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Photographing The Solar Eclipse

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Annular Solar EclipseOn Monday, August 21, there will be a Total Solar Eclipse, visible from North America. The next one visible from North America won’t be until 2024.

A solar eclipse is when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth. This upcoming eclipse is special though because it’s a “total” eclipse, meaning the Moon will completely block the bright light of the sun, leaving only the outer edge (the corona) visible. If you’ve never seen one, they’re pretty cool to watch (just make sure you watch them safely!).

I don’t have much experience with photographing solar eclipses, but I did some research on how to photograph them properly, and below are some great resources I found: [Read more…] about Photographing The Solar Eclipse

Watch The Perseid Meteor Shower This Week

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Photo by anttler (used under the CC-Attr-NC-ND license)
Photo by anttler (used under the CC-Attr-NC-ND license)
Every year between July and August, you can watch the Perseids meteor shower in the night sky. This year it’s supposed to peak on the night of August 13, so any night this week you should be able to see a good amount of meteors streaking across the sky. And, the Perseids is especially great this year because it occurs during a new moon, so the meteors won’t have to battle the brightness of the moon in the sky — allowing you to see MUCH more! 🙂

To increase your chances of seeing some meteors, it’s also good to get away from the light pollution of cities. You want the sky as clear and as dark as possible. [Read more…] about Watch The Perseid Meteor Shower This Week

3 Tools To Help Prepare You For the Annular Eclipse This Weekend

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This Sunday, May 20th, there will be an annular solar eclipse, visible from parts of Asia and the western United States. I wrote a detailed post about the eclipse last month, which includes some great links to maps, but I forgot to list some tools to help you scout out a location to photograph this rare event. So, if you’re a procrastinator like me and still haven’t planned out your shot, here are some helpful tools:

#1 – Photographer’s Ephemeris

Photographer's EphemerisThe Photographer’s Ephemeris is an essential tool for any landscape photographer, because it helps show you where the Sun and moon will rise or set, and overlays that on top of a Google map. If you’d like to try and photograph the eclipse as part of a landscape, then this software can help show you where the Sun and moon will be in relation to a particular landscape feature (such as a mountain or lake). There’s a free desktop version, and an inexpensive iPhone/iPad/Android version as well. [Read more…] about 3 Tools To Help Prepare You For the Annular Eclipse This Weekend

Get Ready For the Upcoming Annular Eclipse on May 20th

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Annular Eclipse / Photo by Abel Lopez (used under the CC-Attr 2.0 license)
Annular Eclipse / Photo by Abel Lopez (used under the CC-Attr 2.0 license)
Next month, on May 20th, there will be an annular solar eclipse, visible from parts of Asia, and the western United States.

An annular solar eclipse is not a “total” eclipse, so the moon will not completely block the Sun. Instead, the Sun will look like a very bright ring (also known as an “annulus”), like in the photo on the right (which was taken during the annular solar eclipse of October 3rd, 2005). [Read more…] about Get Ready For the Upcoming Annular Eclipse on May 20th