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Casper, Wyoming, was the place to be for the 2017 total eclipse (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n I\u2019d chosen to go to Orin Junction, Wyoming, to see this eclipse. About 8 to 10 minutes further down the road was Glendo, Wyoming, and I\u2019m sure glad I didn\u2019t go there! Well, we did go there, but we\u2019ll come back to that.<\/p>\n Latest Videos FromDigital Camera World<\/p>\n We got off to a good start, at the US border, where I was detained in handcuffs, and taken straight to a cell. There they were busy instructing me how to place my feet \u2013 a pattern I knew from an ex-con who\u2019d told me that was the placement so that when you drop your drawers and bend over for a cavity search, you don\u2019t fall over. It was not something I was looking forward to! At that moment, a female border agent dashed into the room, yelling, \u201cYou\u2019ve got the wrong man!\u201d Instantly the agent\u2019s tone changed from their polite, but officious manner to a soft, \u201cWell, we\u2019d best get these handcuffs off you!\u201d<\/p>\n I never did learn who they were looking for, though I think I know why. Still, we were delayed two hours, our car searched by both agents and dogs, but eventually sent on our way. It\u2019s not an experience I\u2019d want to repeat.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n The \u201cplace to be\u201d was Casper, Wyoming, as it was a major center, and on the centre-line. But hotel prices were ridiculous and we ended up in Sheridan, two hours’ drive north of Casper, where I could reserve a room for only double the usual price. And that reservation was made almost two years before the event. For this was truly the age of the internet. The eclipse had been promoted as \u201cThe Great American Eclipse\u201d and was, indeed, the first to cross the USA since 1979.<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people across the US, were encouraged to go at the last minute. Without planning. They thought they\u2019d just go and pick up a motel room, along the way. Much as we had done many years before.<\/p>\n Our room had a window, overlooking the pathway to the motel\u2019s office. All evening long, we watched people leaving, often in tears. They\u2019d come at the suggestion of the internet, without reservations, and had gone, motel to motel, desperately looking for a room.<\/p>\n The morning of the eclipse we headed south at 5.30 am, and when we got to Casper my wife said she\u2019d like a cup of tea. I pulled into a McDonald\u2019s which was busier than any restaurant I\u2019d ever seen. It took us well over 90 minutes to get a single cup of tea. As we drove, every park in Casper was filled with tripods and telescopes. Every wide spot on the Interstate 25, was chock full of people and telescopes.<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n I\u2019d selected Orin Junction as it was almost perfectly on the center-line, with prospects of good seeing yet small enough (a population of just under 50 at the time) to not encourage people to go there. But I missed the turnoff and ended up in Glendo, just down the road. They\u2019d been silly enough to put a notice on the internet saying they were on the center-line and were welcoming eclipse chasers. This little town of 209 people received some 50,000 visitors! We used their overpass to turn around, but access to the town itself was blocked by police cars with flashing lights. That town was full!<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n We got back to Orin Junction to find it consisted of a single, Sinclair gas station, and parked cars as far as the eye could see. Parking looked to be impossible! Luckily, someone pulled out, presumably heading for a better position, so I pulled in. We set up our tripod and chairs in the ditch, some 25 feet (8 meters) away, and had a wonderful view!<\/p>\n \n Olympus E-M1 Mk II<\/a>, Leitz 400\/6,8 Telyt, Thousand Oaks Glass Solar filter. (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n \n My DIY pinhole projection finder (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n By that time, I was using Leica<\/a>\u2019s 400mm f\/6.8, \u201ctrombone focus\u201d lens for my wildlife shots, and trying to find the sun with a filter on is difficult. The easy, low-cost solution is a DIY Pinhole Projection Finder. Dimensions are not critical and mostly determined by how your lens is made. You can use cardboard, wood, stiff boxboard or whatever you\u2019ve got, I used acrylic plastic as I had some to spare. I used bits of cylindrical rod (wooden doweling would work) for my base as it will adapt to any diameter lens. The front has a black card with a tiny (1mm or so) hole. The rear panel has a white or cream card. On eclipse day, mount your finder on your lens with a rubber band, gaffers or masking tape, or what-have-you. I used a large hose clamp with a small piece of fabric underneath to prevent scratching.