Solar Eclipse Photo and Video Contest: Share Yours Here

Written by Gina Smith

Did you take a great photo or video of the solar eclipse in the United States? We’d love to show it off for you. Check out the best of the best eclipse shots, below.

Above: Solar eclipse over Portland, OR. Photographed by John Ohm Sauer, All Rights Reserved. 

aNewDomain — Did you take an awesome photo or video related to the solar eclipse today in the United States?

Send it to me. We’re including the most evocative shots and videos from the Aug. 21 2017 eclipse right here. All you have to do is explain how you got the shot. In return, I’ll give your photo a shot — and with full credit — here on aNewDomain.

The submissions were great the second I called for them. The very first one I received was this one, below, from Chuck Pell. The host of theTV show Xploration Station, Pell told me he shot it with the infrared imaging app, Flir.

It’s a thermal image of the solar projector Pell used to capture eclipse images.

“It shows the Sun’s image is as hot as the pavement behind it,” Pell told me. And so it does. Check it out below.

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Here’s a shot of Pell’s solar projector as he set it up today, in Columbia, SC. Pell tells us he used a dark grey theatrical rear projection screen mounted on a funnel that is in turn mounted on a 26mm eyepiece. That eyepiece is affixed to a small Meade telescope, Pell explained.

Nice.

“Most people don’t look to the ground where cool lighting comes through the trees,”Jack Burns, of Kirkland, WA, told me over my Facebook feed. Indeed! Check this out …

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Nancy Cushing and I were third grade pals and buddies in Brownies. So I was psyched to check out her solar eclipse snapshot, shot in Rabun Gap, GA “with my cell phone with eclipse glasses over my lens.”

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Some of my favorite entries were from folks who weren’t afraid to get a little gnarly in their descriptions of how they captured all these images. Especially this one, from John Ohm Sauer, who suffered through Ms. Smelser’s sixth grade trailer with me.

First, he says, he attached “approved eye protection over zoom lens.”

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Then John shot it, he said, “rapid fire no filter.” (shown below right)
John told me used a Mylar filter zoom lens for this job. Gorgeous!
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Steven Rice, a reader in Palo Alto, CA, sent along images of his clipboard, which he says he turned into “an instrument of science.” Below that is a shot of the binoculars he used along with his client-holding clipboard.
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Glancer Magazine photographer Mike Catuara had an interesting collection of eclipse photos to share with us. Check them all out here. But here’s my favorite, below. He tells me he shot it in St. Charles, IL.

Our own Richard Hay, who moonlights as an aNewDomain essayist when he’s not too busy with his job as a Google test engineer, sent us the image below. Ever modest, he calls it “hideous …  but I did shoot this one through the paper glasses.”

Hideous? Nah. I think it has a kind of a primitive beauty …

Never mind, adds Hay. “The people who were watching the eclipse today were way more interesting.” True, that. Here’s what the scene looked like at Google’s campus in Austin.

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Reader Ruth Mitchell took her eclipse photos and videos in her own Tulsa, OK backyard. This short work, shot live, is something she calls Eclipse Among the Leaves.

My cousin, Emily Johnson in Ellensburg, WA, took this awesome image, below.

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Dan Sterenchuk captured a number of solar eclipse photos in Hopkinsville, KY at, he says, “a very welcoming Food Lion that offered free parking.” Sterenchuk used a Samsung S6 in manual mode for these photo because, he said, “automatic mode couldn’t capture light correctly.” To capture the photos, he “held up extra pair of eclipse glasses over camera,” he added.

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Our own Tom Ewing shot the following eclipse photo in Tulsa, OK, where visibility reached 90 percent.

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“I took the image with a simple Sony CyberShot camera with the focus extended to full zoom,” Ewing told me. “Having the lens on full zoom seemed to make a difference in the image quality. To protect the camera lens from the sun, I put one lens of a regular pair of solar protection glasses over the camera lens,” he wrote.

But wait, there is more: “I wore a pair of solar protection glasses myself and lifted the camera until it blocked the sun and moon,” he added. “At this point, I assumed that my camera was between me and the sun/moon, so I pressed the shutter button. The approach also worked with mobile phone cameras as well. I’m not sure that a cheaper and easier to assemble combination is possible.”

Connect with me on Twitter and DM me your photos and explainers, or drop it in the email at Gina@aNewDomain.net. Have a great one, and thanks for the beautiful art!

For aNewDomain, I’m Gina Smith.

 

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Cover image of the near total solar eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017, as viewed from Portland, OR: John Sauer for aNewDomain, All Rights Reserved.