I want to lay a big shout out to fellow YouTuber and
Subscriber ColoradoCamper for noticing that I had captured a glimpse of the
Planet Mercury in my Video of the 2017 Eclipse. I had no idea that I had
captured the tiny planet. Being in close orbit to the sun, Mercury is difficult
to see. I was so excited to have captured it. In this video, I isolated and
froze a number of frames where the planet showed up well.
I was fortunate enough to be in Nashville Tennessee the
weekend of 21 August 2017 and made sure to schedule time to see the eclipse.
The eclipse was viewed from the Smith County Welcome Center, located at mile
marker 267 on Interstate 40, between Nashville and Knoxville, TN. This rest
area serves both East & West bound traffic and was very convenient. In
addition to the regular parking for tourists, there is 'Angler' parking by the
Caney Fork River. The Caney Fork River is beautiful and provided a great
distraction while we waited for the eclipse. This location was right on the
center line for totality and afforded an exceptional view. We experienced 2m39.5s
of totality! We were there at 7:30Am and it was already almost filled to
capacity. They closed access later in the morning. From the parking lot was
great access to the Caney Fork River which provided a wonderful diversion while
we waited for the eclipse.
As far as numbers go, here they are:
|
Lat.: 36.1381° N
Long.: 85.8044° W Time zone=UT1-5/EST/CDT |
|
Total Solar Eclipse
Duration of Totality: 2m39.5s Magnitude: 1.015 Obscuration: 100.00% |
|
Event
|
Date
|
Time
|
Alt
|
Azi
|
|
Start of partial eclipse
(C1) :
|
2017/08/21
|
12:00:38.0
|
63.6°
|
154.2°
|
|
Start of total eclipse
(C2) :
|
2017/08/21
|
13:29:06.5
|
63.9°
|
204.4°
|
|
Maximum eclipse :
|
2017/08/21
|
13:30:26.4
|
63.8°
|
205.1°
|
|
End of total eclipse
(C3) :
|
2017/08/21
|
13:31:46.0
|
63.6°
|
205.8°
|
|
End of partial eclipse
(C4) :
|
2017/08/21
|
14:55:41.6
|
52.1°
|
238.4°
|
The video was taken with three iPhone 6 with inexpensive 8x
and 12x lenses from Amazon. The 8x lens has a nice case that made it easy to
align the lens, but the lens was a little cheesy. The 12x lens was better and
had a universal adapter (clamp) that was a little harder to keep aligned. To reduce
light, I cut a hole in the lens caps leaving a rim around the edge to hold the
filter in place. I used the material
from my fake eclipse glasses I got from Amazon.
To further reduce light and help focus, I created a smaller f-stop by
placing a washer with a hole much smaller than the lens under the cap. As you
can see, the results were not bad for a cheesy iPhone lens. This would have
been much better with a real camera. Around 12x or is needed to make it really
look good.
Watch my other hiking videos:
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