Annularity
Cedar Mesa, Utah
2023
We traveled to southern Utah to see the annular solar eclipse on the 14th and to visit with family and friends. The annular eclipse was definitely interesting, but for my money it paled (no pun intended) in comparison to the total eclipse we witnessed in 2017. That total eclipse was one of the most, if not the most, spectacular and surreal natural events I’ve ever seen. But YMMV. Regardless I did take the time to photograph the annular eclipse so I thought I’d post something, even though there’s of course no shortage of photos of it on social media. To make mine a bit more interesting I combined a photo of the eclipse at its most perfectly annular stage encircling a photo of a rock on the ground with eclipse images formed by, in this case, a gap someone formed with their hands, or possibly their armpit of all things.
I’ve been looking forward to seeing your take on the eclipse and it did not disappoint.
Thanks Teresa. I do wish I’d photographed the shadows while the eclipse was at full annularity, but I was too busy spending the four and a half minutes actually looking at the sun I guess.
I agree that the 2017 total eclipse was truly awesome, a unique experience. I found when I (tried) to take pictures of the annular eclipse, there were small reflections of the crescent captured on the image somewhat below the sun. Where we were, I didn’t think that the shadows were nearly as contrasting as the 2017 eclipse. Kind of reminded me of shadows you get through heavy smoke from forest fires during bright sunny days.
I thought the shadows looked weak as well, as you said, almost like through heavy smoke. And funny you should mention the reflections you got while trying to photograph the annular eclipse. A guy that was with us experienced some very odd, blueish and foggy looking reflections in his shots. He tried a number of different things to fix the problem, but had no success. His first few shots of the eclipse actually were fine, then all of a sudden they were not. Weird.