Few days ago we had a very rare ring of fire solar eclipse in my part of the world. It wasn't total where I am located - But it was still fun taking pictures of it. So here is what I caught that day. Yes there is a video also, however that I will upload later on my YouTube channel, after I stitch it all together... Thankfully, now there are so many different smartphone apps - That I felt totally in control of the entire situation. It really felt like I was in a professional astronomical observatory of my own. Therefore I turned down the invitation to Karachi university's observatory, (which I otherwise would never have ignored). Just goes to show how far smartphone technology has progressed in recent years... It was actually just another uneventful morning around sunrise. So I just took a few pictures to test my cameras and different lenses. Decided to use just the wide angle and the 10x telephoto for the phone camera - Video camera already has a range from 0 to 60x zoom, so that didn't require anything. There were so e clouds in the sky, but not enough to ruin the view of the eclipse. After this I again got busy playing with different smartphone apps I had installed. So first of all I (for no apparent reason) decided to track the International Space Station. And after that, every other man made satellite in orbit. Why? Just because I had the app installed... Is showing off a bit? Maybe, but you people must understand that I am Pakistani - So we are gadget crazy people by nature. Checked the Sun and Moon timings with an app also. Sunrise also was nothing special. So I captured that with the 10x lense. I actually wanted to be at the beach to record this. But because of the partial Coronavirus lockdown, the beach isn't open. OK, I just ran out of the 15 pictures per post limit...
Checked the weather and tide also. Started to set up the tripod for the video camera next, and made sure everything was pointed in the right direction. Decided to use arc welding goggles to keep the camera's sensitive CCD from burning out. As I will be pointing it straight into the sun, (the brightest source of light in nature). Next I took a few more shots to see if everything was working correctly. In case the camera's batter ran out of energy, I got the extension cord also, and plugged it into the charger of the camera. However, in case the power grid failed, my home Ihas solar powerhpower too. So noeno need to worry. But justcjust in case I had an extra car battery with a 220 volt inveter on standby also. Checked with the internet, as well as use another app which showed a live sky chart. At around 09:20 hours, it was time... Here is the path the eclipse was going to take.
And then I finally got busy taking pictures and recording video. This is where the eclipse reached it's peak. All the birds started going a bit crazy. As they assumed that it was sunset already. So in a hurry they sought shelter under any tree they could find. And from this point onward, Moon started to pass away from the Sun. Hope you all enjoyed this just as much as I did. Eat your heart out Karachi University, as I think I made better scientific observations and recordings.
