameras and and you know because that's what I had I've never
noticed any big difference with them there's no harm in using them but I don't think there's any great benefit in
using them one of the modified cameras I have the Canon ra which is modified by
Canon the filter they put into it is prone to some Reflections kind of red
Reflections from the infrared light that it's not blocking as well as it should and I just in the last few nights was
experimenting with putting a uvir cut filter in front of the sensor and that
helps block those Reflections those kind of red odd Reflections and uh and so I
may use that and that's a case where I don't want the infrared light you know because that could just cause
Reflections and ghost images things like that so you you're putting a filter to block the very thing that the camera is
trying to record let me ask one final question oh Alan go ahead if you had something else
you wanted to say no okay will we be able to see the Moon Shadow coming on
this eclipse or leaving yes maybe it it it it depends if
the if the the sun will be quite high from some locations the lower the sun is
I think the more that shadow arrival and departure is is obvious but with a quite
High Sun especially it's a very clear sky it's it's not going to be as obvious you will see it dark to the west or
Southwest wherever the shadow is coming from wherever you are you will see it be darker in that direction will you see a
definite Edge to the shadow come across and then depart depends on the at where
your location is and and it's actually easier to see if you got clouds like this
which you don't really want but it does make the shadow visibility you just see the clouds change color and shading very
rapidly wow oh that's cool you know the clouds are very dark in that One Direction all of a sudden
whoh they're all dark and then they lighten up again and you see it sh race
off in the other direction but the cameras might pick it up and that's why I always like to shoot a wide angle time
lapse because it will pick up the camera will pick up the change of color sky color and the shadow whooing in and
wishing out more visually will you see it I I'm I'm I'm not sure uh it's not
always obvious it depends a lot on the clarity of the atmosphere uh as well the
clearer the air the less yeah well thank you that's some
ideas I can try all right anything else anywhere before we close this down I I
have one last question here Alan you are you've been to so many any eclipses um
and I'm sure that you're quite expert in picking the right place to go but have you ever had to use the plan B where you
pick up everything and move okay because of clouds
almost um not the majority of eclipses but a lot of eclipses yes and I I gain us
a how does alen Dyer plan for Plan B yeah even on a ship like this we were
moving to get into that clear hole so we were not you know where we exactly plan
to be we were moving uh and so often you were having
to move in Australia in 2012 we were going to watch it from our Beachside
luxury house yeah no every morning it was cloudy so we scouted out a location
Inland L Cloud spent overnight at that location got up in the morning This Cloud we see it's clear out there in the
valley we headed that way as the eclipse was underway and so you're often having
to move at the last minute last hour the day before watch the weather stats and
and move if you can if you have if you have to move but if you can move and be
ready for setting up with only minutes to spare perhaps what are you going to
set up binocular certainly but maybe just a a wideangle time lapse or you
know something just very easy to set up you don't have time to set up the whole rig whatever and so think about a
contingency rig what would you set up if you had only a few minutes which might
be the case and that's true of many many Eclipse Chasers where they're having to chase to a clear hole that they can see
perhaps even can they get to it yeah all right so much interesting
information thank you so much we appreciate your knowledge and thank you I think with
that um one thing we will be back on February 16th with another Al live um
and you'll get more information about that on the global star party and I would like to thank Allan and John and
David and Carol and everybody here for speaking and thank you all for joining
us and Scott How about if uh you maybe say something about the global star party in case there's people here that
have not heard of the global star party and I'll let you close it up
right well the the uh the global star party is a program that we try to run
every week um it's typically held on Tuesday nights at 6 o'clock uh we're now
in our I think our fourth year of global star parties and um it started out the
idea was this happened during the lockdown of the pandemic you know and I kept getting phone calls here at my
office at explore scientific saying you know I'm so depressed I can't go to a
star party I can't be with my friends uh you know and uh what what can I do and
you know so I'm recommending that they get in their backyards or try to do something but um uh basically people
were told not to go outside all of us got to experience what it's like to be
under lockdown during that time there are other people though that are in lockdown all the time okay there
are people that are taking care of their parents their elderly parents there are
people that are somehow challenged where they can't leave whether that's a physical challenge a work challenge or
whatever okay there are some people who just can't make it to other uh physical
star parties and so um the global star party still serves a global audience uh
to connect them but I think one of the really great things is is that we have people that have made friends okay that
never would have made friends with other people around the world uh you know by being able to come on to Global star
party uh either as a um uh you know uh participant giving a presentation or
part of the audience uh which is the other great half of global star party so
uh we simal cast on on social media channels like we are uh right now on the
astronomical League live and so the next Global star party will be next Tuesday
uh the our 141st Global star party and uh we always have great speakers on it
is kind of a variety show we pick a theme but uh uh to challenge our
presenters uh but um they all come in with something a little bit different we
have had people perform live music we have had people uh show live views
through their telescope sces uh we have seen live demonstrations of image
processing uh all of that but it is all live and um uh some of my friends that
are out there uh who are stargazing in their backyard will turn on global star
party on an iPad or something and just play it in the background uh just to kind of get that feeling that they are
at a real you know physical star party as well so it's really interesting in that regard uh we have had over in in
aggregate we've had millions of people watch it and uh uh it's always a pleasure and a real honor to be there
with a lot of the the people that show up including the astronomical League that's always there David ly is always
there um you know so it's uh it's a lot of fun and it's wonderful to have the
support of the astronomical league in doing this so thank you thank you Scott
all right thank you everybody and Scott I will let you close it down okay we'll button it up so here we
go thanks everyone and uh as my friend Jack Corr always used to say keep
looking
up [Music]
oh [Music]
[Music]
yeah