Chasing Shadows: My Journey to the Annular Eclipse
Mapping the Expedition
The trip I planned, and the trip I had were two totally different things. I had initially planned my trip to go see the 2023 annular eclipse about 8 months before the event. I had fallen into a bit of a rut the year before and was trying to find something to look forward to.
There wasn’t as much hype around the annular eclipse as there was for the total eclipse next year, but I reasoned that only being six months apart, the annular eclipse would provide an excellent opportunity to practice for the total eclipse. Plus, it seemed like a great excuse to visit Oregon and photograph all those lovely fall colours.
I planned to take the week off before the eclipse to take my time traveling to the eclipse path. It seemed like a pretty solid plan, there was lots of beautiful destinations along the way including the Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah Falls, a craft beer night in Portland, and perhaps a detour down to Secret Beach in Brookings.
Weather Throws a Curveball
Two weeks out from the eclipse, I started checking the long term forecasts. It wasn’t looking great. Still, a lot can change in two weeks. Especially with the weather. With only one week before the eclipse, the car loaded, we were on the road. We had gotten as far as Virden on the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border, 300km into our journey where again, I checked the weather at our lunch stop. The seven day forecast was looking grim.
You should never completely trust the seven day forecast either. This was quite a dilemma. We had a quick conversation about it and reasoned that even if we knew nothing about the forecast other than what the sky looked like in that moment, Oregon would always be a worse bet for clear skies than somewhere like Utah. By Swift Current, we abandoned our plan and turned south.
The Journey South
The first night, we made it as far as Val Marie in southern Saskatchewan. We were looking online and a little confused about the border situation. Only 20 km away, we decided to drive down. The border crossing was only open one way during the weekends and we would not be able to enter the US there until two days later on Monday. We camped at Val Marie for the night and in the morning drove 200km west to the Willow Creek border crossing. We managed to get across without further delay and passed through Havre, MT. We were on our way.
The new improvised plan was to head down and spend the next day in Yellowstone. Following the route Google Maps presented us, we turned south at Fort Benton towards Livingston. We thought we might stop at a small brewery in Belt, MT along the way. It wasn’t Portland, but it would have to do.
Entering the valley, I noticed the battery light came on in the dash. We weren’t quite sure what it meant and thought we’d do some research while at the Harvest Moon Brewery. We were immediately welcomed by a host of friendly locals. We asked about finding a shop where we could take the car. Being a Sunday, there wasn’t one. Our best hope was to hobble along to Great Falls the next day and get the alternator replaced. Thanks to Teresa, Bob, and the Harvest Moon crew. We really appreciate all you did for us. This glass makes a fine addition to my collection.
Yellowstone and the Race Against Weather
After getting the alternator replaced in Great Falls, we spent the evening driving down to Yellowstone National Park. We were racing against the weather all day as it seemed like that Oregon storm was going to reach us all the way in Montana. Mammoth Pass was expected to be closed the next day due to snow. Hitting some highlights in the park, we were able to see a couple herds of elk, Mammoth Hot Springs, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Steamboat Geyser, Grand Prismatic Spring, and even Old Faithful!
Cruising along, we skipped Grand Tetons in an effort to beat the weather and camped at a Bureau of Land Management site in Idaho. The next day was driving through one beautiful mountain valley after another until we arrived in Salt Lake City. We toured a few breweries, checked out a few landmarks and were on our way.
Nearing The Eclipse Path
We made it to Moab the following night. At this point, we still didn’t have a clear idea of where we were going to end up. I was pretty resolved that I would accept a sub-optimal foreground in exchange for being able to witness the eclipse. Moab was unusually busy for mid-October. Eclipse traffic. Trying to find a place to stay was difficult. We drove 25 miles out of town checking 12 BLM campgrounds before we finally found the last spot available. Along the way, we stopped to chat with some friendly campers. They told us there were already thousands of people congregated in Valley Of The Gods.
Most national parks in the area were warning of crowds. The Navajo Nation announced they were closing Monument Valley for the eclipse. All of the hotels along the eclipse path were completely booked unless you were willing to pay $400/night.
Aside from Moab, we didn’t experience a lot of traffic on the roads, but it was pretty clear that we were already late to the party. Many people were already in place. Information from thegreatamericaneclipse.com suggested that New Mexico was expecting way fewer visitors, so we made the decision to travel to Shiprock.
In the Shadow of the Moon
Watching the annular eclipse was a unique experience. I could feel my excitement building from the moment I put on my solar glasses and seeing the edge of the sun become partially concealed by the moon. The entire event last around three hours with nearly five minutes of annularity where the moon is entirely inside the sun. Annularity occurs instead of totality because the moon is near the furthest point in it’s orbit around Earth and doesn’t completely cover the sun from our point of view.
As more of the sun became concealed, more of the effects of the eclipse began to take place. I first noticed the temperature dropping. I was wearing a t- shirt and had to put my sweater back on. The next thing I noticed is that the light shadows seemed weird. Its actually just shadows cast by a crescent sun, but they appeared to have blurred edges such as the shadows around my hand. The light at that point was also becoming dimmer, almost grey-ish. The colours around me were less vibrant. These effects lasted for 15-20 minutes before slowly returning to normal as more of the sun became visible again.
