21Aug17

Total Solar Eclipse !

Here is a collection of photographs and video from the August 21st, 2017 total solar eclipse as seen from Shoshoni, WY USA. Shoshoni (pop. 649) is about 180 miles east of Jackson Hole, WY and about 100 miles west of Casper, WY.

Conditions at Shoshoni were quite good during the eclipse. There was some occasional light haze, but it was mostly confined to low elevation angles.

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

4 minutes before and through totality, showing shadow's approach -- Camera mostly looks to south horizon, sometimes panning to east and west. Camera auto-gain causes early portions of the clip to seem brighter than it actually was.

Totality (showing corona) -- Image stabilized post-processed 20 second clip. The so-called "diamond ring" can be seen at the end of the clip.

Immediately after totality -- 2 minute clip. The surroundings remained quite dark for at least 2 minutes after totality.

Eclipse Photo Montage of the entire event (made by JWC) -- Camera: tripod-mounted Canon 60D + Canon EF 300mm f/4.0L IS USM lens + Thousand Oaks Optical solar filter.

The first image was taken at (local time) 10:32, totality images at around 12:39, and the last image at 14:05 (UT 16:32, 18:39, 20:05, respectively).
The sequence was taken with the solar filter in place for the duration of the eclipse. This allowed capture of solar prominences at totality by suppressing the corona (which is seen in the video).
Click on any of the 60 images to see a detailed image. Two groups of sunspots (4 near disk center and 2 near 7 o'clock) can be seen on many of the detailed images. Prominences can be seen on several of the totality images. Or click here to view them all as a slide show.

Welcome Sign at Shoshoni, WY Sunrise at Shoshoni on Eclipse Day

As the audio on the videos reveals, the 50-60 people at our site were very friendly, enthusiastic and awed by this spectacular event. We especially enjoyed meeting people from all over America who had sought out this excellent location. Who knows? Perhaps we'll encounter some of them in April 2024 when we observe the next eclipse near San Antonio, TX !

Other interesting data: Here is video of the eclipse shadow as seen from space by NOAA's GOES-16 weather satellite. The video (prepared by the University of Wisconsin) is made from a composite of several separate imager bandpasses on the satellite.

Last updated October 12, 2017