April 8th 2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Lunar Umbra View from Drone

This is a aerial view of the arrival and departure of the Moon's shadow, the lunar umbra, over Ellis County Texas during the total solar eclipse on April 8th, 2024. 

We launched the drone just ahead of totality programmed to hover till the arrival of the lunar umbra and then orbit to film the horizon during totality. 

The sky got darker than I remembered from the 2017 total solar eclipse but the way things looked as the umbra arrived, growing darker first from one direction, and then as it departed, growing light first from the direction it had arrived, was the same as to 2017. 

Thankfully, we had relatively clear skies but the effect would have been similar even if it had been completely overcast. I had hoped that as the drone orbited it would capture the full 360 degree sunset effect along the horizon but it was too cloudy. You can get just a sense of it at the 58 second mark in the video. 

The total phase of the eclipse at this location was 4 minutes 16 seconds. However, as the focus for this video is on the visual experience of the sky getting dark with the arrival of the umbra and growing light again with its departure, the duration of totality is edited down to about 22 seconds. As the Sun was about 65 degrees above the horizon, it was not possible to include the eclipsed solar disk in this video. 

PS.

After posting this, I ran across a similar drone video from 2017 that doesn't show the lunar umbra arrival and departure but it does show the 360 degree sunset effect. Check it out here. 

Details:

Filmed from a DJI Mini 2 drone using DroneLink flightplan

Processed on Mac OS with DaVinci Resolve 

Music

"Eclipse"

by 1st Contact

Shared under Creative Commons License

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

ISS Lunar Transit Mesquite Texas

I have captured images of the International Space Station (ISS) passing overhead before but I've never captured an ISS transit. Until now!

Every few weeks I check transit-finder.com to see whether there are solar or lunar transits happening nearby. Earlier this week I found that there would be one early AM this morning. 

Lots of things have to come together just right to see the ISS cross in front of the Sun or the Moon. 

• A location on the Earth where the ISS passes directly in between that location and the Sun or Moon.
• The ISS has to be close enough to the Earth for its angular size (how big it appears in the sky) to stand out. My sources indicate it's best when the ISS has an angular size of at least 42 arc seconds. 
• A time of day or night when there will be enough contrast for the ISS to stand out against the given object. For the Sun, this is pretty straightforward but a transit in front of the Moon when it's up during daylight makes for a more challenging capture. 
• And, of course, you have to be able to see the event so that means little or no clouds. 

The last few times there's been one in the area, the weather didn't cooperate but this time it was pretty clear. The location was within 15 minutes of home and the ISS was forecast to have an angular size of 59.72 arc seconds. 

A little before midnight, I packed up my equipment and Luna in the car and headed to the area where Linda, Lexie and I used to take walks when we lived in Mesquite. With a tripod, mount, telescope, camera and other gear, I needed a spot where I could set up next to the car so I had to scout a few spots looking for a place without too much bright light, on public property, and with a clear view of Polaris (to align the mount) and the Moon. I finally settled on the parking lot at the Palos Verdes Lake Park. Unfortunately, that chewed up enough time that I was still trying to get a sharp focus on the Moon when I realized it was time for the transit. I went ahead and started video rolling, let it go for a few minutes and then packed things up and headed home. 

Today, sitting down with the video I was thrilled to find I had captured it! The focus is not great but it is clear enough to be able to see the ISS moving across the face of the Moon. The entire event was just over a half a second so shooting at 60 fps I caught about 30 frames of the ISS. 

I'm sharing the video for now. Later, I'll work on putting together a photo that captures the entire event in one image.

Be sure to watch full-screen for the best view of the transit. 

In the meantime, here are the technical details:

SkyWatcher Evostar 72ED

0.85 Focal Reducer/Flattener

2X Teleconverter

Nikon D750 (DX mode)

Deep Sky Dad AF3 focusing motor

60fps video at ISO 3200 1/4000th second shutter speed

SkyWatcher Star Adventurer GTi mount

Radian Carbon Fiber tripod

Edited in DaVinci Resolve 

Event details:

See transit-finder.com screenshot below. The centerline crossed the trail just north of Northwest Drive. I captured this video from the park parking lot (not shown in this diagram but it's at the northwest tip of the lake).

2016 Mercury Transit: Video Clips

After starting the morning watching the transit online, there were finally a few breaks in the clouds, allowing me to capture portions of the transit myself, assembled into the video below. High wind also hampered things, making it tough to get a sharp focus and steady image, but it was still an incredible thing to watch.

Equipment:
60mm Parks refractor on German equatorial mount
Baader film solar filter from Kendrick Astro Instruments
Orion EQ-1M drive (for solar tracking)
Nikon D7000 (attached with T-adapter)
dslrDashboard on Nexus 9 tablet for remote viewing and camera control

Music: Mercury, the Winged Messenger from The Planets by Gustav Holst

Created with iMovie on a Macbook Pro