As the moon edged closer to fully obscuring the sun, a phenomenal occurrence unfurled in the sky, Bailey's Beads, little bright dots on the rim of the sun. These aren't just random glimmers; they're caused by the sun's rays sneaking through the moon's valleys and craters. It's like seeing the moon's rough edges lit up for a brief moment.
This was my first eclipse. It was awesome, and I had never experienced anything like it before. There will be a total solar eclipse within six months and I met many people on this trip who said a total eclipse is on another level. All the effects I noted are turned up a notch and and you can even see stars for a few minutes during the middle of the day.
Shooting the Annular Eclipse
Shiprock was very close to the centre line of the eclipse path which was approximately 200 miles wide. That means we were able to witness annularity for nearly the maximum amount of time, 4 minutes and 43 seconds. Also, with now only one day to go, the forecast was looking great. We checked out Shiprock and the surrounding areas and decided to stay at Shiprock. Waking up on location would save us from driving in the congested morning traffic.
This worked out great. It was clear the night before, so I was finally able to shoot some night sky. I shot a few time lapse scenes, then set up my star tracker. The Star Adventurer 2 by Sky Watcher is the tracker I use and it has a wedge to set the latitude you’re at. Since I am normally at 49.5° N and Shiprock is at 36°, I wanted to do a 60 second trial shot on the stars to make sure I was tracking correctly at my new location.
Overall, my plan was to set one one of my cameras with a telephoto lens on the star tracker (solar setting) to take close up photos of the sun while the moon was passing in front. These shots would also allow me to compile a time lapse of the eclipse.
My second camera was just on a regular tripod to take a wide angle sequence of the sun’s path arching across the sky during the eclipse. These photos I would later use to create a composite showing the various stages of the eclipse.
As the sun rose, there were more and more cars filing into the area until there were a couple hundred people spread out around Shiprock. Some people would stop and chat, others would drive right by. You want to talk to them and share the experience with other humans, but before long, I felt the need to set up my equipment.
I set up the telephoto first. Putting on my solar filter (otherwise I would melt the insides of my camera, like lighting a fire with a magnifying glass), I took a few test shots to get my exposure settings correct. I then set up the star tracker and discovered that the clutch was stuck. The clutch allows me to loosen up the tracker so that I can balance the heavy lens with the counterweight on the other side. Being off balance means that the lens side was a bit heavier and dragged a bit causing my tracking to drift over time. I had to readjust my frame 2-3 times throughout the eclipse. This didn’t prevent me from capturing any data, but it did give me a headache and a lot more work to do in post processing to manually align all my frames in Photoshop to create my final time lapse.
Among all the other distractions, I was a little late getting my wide angle lens set up. I missed the first few minutes of the eclipse. I also missed the last few minutes of the eclipse as the sun drifted out of my frame. This I didn’t consider to be a big problem, but it is something to keep in mind for the total eclipse.
Photographing an eclipse is quite challenging, and I am very happy with the results I managed to get, especially considering you can only practice shooting an eclipse at an eclipse.
Telephoto composite of various phases of the eclipse
Wide field composite of the eclipse path in the sky. The foreground was actually shot at sunrise, but I edited it to be duller, matching the experience during annularity.
Bailey’s Beads - small beads of light showing the topography of the moon, a signature of annular eclipses.
Homeward Bound
The drive home was equally chaotic. We tried to spend the night at Grand Junction, CO, not realizing that thousands of other people were traveling home through the area. There was no hotel or campground available and we had no choice except to just keep driving. We made a few other stops along the way home including Mount Rushmore and Devil’s Tower.
Lessons Learned
If anything can be said about this trip, it was exactly the kind of learning experience I was looking for. Keeping in mind that the April 8, 2024 total eclipse is now less than six months away, here are some key takeaways:
Plan long ahead of the event. Accommodations for the total eclipse may already be booked. Mobile accommodations such as a campervan could be a nice alternative.
Allow yourself extra time to get to where you are going. The unexpected can happen, you can have delays along the way.
Buy your solar filters early. They can sell out fast.
Consider choosing your destination based on weather patterns over what you want to visit.
Practice with all your equipment and make sure all the functions you need are in working order.
Read about other’s experiences photographing eclipses to see what they wish they did better.
Plan to wake up where you want to shoot the eclipse so that you can reduce the risk of traffic jams or not being able to make it to your location and give yourself plenty of time to set up on that day.
Check to see if any permits are required where you plan to be. We had someone approach us asking for money to be on Navajo land. A warden had told us that was illegal, and there was no fee to be on the reservation.
Next Eclipses in North America
Total, April 8, 2024
Annular, June 21, 2039 (northern Canada only, maybe no road access)
Total, August 24, 2044
Total, August 12, 2045
Annular, February 5, 2046
If it’s not clear, the total eclipse in April 2024 is the last opportunity to drive to a solar eclipse for a very long time, possibly in your lifetime.