Onset

Description

The annular eclipse is a brief period of a few hours when the moon is slightly smaller than the sun. When the moon is aligned directly over the sun, most of the light from the sun is blocked and the corona flare becomes visible. Onset is a photograph made in October 2023 when the moon first started to cover the sun. The final image shows the sun with sunspots, the sun’s corona, and the shadow side of the moon. Obviously, the extreme range of brightness from the sun’s surface to the shadow side of the moon is far beyond what any sort of viewing or image capture process could contain in a single exposure. So, this is a composite of three images to present the key elements in an annular eclipse: sun, corona and moon.
For those familiar with the technical side of photography: The photographs were made with a full frame DSLR using an 800mm Rokinon mirror lens, with a lot of post processing with Photoshop and Topaz Labs software to enhance sharpness and contrast. A white light filter sold by Baader Planetarium in Germany was used to reduce the sun’s brightness to 0.001% of it’s actual intensity. This type of filter renders the actual color of the sun as white with a slight bluish color cast. The color was shifted to the more familiar orange color in post processing.