Annular Solar Eclipse 2023

One of the main reasons we went to the southwest when we did was to see an annular solar eclipse. I admit to being and eclipse nerd and will try to see a solar or lunar eclipse if it isn't too hard to get to. We planned our vacation so we would be in Albuquerque by Oct 14th when the eclipse would occur. The eclipse would be partly visible in most of the US but Albuquerque was on the center line when meant you would get to see the ring of fire not just a partial eclipse. The solar eclipse was a annular eclipse when meant that the moon would not fully cover the sun but would cover only 95% of it and create a ring when it was directly between the sun and the earth.

We decided to view the eclipse in the Rio Grande Nature park in the south end of Albuquerque near our hotel. The Albuquerque Astronomy Society (TAAS) had events all around the city and this park was one of the places they would be. The eclipse would start at 9:13 am so we got to the park about 8:30am. There were already a few people there and by the start of the eclipse there were probably around 100 people there.

It was a good place to view the eclipse as it had a clear view of the southeast as the sun rose higher in the sky. My set up to capture the eclipse was my new Canon R10 with a 400mm lens. This worked well. Since I didn't want the hassle of bringing my telescope and drive motor through the airport I made what is called a Barn Door Tracker which when lined up properly allows you to roughly track the sun, moon and stars. It meant I wouldn't have to constantly adjust the tripod as the sun moved all I would have to do is to manually twist a screw to keep the sun in the center of the picture.

This worked well and allowed me to concentrate on just getting good photos as the moon started to cover the sun.

We are in a time of high sunspot activity. The week before the eclipse I did some test shots and saw 5 or 6 large sunspots but on the day of the eclipse there was only a few small ones.

I kept taking pictures as the moon covered more of the sun.

The temperature which was in the 60s actually dropped about 5 degrees as the eclipse progressed. This was different than the last annular eclipse we saw in 2012 where we didn't notice a temperature drop or change in the light. The difference was that eclipse was at the end of the day close to sun down where as this was at the beginning of the day.

As we got close to the ring of fire the light got a little softer and felt a little like twilight. 

Finally at 10:34 am local time we reached the maximum eclipse and saw the ring of fire.

I managed to get some really good pictures with my set up. I know it just looks like a black circle over the sun, but what makes it cool is understanding what is actually happening. This is a picture of the moon in front of the sun perfectly center over the sun. The fact that the sun is 400 time bigger than the moon but the moon is 400 time close than the earth make this possible. This makes the apparent size of the sun and moon the same from our point of view on the earth which is a strange coincidence. Predicting these eclipse was an obsession for ancient astronomer and helped advance our mathematics and understanding of the solar system.

One other cool things that happens during and eclipse is as it gets closer to maximum you can use a pinhole through a piece of paper to project the actual eclipse on the ground or other flat surface. 

I learned at the total eclipse in 2017 that I could cross the fingers of my two hand in a # pattern and get the same pinhole affect. I was able to do this to project the shadow of the eclipse on the ground. During the maximum eclipse I project a couple shadows of the eclipse on some ones pants and came up with shadow puppet I call the ring of fire monster.

After the ring of fire was over I continued taking pictures until the end of the eclipse. The composite at the top of this post shows the full sequence. I also put together an animation of it which I need to process a little more to get it to look better.

Solar eclipses that are easy for me to get to don't happen that often so I really am glad I made the effort to see this eclipse. They are all a little different and interesting in their own way. The next solar eclipse in the US will be a total eclipse on April 8th 2024. This may be the last one I will be able to see as after that most of them will be on another continent. I'm already working on plans to see that one and hope it will be a fun to see as this one was.