<\/p>\n On eclipse day, with your filter on, find the sun and make a small X where the beam of light from the hole in the front panel hits the rear panel. That\u2019s it. As the sun moves during the eclipse, it\u2019s bog-simple to loosen your tripod head and reset it so the spot of light is still on the X. When most eclipses last only a minute or three, this speed and convenience is essential. It works remarkably well and is completely safe. I suggest you make on early, and test it before the eclipse.<\/p>\n \n To avoid problems with internal reflections, I found the solution was to tilt my solar filter slightly so it was at an angle to the lens (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n This was my first eclipse using a digital camera and I quickly discovered that unlike film, the shiny surface of my sensor created repeating reflections with the glass solar filter. The cure was to simply tilt the filter on the lens (see photo above) for a quick fix.<\/p>\n Some 20,000 people had gone to the Baja for the 1991 Eclipse. Some 100,000+ people went to the area around Casper, Wyoming. And the difference was the internet.<\/p>\n My sixth solar eclipse: October 14 2023<\/p>\n \n Partial eclipse seen from my own backyard. Shot with Olympus OM-1<\/a> with a Leica 100-400mm DG Vario-Elmar<\/a> at 400mm (effective focal length 800mm) (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n The best laid plans…. I\u2019d booked a motel in Winnemucca, Nevada, a small town of 8000 souls, which was right on the centerline of the Annular eclipse. I\u2019ve still not been to Winnemucca, as just before I was to leave, my wife was thrown from a horse and spent the next 20 days in the hospital.<\/p>\n My trip was instantly cancelled, but I proved you can still get some fascinating shots, even if you\u2019re 1160km (720 miles) off the centre-line. Of course, from my backyard it was only a partial eclipse, and the clouds were so thick that the shot above was taken without a solar filter<\/a>!<\/p>\n My seventh solar eclipse: April 8 2024<\/p>\n \n Shot with Olympus OM-1<\/a> with a Leica 100-400mm DG Vario-Elmar<\/a> at 400mm (effective focal length 800mm) with a Thousand Oaks glass solar filter (Image credit: David S Young)<\/p>\n The peak duration for this eclipse was in Texas, but we opted for Milan, Ohio, so we could pick up a favorite cousin in Michigan and, at 90 years of age, have her see her first eclipse. Totality was still almost three minutes. As per the new standard, we booked well over a year ahead, and discovered that while the town was packed, our hotel was on the outskirts, and had a huge, empty field adjacent to the property. So, we watched the eclipse from there, with a few family members and a small number of other hotel guests. Some thin, high clouds did not hinder the view. Very civilized.<\/p>\n Be sure to have a proper filter on your lens at all times \u2013 other than during totality. Remember, the pentaprisms in SLRs make a distinctive \u201ctink\u201d when they get too hot and crack, because someone didn\u2019t use a filter and aimed their camera at the sun! It is also easy to burn your sensor in a mirrorless camera if aimed at the sun, without a filter in place. And never look at the sun through binoculars (unless they are specialist solar binoculars<\/a>), or a camera with a telephoto lens without a filter attached. Both capture far more light than your eye, and it is super easy to permanently damage your eye. Most of all, don\u2019t get so involved with your camera that you forget to look up! It\u2019s a sight you\u2019ll never forget!<\/p>\n The next North American total solar eclipse will be August 22 2044 with the eclipse underway at sunrise in Greenland. An unusually wide (281 miles\/453 km) path of totality will then sweep across the Arctic, traverse parts of BC and nearly all of Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan, before winding up in Montana and the Dakotas. Totality peaks at two minutes and four seconds. I\u2019m pushing 80 now, so I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll see that one. But, I hope you do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have been photographing solar eclipses for the last 47 years, and in the first two parts of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-587116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Solar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NKnsxL9gek5y4ZuBCvqnnc.jpg\")
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