Photography

Capturing the Eclipse in 2024

After my successful effort to capture the eclipse in 2017 I was hooked. I made plans to see the total eclipse of April 8, 2024 early. I figured I’d take my full astrophotography rig since it totality would be driving distance from my home.

That was until I went out to practice setting up during daylight. Getting good enough polar alignment to allow me to track the sun during daylight was doable, but it was somewhat frustrating. The thing I learned in 2017 was that the solar eclipse is not a photo opportunity, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I didn’t want to clutter the experience with the tedium of equipment setup and alignment.

What I optimized for was: keeping the photography simple so I can enjoy the experience of totality. I think I did this somewhat less intentionally in 2017, but that became an overriding concern for 2024.

I hadn’t had opportunities to observe a total solar eclipse before 2017, but I knew I wanted to try my hand at photographing it. And photograph it I did!

A solar eclipse
Composite of the total eclipse of August 2017

Before that though, I did some research and captured notes and a simple, fine-grained order of operations, because I didn’t know what I was doing and it’s not something you can really try over again if you fail. Plus, I actually wanted to enjoy the moment without fiddling with my camera, and having a concrete plan helps with that.