Solar Eclipse

The Solar Eclipse of 2017, a very much publicized event that probably every photographer from coast to coast and around the world wanted to capture . I had the advantage of living just hours away from Clarksville TN where the Solar Eclipse would be in Totality for two and a half minutes.

I arrived in Clarksville about two hours before the start of the eclipse and found a parking location in a service station parking lot. Across from my location was Liberty Park, and there were thousands of enthusiastic people. I saw license plates from all around the country!

The sky was clear and it was a hot sunny day, perfect for photographing an eclipse. I did my research before hand and prepared as best as I could. I had my NASA approved solar glasses and only a ND filter for my camera.

The eclipse at my location would be in totality at 13:30 hours. I set up my gear and waited in the afternoon heat with the rest of the on-lookers. The most difficult part of photographing the eclipse was that I could not use my tripod because at that time of day, the sun was almost directly over me.

The shot you see above was hand held. I used the back door of my truck as support for the camera as I was shooting practically straight up at the sun.

I used the Nikon D2X with the 70-200 VR lens to capture the eclipse.

At totality, a loud roar from the park could be heard to celebrate the eclipse.

I wanted to beat the crowd out of Clarksville, so as soon as I packed up, I was off and made it safely back to home base.

Being at Ground Zero for solar eclipse was magikyl and mysterious....

Till next time.... Rick