On October 14, 2023 an annular solar eclipse was visible in the U.S. Much of the United States witnessed a partial solar eclipse as a result but those in the western portion of the country were better situated for a deeper and longer solar eclipse. Those along the narrow path of annularity were treated to an amazing “ring of fire.”

Unlike a total solar eclipse, annular solar eclipses occur when the Moon is slightly farther away from the Earth in its orbit.

This results in the Moon covering up the Sun but since it’s father away a thin ring of the Sun is still visible around the Moon. Thus solar filters must be used during the entire progression of an annular eclipse even when viewing in the path of annularity as the surface of the Sun is still visible round the outer edge of the Moon.

The path of annularity for this eclipse started in the Pacific Ocean and made landfall on the Oregon coastline. It traversed its way across many states in the western half the U.S. ending on Texas’ southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. While the path of totality continued on across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan peninsula thru Central America and into South America. It then took a right turn in northern South America and terminated landfall on the north-eastern coast of South America. Major U.S. cities that saw total annularity were Eugene, OR, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, NM, and in Texas; Midland, Odessa, San Angelo, San Antonio and Corpus Christi.

I was setup to view and shoot this eclipse in the small community of Tarpley, Texas located between the cities of Bandera and Utopia in the Texas hill country.  I was about 8 miles from the eclipse’s centerline. The eclipse started at 10:22 a.m. and lasted until 1: 31 p.m. a total of 3 hours and 9 minutes. Totality or the total time the moon covered the face of the Sun for my location lasted 4 minutes and 57 seconds from 11:50 a.m. to roughly 11:55 a.m.

The weather was a bit of a concern with low clouds early on. The low clouds were gone prior to eclipse time but due to high upper level winds I was then dealing with fast moving  cloud ridges as seen the picture at left. They did take out the Sun as viewed from my scope and camera setup for several minutes at a time during the eclipse.

Thankfully, no significate stretches of time during the eclipse were blocked by the clouds and imaging progressed nicely at 5 minute intervals during the partial phases. As expected, things got busy just prior to, during and at the end of totality. In eclipse language that translates to 2nd contact (the instant at which the Moon is fully covering the Sun), total annularity or totality and 3rd contact (the instant the Moon was not completely covering the Sun). I was fighting cloud cover just prior to 2nd contact but as luck would have it the clouds parted in time and no part of max eclipse was blocked.

The following GIF animation was created in Adobe Photoshop from my images of the annular solar eclipse. Seventy-six images from before 1st contact to 4th contact were used to make this animation. The images were taken at roughly 5 minute intervals. I have slowed the images down around 2nd and 3rd contact for affect.

The images below were taken with the setup pictured above including a 90mm Meade ETX, Sky Watcher Star Adventurer 2i, Nikon D5100 and solar filter.

 

Up next the total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024!