Uncategorized | The Front Burner

If you know me, or have read through some of my posts here, you’d know I wouldn’t have missed this eclipse. After all, its totality covered my own back yard near Austin, Texas for 3 minutes. However, my family and I didn’t see it at home. Instead, we traveled to South Texas see it with friends: A good bunch of my friends who were there with me on the two-week journey to the tip of Baja for the 1991 total solar eclipse.

This time, we mutually chose the Eagle Pass, TX area. It was in the US, along the center line, and would very likely have clear skies at that time of year. We started planning over a year in advance of the eclipse, primarily to secure our lodging. A lot of hotels were not taking reservations that far in advance. We did find open advance reservations in nearby Del Rio.

Of our original 1991 group, Richard, Bob, Vince, Melissa, and I were in attendance. We also brought a small portion of the ashes of our departed friend and brother Greg.

Vince (in exile), in-crowd L-R: Phil, Marsha, Bob, Darlene, Jamie, Melissa, and a person we met there at the Del Rio Inn.

In addition to the ’91 alumni, we were joined by friends: Louis, Michael, Marsha, Phil, Darlene, Jamie, as well as my own eclipsolunatic family: Shelia and Ryan.

In the days leading up to the eclipse, the weather forecast was firming up to be pretty poor conditions along the path of totality. We had lots of Pacific moisture flowing into the area with high and low clouds. Still, the area we’d picked ahead of time looked like it was going to be drier than the rest of South Texas.

The morning of the eclipse, the previously clear-ish skies were gone. Gloomy low clouds had built up overnight. We sat tight at our hotels in Del Rio, looked closely at the radar and satellite loops, and tried to figure out what to do.

Two kinds of eclipse “nuts”. La Quinta was stocked with the right fuel.

Eagle Pass looked to be a little more socked-in, so staying in Del Rio appeared to be the right thing to do. We gathered at the Del Rio Inn to see if conditions would improve anywhere around us.

A few holes in the cloud cover here at the Del Rio Inn

Richard was still headed in from San Antonio along US90 and had been reporting relatively better skies near Uvalde. With that info, Vince and my family decided to move to meet Richard somewher near the centerline on US90 between Del Rio and Uvalde. The rest of the gang stayed at the Del Rio Inn, hanging out around the pool.

Our team ended up stopping at 29°19’35.0″N 100°28’54.6″W a spot 20 miles west of the eclipse centerline on US90E on the west side of Brackettville, TX. Richard met up with us there.

The eclipse has started, and this is one of those times where we could see through the clouds and cast shadows.

I took some overview video on my GoPro Hero4, and I’ve posted that to YouTube.

During the eclipse, I pulled a fast one on my friends. I launched an audio track containing a bunch of exclamations by our departed friend Greg that were recorded at the 1991 eclipse. The idea was to make it seem like he was there with us. I’m sure everyone would agree he was really there in spirit.

I took still photos during the eclipse, but no other video. My telescope setup procedures require more time and clearer skies than I had available. The stills of the partials look pretty good, but I didn’t set up the tripod for the totality (doh!), so the handheld shots of that were not so good.

Handheld shot with my D7100 and a 300mm lens using my hand made filter.

When the clouds were thick enough, I went ahead and grabbed some shots of the partial phases without the filter.

Almost there! I think you can see a little hydrogen alpha pink mixing in here.

A wider crop of the previous picture. There’s a neat angel shape in the cloud hole there.

Well, you really don’t want to shot totality handheld. Next time, set up the tripod first.

The hot pink prominences left nice trails in my shaky shot.

Well, that might have been a diamond ring shot, but again, the tripod wasn’t used.

I am really happy that so many other people in the US were able to see this one and experience the wonder. I look forward to seeing more of what others have experienced and recorded.

… et cum spiritu tuo.

Ah, May 4th. Star Wars day. This morning, I used Facebook’s memories feature to look up a few things I’d posted in years past. One post was simply the previous heading that translates to “… and with your spirit.” That’s the Latin form of the automatic Catholic response to “May the Lord be with you.”

My first post showing I knew date’s significance was from 5/4/2012:

May the 4th be with you!

The next year (2013), it was simply the cryptic:

**Lots of kids were curious as to why I had these today.**

Bringing those light sabers to the soccer game did let me take some fun pictures.

… an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

Ahh, lightsabers. They kind of get you right … *there*.

There are hundreds of how-tos on adding the lightsaber effect in Photoshop. Here’s one. I like this style with the colored outside glow on the white beam made from multiple, slightly separated line segments, forming a point.

In 2014, we’d been to the Austin Mini Maker Faire on the day before, so: