In this two-minute music video I present a collage of my still images, time-lapses and real-time movies of the April 8, 2024 total eclipse of the Sun.
My location was on the eastern shore of Lac Brome in the Eastern Townships of Québec, Canada, a location chosen only a few days prior to the eclipse in a last-minute move from Texas, my long-planned destination, to eastern Canada. This was a diversion I decided to make en route to Texas, due to the favourable weather prospects in eastern Canada vs the southern U.S., a surprising turn of events.
This was my third total solar eclipse from Canada, after my first in Manitoba on February 26, 1979, and the second seen from the air near Cambridge Bay, Nunavut on August 1, 2008.
For the 2024 eclipse, I drove with a carload of gear from my home in Alberta, Canada, arriving in Québec with just a day to spare to finalize my site. Lac Brome worked very well.
However, as had been predicted, I did contend with some high cirrus clouds drifting through. They did not detract too much from most of the eclipse images, either the wide-angle shots or the telescopic close-ups. Only the outermost extent of the corona did not record.
I shot with four cameras:
The main camera was a Canon R5 on the Astro-Physics Traveler, a 105mm f/6 apochromatic refractor that is now a veteran of six central solar eclipses: two annulars (1994 and 2023) and four totals (1998, 2012, 2017 and 2024). It was tracking the sky on the AP400 mount, recently returned from a 20-year stay in Australia. This rig was used for the still-image close-ups and the time-lapses of the second and third contact diamond rings shot in high-speed continuous burst mode at ~ 15 frames per second, for almost real-time movies once assembled. I operated this camera manually, though its settings were programmed into Custom User Modes, to easily switch from bracketed shots of the filtered partials, to high-speed bursts of the diamond rings, to bracketed shots of totality.
A wide-angle camera for the time-lapse of the arrival and departure of the Moon’s shadow over the wind-rippled waters of Lac Brome. This was the Canon Ra with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/2.8, with the camera on auto-exposure and shooting at a rate of one frame per second, running unattended at the lakeshore. Processing was with LRTimelapse.
A camera for wide views of the eclipsed Sun flanked by the two bright planets that were visible, Venus and Jupiter. I had hoped this would catch stars, the outer corona, and Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, but the comet was too faint and the sky too bright and cloudy. This was the Canon R with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 28mm and f/2.8, operating automatically to take bracketed exposures.
A camera for real-time 4K movies. This was the Canon R6 with the Canon RF100-400mm lens at 400mm and f/8, on auto-exposure. While most of the gear worked well, my error here was not framing this camera properly at the start of the video to keep the Sun better centred as it drifted across the frame. Clouds also muted the diamond rings. The one clip of ambient sound I included (of me!) is from this camera.
The music is the selection Broad Horizons by “Francis Wells,” a pseudonym for Swedish composer Johannes Bornlöf, and licensed through Epidemic Sound.
Video editing was with Final Cut Pro.
More details on the images can be found in the images’ descriptions in the Solar Eclipse gallery at my website at:
https://www.amazingsky.com/Eclipses-and-Transits/Eclipses-Solar
A blog with my story of my eclipse adventure is at:
The next total eclipse from Canada passes over my home in Alberta, but it is on August 22, 2044!
Thanks for looking!
