Description

I was up at 6am this morning expecting some semi clear skies and minimum amount of wind and clouds.

To my surprise the whole setting was perfect except for the huge amount of high altitude clouds in the sky.

I spent the first half hour setting up the telescope and planning my trajectory for when the sun would peak out from behind the neighbor’s roof.

Whilst waiting for the sun to appear from behind the clouds and the roof lining, I went and grabbed my 300mm and the Nikon which was sitting idle on telescope.

With the Nikon and 300mm in place I attached my 10 stop ND filter and had a peak through the viewfinder.

What a brilliant sight!

Throughout the next ninety minutes I got 52 shots. All in between various phases of the eclipse and with varying cloud cover.

This picture is a composite of nine pictures of which eight are shot at 300mm focal length and the last at 1400mm.

The first shot on the right bottom was shot at 07:19.

The last shot was shot at 07:58 and was a merciful gift from the sky gods after disallowing me the moment of maximum eclipse 5 minutes prior.

The final picture is a white light picture from using the baader solar filter on the telescope.

Nikon D800, Nikkor AF-S 300mm f/4D IF-ED, at aperture of f/8, B+W ND3.0.

Celestron HD 8, Baader Solar Film

