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Total Solar Eclipse – Novosibirsk, Siberia
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Just back from a trip to catch a total solar eclipse in Siberia on Friday.
Fortunately, the clouds parted and revealed a clear sky 1 hour before the start and stayed that way for the afternoon.
Here’s a little shot from the day:
Amazing work as usual Michael. You’re pretty damn serious about this
astronomy melarkey, aren’t you?Is there anything in this picture that you can point out – you know, things
we wouldn’t notice without your trained eye? What caused the wee flarey
bit at about 75 degrees clockwise?Thanks Pete.
I should have added a few notes to explain what the image shows.Firstly, a solar eclipse is caused by the Moon passing between the earth and the sun. The shadow of the moon falls on the earth and those fortunate enough to be in the right area can see a spectacular natural event of light and shadow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar_eclipse.svg
It is a remarkable coincidence in nature that the Sun and Moon appear the same size in the sky. However, the Sun is approx 400 times the diameter of the Moon but is also 400 times further away!The large black circle is the moon blocking out the light of the sun.
The bright area around is the outer atmosphere of the Sun – the corona.
Because the Sun is so bright, we usually can’t see it like this during a normal day.
The ripple effect in the light at the 1o’clock and 7o’clock position is caused by the sun having a magnetic field.
Remember back in school with the iron filings and the magnet??
http://stargazers.gsfc.nasa.gov/students/magnetism.htm
Same effect in the Sun as it too has a magnetic field and it plays with charged particles in the corona.As for the bright area at 2o’clock, well that’s called a prominence.
You see, the Sun is one giant explosion of enormous proportions.
What you see there is a tiny bit of it blown off the Sun and able to peep out from the side of the Moon’s shadow.The Sun goes through a cycle where the energy coming from it goes up and down – every 11 years.
This causes the corona to change in size too – kind of like breathing.
At the moment the Sun is at the lower end of a cycle and this is called solar minimum.
If we saw an eclipse in a few years time, the corona in the above image would appear bigger and you would also see more prominences as the Sun would be more active.As for the experience of the event, it’s amazing. It takes approx 1 hour for the moon to pass in front of the disc of the Sun – from 0% to 100%. During that time, it can change from a really hot day to a cool evening-like feel. The temperature can fall 10-15degrees within 1 hour – very noticeable. The light gradually darkens as the hour passes and then if you look toward the horizon just before totality you can see the shadow of the Moon approach toward you like a thunderstorm – except it’s coming at you at a speed of approx 1,000miles per hour!. Suddenly, it goes very dark as it hits 100% (totality) and stays like that for approx 2-3 minutes. The birds stop chirping, the dogs stop barking and all of nature goes silent as the animals and birds think it is nightfall.
To look up at the sky you see a very dark blue sky with a jet back circle in it where the Sun should be – reminds me of a wormhole from a sci-fi movie.
To look at the horizon you see a perfect sunset effect evenly illuminated in every direction – a salmon coloured band of light just above the horizon evenly illuminated the whole way around, 360 degrees. Around the back “hole” where the Sun should be, you see the a bright pattern of light as shown in the above photo (the corona).To be honest, I do not have the ability to accurately convey in words the experience of seeing a total eclipse. The subtle variation in light from dark to bright is easy for the eye to see but difficult for the limited ability of cameras to accurately record and convey, be it on film or CCD. I’ve yet to see a photo which can accurately portray what the human eye can see.
Hope this helps.
Fantastic stuff Michael, and many thanks for your in depth reply to Pete’s question.
It’s absolutely marvellous to have specialists like yourself contributing here, and long
may it continue…Rob.
Stunning, stunning.. stunning! Thanks for the info too, am now determined to get to Easter Island for 2012 (I think that’s correct?)
Marvellous work Michael….lots of info as well really
helps…keep up the great work.Noel.
That’s absolutely stunning photography!
I was never aware of that magnetic effect before, haven’t seen it in other photos. Thank you so much for the technical information, I shall now try to hold my head up in conversation with the brother in law who is Director at Armagh planetarium! :lol:
What gear did you use – is it special pro. equipment or just high end regular gear?Thanks Michael. You’re always very generous with your explanations.
Some of this stuff I knew, but the magnetic pole is totally new for me
and your picture shows it so well.You sound like it’s not your first total solar eclipse?? Your description is
brilliant and brings home how scary it must have been for people who
could not explain it with science.Thanks very much.
Thanks for the kind comments everyone.
The above image is just a single exposure.
I took several images of the eclipsed Sun of multiple exposure lengths and would like to combine them together to bring out more detail in the corona.
Anyone here have much experiece of HDR?
I tried PS CS3 but wasn’t mad keen about the results.
Can anyone recommend a good alternative program?Thanks,
astroshot wrote:
Anyone here have much experiece of HDR?
You’ve come to the right place! The landscapers will be flocking to help.
Fantastic photo! Very interesting post too.
You can get a trial version of Photomatix from hdrsoft.com. Open up your various exposures in photomatix and choose Generate HDR. This will combine the exposures into a single hdr image. Finally choose Tone Mapping to create the final image. Hopefully this should produce an image which is closer to what you actually saw.
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