08Apr24

Here is a collection of photographs and video from the April 8th, 2024 total solar eclipse as seen near Ingram, TX USA. Our friends Himmanshu, Yogi, Cindy, Ralf, Rick and Tim joined us in San Antonio before, during and after the eclipse. Conditions in most of Texas had been quite unpromising several days before the eclipse, but improved gradually toward the 8th. However, we all remained guardedly optimistic of seeing such a rare, spectacular event; we had begun planning for it more than 1 year earlier.

In spite of less-than-ideal weather, great numbers of people were expected to descend upon even tiny places such as Ingram. Media mania also had increased "solar eclipse frenzy" to such an extent that some towns in Texas declared "emergency conditions" for April 8th, presumably on account of expected traffic. Taking no chances, on the 6th we scoped out 5-6 possible observation sites within Ingram, but ultimately decided on a sleepy-looking Texas Department of Transportation rest stop on I-10, just outside of Ingram, about 50 miles northwest of San Antonio.

At around 0515 AM on the 8th, we left San Antonio and headed for the I-10 rest stop. Upon arrival at the site at around 0600, the rest stop was literally "sleepy-looking": We found vehicles parked bumper-to-bumper, with many people asleep in their cars, campers or RVs! Nevertheless, since people were mostly still asleep, a nice picnic shed was vacant, which we used as our base for that day.

Ominously, before sunrise it had been completely cloudy, but morning daylight eventually brought some patchy sunlight. Several hours later, at eclipse first contact (around noon local time) only thin, variable clouds prevailed, enabling the first half of the eclipse to be satisfactorily observed. Miraculously, at around 1330, sufficient breaks in the clouds allowed the 4 minutes of totality to be observed. However, the second half of the eclipse was obscured by thicker clouds, preventing photography. Nevertheless, the eclipse was still a spectacular event, thrilling us and the many people who had come to see it.

Eclipse Videos (made by LTN) -- Camera: hand-held Canon Vixia HFS30 (wide field, no zoom, no filter).

Before and through totality -- Camera mostly records 9 minutes of scenes at the site, capturing the many people and vehicles present. Just before totality, the camera's auto-gain causes the video to seem brighter than it actually was at the time.

Totality (showing corona) -- Image stabilized post-processed 7 second clip extracted from the above video. Unlike the 2017 eclipse, the "diamond ring" effect was not observed.

Eclipse Photo Montage of the entire event (made by JWC) -- Camera: Canon EOS M6 Mark II mirrorless camera + Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L IS USM lens + ND 100000 neutral density filter (which was removed during the 4 minutes of totality) mounted on an iOptron Sky Tracker Pro (a stepper motor driven right ascension axis). The Sky Tracker counteracted motion due to the Earth's rotation, allowing exposures of several tenth seconds during totality. The camera was operated in electronic shutter mode to minimize vibration and images were recorded in raw format for highest quality. The lens was manually focused. The partials settings were f 5.6, ISO 200 to 800 and exposures ranging from 1/1000 to 1/125 s. The totality settings were f 5.6, ISO 200 and exposures ranging from 1/500 to 3/10 s. Although the eclipse photo montage can be viewed on a smartphone, its high resolution will best be seen on a desktop or laptop screen.

Partial Eclipse Sequence

The first image was taken just before first contact at 11:56 CST local time (17:56 UT).
The partial eclipse image sequence was taken with the ND filter in place for the duration of the partial eclipse. Wispy clouds are seen on some of the partial eclipse images.

Click here to see the partial eclipse slideshow or on any of the images shown on the eclipse photo montage below to see a detailed image (a 2nd click will magnify within an image).

Note that three sunspots (larger central one toward 11 o'clock and two smaller ones toward 8 o'clock) can be seen on many of the partial eclipse images. With careful processing and thresholding, the larger sunspot is resolvable into two spots with faint structure. The length of these two sunspots is about 20,000 miles (roughly 2.5 Earth diameters). Light clouds obscure the spots on some images.

Total Eclipse Sequence

The totality image sequence images were taken from around 13:34 to 13:38 CST (19:34 to 19:38 UT).
The totality eclipse sequence was taken with the ND filter removed.

Click here to see the totality slideshow or on any of the images shown on the eclipse photo montage below to see a detailed image (a 2nd click will magnify within an image).

During totality, at least seven prominences (filaments of highly ionized atoms ejected from the Sun) can be seen during the totality image sequence. Details are seen here: prom1 prom2 prom3 prom4 prom5 prom6 prom7 prom8 The large prominence at 5 o'clock rises about 12,700 miles above the solar surface (about 1.5 Earth diameters). Note that the colors are as recorded without the ND filter.
In the totality images, the corona (regions of highly ionized atoms extending over great distances, hundreds of thousands of miles above the Sun's surface) can be seen as a whitish halo glow around the solar limb. However, some of the glow is probably from coronal light scattering by the intermittent clouds.
Prominences and the corona can only be observed during total eclipses, since they are dim in comparison to the Sun's normal brightness.

As the videos reveal, the people at our site were very friendly, enthusiastic and awed by this spectacular event. A local TV news crew even stopped by and interviewed us. We especially enjoyed meeting people from all over America, as well as from Bulgaria and Germany, who had traveled to see this rare solar display. Who knows? Perhaps we'll encounter some of them on August 12th, 2026 if we observe the next total eclipse in Spain or Iceland!

Other interesting data: Here is 6 second video of the April 8th eclipse shadow as seen from space by NOAA's GOES-16 weather satellite. The video (prepared by the European Space Agency) shows the moon's shadow moving across North America from approximately 1400 to 2100 UT.