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2023 Annular - Second Contact Composite.jpg
This is a composite of the October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse at second contact. It illustrates the irregular edge of the Moon breaking up the rim of sunlight as the dark disk of the Moon became tangent to the inner edge of the Sun at second contact at the start of annularity. Fifteen exposures taken over 20 seconds at second contact are combined with a single exposure taken about 1.5 minutes later at mid-annularity.
The images are shifted by an arbitrary amount for a suitably photogenic spacing, one that does not reflect the true relative motions of the Moon and Sun.
The blending of the second contact images all slightly offset like this has the effect of "drawing out" an elongated version of the profile of the lunar limb, exaggerating the rough edge from lunar mountain peaks. So these are "reverse Baily's Beads," in contrast to those that appear at a total eclipse which are bright beads of light. The single mid-eclipse image also shows the rough edge of the Moon.
Time runs forward moving down in the image, with the Moon moving down across the face of the Sun as it did in the sky. The camera was on the telescope oriented to place celestial north up in the frame.
The second contact images are selected from a set of 344 taken using the Canon R5's High Speed Continuous+ frame rate for stills (these are not from movie frames) which shot 20 raw frames per second. I selected every 24th frame in the set, so they are about equally spaced in time.
All are 1/400 second exposures at ISO 100 and through the Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm refractor with a 2X Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm and at f/12. The filter was the Kendrick/Baader Solar Film filter, with the solar disk colourized a pale yellow in processing.
The site was Ruby's Inn Overlook at Bryce Canyon City, Utah, a site well south of the eclipse centreline, so at mid-eclipse the Moon was off-centre and to the north (left) edge of the Sun's disk.
A high-speed set taken at third conta
The images are shifted by an arbitrary amount for a suitably photogenic spacing, one that does not reflect the true relative motions of the Moon and Sun.
The blending of the second contact images all slightly offset like this has the effect of "drawing out" an elongated version of the profile of the lunar limb, exaggerating the rough edge from lunar mountain peaks. So these are "reverse Baily's Beads," in contrast to those that appear at a total eclipse which are bright beads of light. The single mid-eclipse image also shows the rough edge of the Moon.
Time runs forward moving down in the image, with the Moon moving down across the face of the Sun as it did in the sky. The camera was on the telescope oriented to place celestial north up in the frame.
The second contact images are selected from a set of 344 taken using the Canon R5's High Speed Continuous+ frame rate for stills (these are not from movie frames) which shot 20 raw frames per second. I selected every 24th frame in the set, so they are about equally spaced in time.
All are 1/400 second exposures at ISO 100 and through the Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm refractor with a 2X Barlow lens for an effective focal length of 1200mm and at f/12. The filter was the Kendrick/Baader Solar Film filter, with the solar disk colourized a pale yellow in processing.
The site was Ruby's Inn Overlook at Bryce Canyon City, Utah, a site well south of the eclipse centreline, so at mid-eclipse the Moon was off-centre and to the north (left) edge of the Sun's disk.
A high-speed set taken at third conta
- Copyright
- © Alan Dyer/AmazingSky.com
- Image Size
- 4042x3161 / 1.1MB
- www.amazingsky.com
- Contained in galleries
- 2023 Annular Solar Eclipse, Solar Eclipses

