A Small Place in Celestron Eclipse Highlights Video

I received an email today that said "Congratulations! Your footage was chosen to be featured in our Eclipse video."

Awesome!

Well, sort of...

Yes, part of the time lapse video I shot while at Camp Drake in Marshall, MO, as a member of the Project Stratoclipse team is included. It's even the background for the main title of the film! But it's just the clouds that obscured our view of the eclipse racing overhead. Not the umbra racing over the clouds. Or the Sun's corona shining through the clouds.

Not complaining... how could I when I have my name in the credits?!? Seriously though, check out the Celestron video. Apart from my footage, there is a lot of other great scenes from the eclipse. I really like how they focused not just on views of the eclipse through telescopes and cameras but also on people and their reactions.

After all, it really was AWESOME!!!

Celestron Video Page

Mission Success!!!

Just a little over a month ago I trekked to Marshall, MO, to be a part of something HUGE!

Yeah, there was the total solar eclipse but I'm talking about PROJECT STRATOCLIPSE! Two guys from North Texas decided sending a weather balloon over 20 miles up into the atmosphere to take video during the eclipse would be a great adventure, a way to capture a rare astronomical event and use the results for science education.

They SUCCEEDED!

If you hadn't seen my previous posts on this, didn't follow along as we shared parts of the adventure live on YouTube and Facebook, didn't subscribe to the project YouTube channel, then CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO!!!

It's of the shadow of the Moon, the umbra, moving across the face of the Earth as the Moon eclipsed the Sun. Shot from near-space. Nothing above but the black of night and, far below, all those clouds that spoiled our view from the ground. Did I mention the umbra?!?

Beau Hartweg, Jake Vaught... thanks for allowing me to be a part of your adventure. Ron Drake, Leah Townsend and the rest of Jake's friends and family in Marshall, thanks for hosting us, for making us feel at home while there. I went expecting to make new friends but I had no idea how many! Timothy Kimsey and your friends at Outpost Worldwide including Michael Wunsch and Kelcie Matousek, it was great getting to know you and I'm looking forward to seeing the film-to-come.

Thanks to Dr. J, Rosalie and everyone at the Frontiers of Flight Museum for helping support Project Stratoclipse.

Partial Phase Eclipse with Sunspots

With the adrenaline rush of racing 11 miles south at the last minute with Beau Hartweg to see totality through relatively clear skies, after we returned to Camp Drake, base of operations for Project Stratoclipse, I almost didn't have the presence of mind to take advantage of the fact that the clouds had finally cleared and take any shots of the partial phase of the eclipse. I guess it felt like since I'd missed the first half and totality to clouds, shooting any close-up shots was anti-climatic.

And then I remembered the sunspots. The show was almost over by the time I was set up again but I did manage to get a few decent shots before the end. The first shot is from about 6 minutes before the end of the eclipse and the second one is from less than a minute before the end (4th contact or C4). Note that in the second one there is another group of sunspots visible that were covered by the moon in the first one.

Pretty cool! Can't wait for 2024!

For anyone interested, these were shot with a Nikon D7000 and a Nikon 80-400mm lens on a (roughly) polar-aligned equatorial mount. The shots were taken through a home-made Baader film solar filter.

About 6 minutes before end of eclipse (C4), one sunspot group. 

Less than a minute left before C4, second set of sunspots now visible.

Totality!!!

While my experience of the totality phase of this eclipse was watching, not photographing it, I'm thrilled to share this shot of it. It was taken by Kelcie Matousek, a photography major at University of Kansas who is here as part of the film crew documenting Project Stratoclipse. 

The film crew had the same idea that Beau and I had but they left about 10 minutes before us so she had the time to get set up for shooting the fully eclipsed sun. 

THIS is what I was after and while I didn't get it myself, I'm still hoping the time lapse turns out to be interesting. Regardless, it was still an incredible experience!

Click on image for large view. 

Late post, originally posted to Facebook. 

Project Stratoclipse Launch

On August 21st, 2017, Project Stratoclipse launched a weather balloon carrying a video camera to capture views from near-space of the shadow of the moon (umbra) moving across the face of the earth. See the project channel for more video of the project. Late post to fill in some blanks from this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Here for the eclipse...

This was my live reporting from on-site in Missouri during the early phase of the Great American Eclipse, waiting for totality (and worried about the clouds).

Late post from the day of the eclipse, originally posted live on Facebook. 

Waiting Patiently for Eclipse

We arrived at base camp for Project Stratoclipse, a farm in Marshall, Missouri, on Thursday evening and have been busy preparing for Monday's big event ever since. I am still refining my technique for capturing the eclipse but in the mean time I'm taking a break from the sun and reviewing some of the other images I've captured in the past few days.

Most of these have very little editing, just some basic tweaks to brightness and color, so later on (i.e., after the eclipse) I'll go through all my shots in detail and post (or repost) the best once after I've had time to take a closer look at them and do some fine tuning.

What's amazing is how much less light pollution there is here than at home. Marshall's not a large town but it's also not that far from places like Kansas City, Springfield, etc. so I was a little surprised at how dark the skies are... it has a Bortle Scale of 4 compared to 8 for home (Mesquite, Texas). That's a huge difference!

Enjoy! We're less than 48 hours from the eclipse!

Sunset the first night. This is a high dynamic range (HDR) image
created by combining 3 images taken at different exposures.

Same tractor, this time with Milky Way instead of the Sun. 

Last night we got hit by a thunderstorm but it was pretty mild.
However, after it rolled by us it really exploded with activity.
We watched it carry on like this for a half-hour or more. 

The storm was still going on but had moved far enough to the
south-east for our skies to clear, allowing me to capture both the
distant storm and the Milky Way. 

A similar view of the storm in the distance with the Milky Way
rising above farm equipment. 

My Eclipse Adventure: Project Stratoclipse

On August 21st, 2017, I'll be staring up into the sky to experience the wonder of a total solar eclipse. Along with almost 20 million of the rest of you (based on stats from GreatAmericanEclipse.com).

In my case, the goal is to experience the eclipse but also to capture it. But more on that in a later post. As it turns out, I know someone else who has plans to capture the eclipse and they are literally "out of this world"!

This Thursday, I leave for Marshall, Missouri, with Beau Hartweg. We will be part of a group camping on a farm south of Marshall from then through Tuesday, all in the name of science. Beau is pursuing a doctoral degree with a focus on science education and is also a planetarium educator. He is also one of the principles, along with Jake Vaught, of a project called Project Stratoclipse. Rather than describe the project myself, here's how Jake and Beau describe it on the project Google Plus profile page:

Tagline

Elevating the "Great American Eclipse" to the stratosphere and beyond.

Introduction

Project Stratoclipse will send multiple HD video cameras on a weather balloon into the upper stratosphere to capture the Great American Total Solar Eclipse of Aug. 21st 2017. Launched from the eclipse path centerline in Marshall, Missouri, the launch vehicle will be timed to reach near-space altitudes as the eclipse passes overhead. The creators of Project Stratoclipse, Jake Vaught and Beau Hartweg, will provide the world with a truly unique look into a truly remarkable American event. Stay tuned!

If all goes according to plan, the video captured will be live-streamed over YouTube. Please go subscribe now so that you get notified when video is posted! Plus, we need your help! There have to be at least 100 people subscribed for YouTube to allow the project to stream the eclipse live. We're up to about 77 so you'll be helping make it happen when you add your subscription!