Annular Eclipse

Overlooking Lake Champlain from a vantage point just south of Plattsburgh, NY., the 2021 annular eclipse reached a maximum obscuration of nearly 78% at 5:38 AM on June 10th. I caught a few shots through persistent high clouds around that time.

I took these through my CPC-800 telescope, a Canon T5i, and using an ƒ6.3 focal reducer for a focal length of 1260 mm. Focus was achieved the night before using a Bahtinov mask on a point-source (a star). The focus might have drifted a bit with temperature overnight, but I know for sure if I touched it again I’d mess it up!

So my shots are all closeup shots and somewhat lacking in artistic flair. Thankfully then, I can open with this shot courtesy of Roman Kucharczyk. This was taken in Essex NY also overlooking Lake Champlain:

As for my CPC-800 images, they are rotated by about 45 degrees relative to the horizon. This in turn is due to the equatorial mount tilting the whole telescope onto the plane of the ecliptic. The astute observer might say well, why didn’t you just rotate the camera? It is after all – mounted on the optical back of the telescope and could have easily been rotated on its T-adapter.

As we say in technical terms: duh!

That’s why I still call my blog the neophyteastronomer. The name alone provides a perfect explanation in such situations. Of course, I could also argue that I don’t have much practice. The last solar eclipse for me was in 2017 after all, so cut me some slack!

This shot taken at at 5:20 AM with the sun only about 1.25° of elevation. The atmosphere played its tricks in this oddly elongated view:

Here’s a shot taken at 5:38 AM, the time of maximum obscuration by the moon:

The clouds never quite thinned enough to be unobtrusive. Yet, they do add some character to the scene:

By 6:15 AM the moon was well on its way out and the show brighter and higher at an elevation of about 9.5°:

And, we see the moon nearly has fled the scene by about 6:35 AM and now at about 13° of elevation:

That is all, as they say – except for this parting shot with thanks again to Roman: