astro imaging
Imaging Totality
Get ready to capture your own souvenir portrait of the millennium’s final total solar eclipse.
N
othing quite matches the
experience of viewing a total
eclipse of the Sun. Whether
it’s the coal-black disk of the
Moon set against the ghostly, pearly white
corona, the solar prominences arranged
like a necklace of rubies around the lunar
limb, or the spectacular diamond ring
bursting forth from behind a deep lunar
valley, the image of an eclipse will remain
forever etched in a viewer’s mind.
The human eye is superb in its ability
to discern and resolve a wide range of
brightnesses and details during an eclipse
— from the diaphanous wisps of the
corona to the fine, hairlike structures in
bright prominences. However, with the
advent of high-speed, ultrafine-grain film
and high-resolution video cameras, it’s an
ethereal scene almost anyone can capture
instantly, using only modest equipment.
The total solar eclipse on Wednes-
day, August 11th, over
central Eu-
136 July 1999 Sky & Telescope
rope and southwest Asia will provide the
last opportunity this century to do it.
Lenses and Telescopes
The type of camera lens you should use
depends mainly on what you want to
record. For wide-angle shots of the sky, a
standard 50-millimeter lens is all you
need. Although it gives only a minuscule
(0.5 mm in diameter) image of the Sun on
film, it is well suited to capturing the sur-
rounding sky with Venus, Mercury, and
possibly several bright stars. For dramatic
effect, try to include foreground objects in
the scene. Fisheye lenses can capture the
whole sky and are especially good for doc-
umenting the approach and retreat of the
umbra (lunar shadow) and the 360° sun-
set — twilight colors that ring the entire
horizon.
©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
By Edwin L. Aguirre
To show the Sun’s disk reasonably
large on film, you need a telephoto lens
or telescope with a focal length between
500 and 2,000 mm, preferably on a steady
tripod. A 1,000-mm lens yields a solar
image 9.2 mm across and is perfect for
framing the outer corona, which can eas-
ily extend more than 1⁄2° from the Sun’s
limb. The August eclipse occurs near
maximum activity in the Sun’s 11-year
cycle, and this is often a time when the
corona appears uniformly round.
For close-up shots of the eclipse’s par-
tial phases, Baily’s Beads, diamond rings,
chromosphere, solar prominences, and
inner corona, you’ll want a lens or tele-
scope with about 2,000 mm focal length.
This produces a solar image approxi-
mately 18 mm in diameter, which nearly
fills the frame of a standard 35-mm
camera. (Focal lengths longer
than 2,600 mm will not
show the entire
solar disk.)
You can boost the effective focal length
of lenses with a 2× or 3× teleconverter.
For any particular focal length, the diam-
eter of the Sun’s image is roughly equal
to focal length divided by 109.
Veteran eclipse photographers often
test their equipment on the Moon around
the time of its full phase, in this case, July
28th. (As an added bonus, you can also
try shooting the partial lunar eclipse that
occurs on this date; see page 108.) Not
only is the Moon’s apparent size about the
same as the Sun’s, but it has roughly the
same total brightness as the corona. A se-
ries of exposures made along with careful
notes can reveal potential problems with
focus and vibration, as well as internal re-
flections and vignetting in the lens.
If you plan to photograph the eclipse’s
partial phases, make sure you have a vi-
sually safe solar filter securely mounted
on the front of the telephoto lens or tele-
scope objective. Polarizing or photo-
graphic neutral-density filters are not
safe for visual use (S &T: February 1998,
page 36, and page 63 in this issue). Be
sure to test your setup on the midday
Sun well ahead of the eclipse to deter-
mine the best exposure to use.
Films
Selecting the best film for eclipse photog-
raphy has never been easy, especially with
the bewildering assortment of new emul-
sions available today (see the January issue,
page 143). In general, however, color-
negative emulsions (those used for prints)
offer greater exposure latitude; that is,
they record features over a wider range
of brightness with a single exposure than
transparency (slide) films do. On the other
hand, slides render rich, vibrant colors that
are not vulnerable to variations that occur
when one makes prints from negatives.
When choosing the film’s speed (ISO
rating) bear in mind that the faster the
film, the shorter the exposure. Short ex-
posures tend to minimize blurring due
to vibrations, rolling of the ship (in case
you’re at sea), and tracking errors. But
fast films tend to be grainier than their
slower counterparts.
There is nothing worse than running
out of film in the middle of totality. Dur-
ing the almost 2 1⁄2 minutes of darkness
on August 11th, it’s easy to use up a 36-
exposure roll, especially if your camera
has a motor drive. And nobody wants to
waste precious seconds fumbling in the
dark to change films!
The best advice is to load a fresh roll in
the minutes just before totality begins.
Pace yourself and keep track of the num-
ber of exposures made. It’s the quality
that counts, not the quantity. It’s better to
have a few perfect corona shots than be
stuck with three dozen fuzzy blobs.
Focusing
Don’t let poor focus ruin your eclipse
photographs. This is especially important
when using telescopes and long telephoto
lenses that do not have a fixed infinity (∞)
setting. Most 35-mm cameras have op-
tional magnifiers for the viewfinder, which

Above: The adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” is never truer than with
an image of the totally eclipsed Sun. For sheer beauty and magnificence, per-
haps no celestial phenomena can compare with it. The author captured this se-
quence of the July 11, 1991, total eclipse in Baja California, Mexico, on Ko-
dachrome 200 slide film with a tripod-mounted 4-inch f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain
reflector. The exposure times are 1⁄250 second for the two diamond rings, which
mark the beginning (left) and end (right) of totality, and 1 second for the outer
corona (middle). Note the complex structure of the corona, which extends
roughly one solar diameter, and the fiery-red chromosphere and prominences.

Left: Mobility is essential for successfully observing the eclipse this August 11th,
especially since the weather prospects across much of western Europe are far
from ideal (S&T: April 1998, page 36). Here, compact, lightweight, and portable
imaging gear is an asset. Cruise ships in the Black Sea have the advantage of
maneuvering to dodge clouds on E-Day. The author took this snapshot of the
MS Veendam’s crowded foredeck during last year’s February eclipse in the
Caribbean Sea.

Right: Metal-coated glass solar filters produce a yellow or orange image of the
Sun. This view of the partial phase was made by the author through a Thou-
sand Oaks Type 2+ filter. Most aluminized Mylar filters give a blue Sun.

©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope July 1999 137
astro imaging
aid with focusing. Once you achieve opti-
mum focus, place a piece of adhesive tape
on your lens’s focus ring or telescope’s
focus knob to prevent it from accidentally
being moved during the eclipse. The same
technique also applies when setting zoom
lenses, which can slip without warning, es-
pecially when aimed high in the sky.
For full-disk photography of the Sun,
focus on the solar limb with the image
framed the way you want it — don’t
move the limb to the center of the field.
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes in particu-
lar have curved focal planes that make the
edge focus a little differently than the cen-
ter. Be sure to recheck your focus as the
eclipse progresses since changing temper-
ature can cause the focus to shift slightly.
Mountings
Whether you’re traveling by land, sea, or
air to your observing site, try to keep
your mount as portable, light, and easy
to assemble and
operate as pos-
sible. Porta-
bility is
especially essential if you need to relo-
cate in a hurry to escape clouds.
In central Europe the Sun’s altitude will
be about 60° near local noon — make
sure your camera tripod can be aimed this
high. A pan head with slow-motion con-
trols offers smooth guiding when you are
manually tracking the Sun, which moves
at 1⁄4° per minute across the sky.
To improve a tripod’s stability, hang a
jug of water or a duffel bag filled with
sand under the center post. You can also
wrap plastic bags of sand on each leg or
set the tripod on rubberized footpads to
dampen vibrations. The mirror slap in
single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras can cause
blurred images, especially in long expo-
sures on slow film. To further minimize
vibrations, work the shutter button with a
long cable release. Lock the viewfinder
mirror up beforehand if possible. Last,
choose your site so it’s shielded from di-
rect breeze; erect a windbreak, if needed.
The Digital Alternative
The latest trend in still photography is the
digital camera, which operates basically the
same as a conventional camera except it
uses a CCD chip instead of film for captur-
ing images. A digital camera’s resolution is
often measured by the number of pixels in
its image. The more pixels an image has,
the better quality the image will be.
Digital cameras range from the entry-
level point-and-shoot cameras costing
between $200 and $1,000 to studio cam-
eras costing anywhere from $20,000 up-
ward. Between these extremes are the
professional-quality field cameras, which
look and feel like 35-mm SLRs and have
detachable lenses.
Digital cameras typically use internal
memory or removable memory cards to
store images. High-resolution pictures
require more memory, so eclipse imagers
must plan ahead in order to not run out
of memory at a critical time. Some cam-
eras have a built-in preview screen so
you can save memory by keeping only
the good images.
Eclipse Videography
Nothing evokes memories of an eclipse
better than a video. That’s why more and
more eclipse chasers are choosing cam-
corders as their primary recording me-
dium. Camcorders offer instant gratifi-
cation in the field unmatched by
conventional photography. All of today’s
camcorders use CCD or MOS (metal-
oxide semiconductor) detectors that have
high sensitivity yet will not be harmed by
brief exposures to direct sunlight.
The Hi-8 and S-VHS formats offer the
highest resolution compared to 8-mm,
VHS, or VHS-C formats. The compact
size and light weight of 8-mm cam-
corders make them ideal for travel. There

Left: If your camcorder needs more mag-

nification, try shooting through a tele-
scope eyepiece. Keeping the Sun
centered in the field of view is
easier if the scope is motor
driven. Drape a black cloth
over your setup to prevent
stray light from entering be-
tween the camcorder and
eyepiece. You can also
mount the camcorder on
a separate, adjustable tri-
pod for steadier views.

Above: Using an 8-millimeter camcorder with a 200-

mm zoom lens and piggybacked to a Celestron C5
telescope, Imelda Joson and Ron Hise captured this
video image of the 1991 eclipse’s diamond ring at
second contact. Changing the lens’s focal length and
aperture (f/stop) emphasized various features of the
event, with the longest focal length and smallest ap-
erture best for recording the prominences and inner
AK
ER corona, the shortest and largest for the outer corona.
KB
HUC
/C
S &T
138 July 1999 Sky & Telescope ©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
are dozens of models and prices to
choose from, with features such as flip-
out color LCD viewfinders and image-
stabilized optics.
Practically all camcorders now have
zoom lenses with up to 32× optical and
330× (or more) digital magnification. For
our purposes, optical zoom is more im-
portant since it increases image scale on
the detector. (Digital zoom simply en-
larges the pixels.) The easiest way to deter-
mine the approximate size of the Sun in
your camcorder is to shoot brief footages
of the Moon, zooming in from lowest to
highest power. If your camcorder doesn’t

CANON U.S.A., INC.

have enough magnification, consider add-
ing a high-quality teleconverter (2× or
more) to the front of the lens or shoot
through the eyepiece of a telescope.
As with still cameras, you need a proper
solar filter over your camcorder or scope
when recording the partial phases. You can
take 2- to 3-second clips every five min-
utes or so to produce a time-lapse se- Almost unlimited opportunities are available to eclipse imagers with today’s state-of-the-art
quence that compresses the hours-long video equipment. Consider, for example, the creative potential offered by Canon’s new XL1
partial phases into just minutes. High-end Digital Video camcorder, which features the high-resolution Mini DV format and three
camcorders have manual controls for ad- 270,000-pixel CCD sensors. Full-motion videos or still images can be downloaded directly to a
justing the gain, f/stop, and “shutter” speed computer. The XL1 comes with an image-stabilized 16× optical zoom lens, but it also accepts
so you don’t overexpose the bright inner the entire line of Canon optics designed for the EOS 35-mm SLR camera.

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©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope July 1999 139
astro imaging
Other Helpful Tips
Based on my previous eclipse expeditions, here are some sug-
gestions worth keeping in mind:
• Use a pocket tape recorder to document your observations
and reactions.
• During the March 1988 eclipse in Mindanao, Philippines, the
umbra was so dark it was difficult to read the camera’s shut-
ter dial. On the other hand, the July 1991 eclipse in Baja Cali-
fornia was so bright it was possible to read a newspaper! Be
prepared and keep a small pocket flashlight handy.
• When packing your things, put delicate equipment like cam-
eras, telephotos, and camcorders in your carry-on baggage to
ensure safe handling. Commercial airlines are now restricting
the amount and size of carry-on baggage, so be sure to check
with them or your travel agent to avoid problems during
boarding.
• New, more powerful security X-ray machines are now in use at
many airports. These units can damage film. Even lead-lined film
pouches are no longer impenetrable. So it’s better to ask that
your films be hand-inspected. The author obtained this view of the February 1998
• For safety, ask your photofinishing lab to leave your developed films eclipse at sea with his 4-inch f/10 reflector. The exposure
uncut. You don’t want the lab accidentally slicing your best shot in half time was 1⁄4 second on Fujicolor NHGII 800 film. The first
because the separation between frames is difficult to see. total eclipse of the next millennium occurs on June 21,
2001, over the South Atlantic and Africa.

corona or cause blooming (streaking) of
the image. Again, it is best to test your
setup on the full Moon well in advance.
On eclipse day, be sure to use a freshly
charged battery at least a half hour before
totality. Keep a spare one as backup.
Sony has introduced a new, high-effi-
ciency lithium-ion battery system called
InfoLITHIUM. Instead of the 45 to 60
minutes you typically get from nickel-
cadmium battery packs, InfoLITHIUM
lasts up to a whopping 12 hours on a
single charge!
The Next Generation
The newest trend in consumer video cam-
eras is the Digital Video or DV camcorder.
It gives more than 500 lines of resolution,
compared to 400 lines for Hi-8 and S-
VHS and 240 lines in standard VHS. Some
high-end models, like Canon’s XL1, use
three CCD sensors instead of one — giv-
ing images that approach broadcast qual-
ity. The XL1 (shown on the previous page)
offers a detachable lens and works with
many Canon lenses for 35-mm cameras.
Canon’s Optura DV camcorder features
a special mode that allows you to shoot 60
high-resolution frames per second. Imag-
ine having as many as 8,600 individual still

Japanese astro imager Shigemi Numazawa

melds conventional photography with digital
technology to obtain this highly detailed por-
trait of the February 1998 eclipse from Aruba.
Numazawa made a series of exposures from
1
⁄60 to 4 seconds long on Fujichrome Velvia 50
film with a Pentax 4-inch f/7 refractor and 2×
teleconverter yielding an effective focal length
of 1,400 mm at f/14. Using a technique he calls
“multiple-layer digital processing,” he digitized
and composited nine exposures with Adobe
Photoshop to produce this final image.

140 July 1999 Sky & Telescope ©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
shots during the nearly 21⁄2 minutes of to-
tality! You can easily create a long-running
“slide” show on tape or download specific
images to a computer for further en-
hancement and processing (see the next
section). Since the output is already digital,
anyone in the field who has access to a lap-
top computer, modem, and phone line can
e-mail images to anywhere in the world or
post them on a Web site in real time. As
you can see, the fine line between tradi-
tional photography and video technolo-
gy has become more blurred than ever!
The Digital Darkroom
Recording the corona’s full range of
brightnesses and details in a single view
has been the Holy Grail of eclipse im-
agers. In the past astronomers have used
different techniques, including special ra-
dially graded filters to suppress the bright
inner corona and capture the solar atmos-
phere’s overall shape and structure. They
have also spent countless hours in the
darkroom stacking negatives and using
sophisticated dodging and masking tech-
niques to bring out subtle coronal details.
Such darkroom drudgery is a thing of
the past in the age of powerful desktop
computers and commercial image-proc-
essing software. Astrophotographers can
now take a range of exposures, select the
best ones, and use popular graphic-arts
programs such as Adobe Photoshop to
combine them into a single image (S &T:
January and July 1998, pages 117 and 50,
respectively).
Each exposure is digitized and proc-
essed with an unsharp mask. With just a
few mouse clicks, you can easily retouch
any film defects (dust specks, scratches,
or fingerprints) and adjust the image
contrast, brightness, and hue. About a
half dozen or more images can be proc-
essed this way and then sequentially
coadded to improve the image quality
and produce a smooth composite, which
can be printed on a high-quality photo
printer or sent to a photo lab to produce
prints or slides.
Final Thoughts
I know it’s very difficult, if not impossible,
but take a few moments to enjoy totality
with your unaided eyes or through bin-
oculars. In all my eclipse chasing I’ve al-
ways made it a point to catch (between
exposures) a glimpse of the spectacle go-
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©1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
ing on above me. No photograph or vid-
eo can compare with the real thing.
I’ve often heard tales of people so en-
grossed with their imaging that they com-
pletely missed seeing the eclipse visually.
One solution would be to follow the ex-
ample of Glenn Schneider of Steward Ob-
servatory in Arizona. A veteran of 20 total
eclipses, Schneider developed a freeware
Macintosh program called UMBRAPHILE
that not only determines the local cir-
cumstances of an eclipse but also controls
an ordinary 35-mm camera for automat-
ed photography. The setup uses a simple
programmable solenoid actuator for op-
erating the camera shutter and a regular
motor drive for advancing the film. “No
more wasting those precious seconds of
totality fumbling around with camera
equipment,” he says. “Sit back, relax, and
let UMBRAPHILE do the work for you.”
For more information contact Schneider
at gschneid@rtd.com; http://rtd.com/
~gschneid/UMBRAPHILE.html.
Author Edwin L. Aguirre and his wife,
Imelda B. Joson, are veteran eclipse chasers
who have led five successful solar-eclipse expe-
ditions (four totals and one annular).
Sky & Telescope July 1999 141