The Sweeping Shadow, Australia, November 14

The Sweeping Shadow - Total Solar Eclipse, Nov 14 2012,The Granite, FNQ, Australia. from Colin Legg on Vimeo.

I was fortunate to view the eclipse from "The Granite' in far north Queensland this November. Inspired by Joe Cali's short but spectacular footage of the 2008 event (https://vimeo.com/51646602), I sought a high vantage point to capture the sweep of the shadow. Clear views north and east proved difficult to find, so I had to hike an 850m peak the night before and sleep on a rock ledge.

The clip includes 3 timelapses at various focal lengths. The first used a constant exposure, while the latter 2 tracked the light in the final 2 minutes either side of C2/C3, using bulb scripting. Eclipse Orchestrator software managed the light curve, while the cameras were triggered by a custom microcontroller built by Thomas Bethel. Many thanks to Fred Bruenjes and Thomas Bethel.

You can find out more about my eclipse experience here: https://www.facebook.com/ColinLeggPhotography

- Colin Legg
Astronomy Picture of the Day
December 10, 2012

Another incredible demonstration of the apex foci of the Moon's umbra shadow, subtending a cone 1700 km-wide at the lunar limb, stretching 362,000 km and arriving at a point miraculously near the surface of Earth, where it is barely 80 km across.