The Solar Eclipse

I was fortunate to find a good spot from which to view the solar eclipse on 20 March 2015.

Solar eclipses occur during a New Moon when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun. I won't go too deeply into the science but because of the geometry of the line up of Earth, Moon and Sun, and the relative sizes of the Moon and the Sun, the Moon appears from Earth to be the same size as the Sun. 

At the time of an eclipse (which doesn't happen every New Moon because of the Moon's orbital path), as the Moon orbits the Earth, it passes the face of the Sun and blocks the light for a few minutes. The entire event lasts around an hour, and at the time of maximum coverage, the light of day may dim a little, the temperature may drop, and birds may begin to go through their roosting patterns.

In spite of the fact that the Sun's light is being blocked during this time, looking directly at an eclipse can still cause irreparable damage to your eyes so please make sure that you have appropriate safety glasses if you are attempting to watch the eclipse.

In order to photograph the eclipse, I needed a solar filter for my camera. Rather than buying a custom made filter, I bought a sheet of black polymer which was big enough to attach to the end of my largest lens. Black polymer is a tough material which filters out the brightest of light to leave the Sun looking a natural orange colour. I attached the square sheet to my lens with some tape, which meant I could remove it easily and use it again.

Safety note if you buy your own solar filter sheet, make sure that it is attached securely to your lens so that it will not drop off while you are viewing the Sun. The image on the left below shows the lens with the filter resting next to it. The image on the right shows the lens with the filter attached to provide an easy, inexpensive, and effective method of photographing the Sun.

    

There were lots of people out to witness the eclipse and I took the picture below on my mobile telephone. You can see the silhouettes of other eclipse watchers highlighted against the sky, which has dimmed with the reduction in daylight. 

With the filter attached, I set my main camera up on a tripod with my shutter cable in place to avoid camera shake. Viewing the Sun through eclipse glasses, I lined the lens up to take my images. 

I took a number of photographs of the event and it was hard to pick just a single image for this blog but I settled on this one which reminds me of a big smile across the sky.