The 2017 Eclipse

I have eclipse good news and bad news from our site at Columbia, MO.  The bad news is it was cloudy Monday morning during the initial partial eclipse portion.  The good news is it cleared up for the afternoon eclipse portion. 
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The total eclipse was definitely visible, though we still had some light clouds.  Even so, I was amazed when I took off my solar glasses during the total eclipse portion and looked up.  I didn't really know what I expected I could see, but it was better than anything I imagined! The Sun appeared as a dark disk, and I could clearly see the corona extending out from its surface - much further out that I thought it would be.  And it was easily visible to the naked eye! 
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I used my Remote Video Astronomy setup with the laptop inside our camper connected to the DS2.3+ on my PST outside. This allowed the laptop to stay cool (and humans too) while capturing images of the eclipse.

I also ran a long HDMI cable from the laptop to a display outside the camper so we could see details of the eclipse progress while outside. 

Because of the morning clouds, we couldn't see very well visually through the solar glasses prior to totality, but could at least see the telescope camera image of the progression of the eclipse on the outside display. 
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It cleared up nicely in the afternoon allowing me to capture some good partial eclipse images. We used the solar glasses outside for direct viewing of the Sun during the partial eclipse time.  I would periodically go inside and capture a short exposure showing the Sun’s surface and a longer exposure showing prominences extending from the surface.  These details were also clearly visible on the outside monitor. Below are a couple composite images where I combined a long and short exposure to see both the Sun’s surface and prominences in one image.  
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You can see the rotation of the camera image over time due to my use of an Alt-Az mount.
Here are a series of image captures (no post processing) showing the progression of the partial eclipse after totality (when we had clear skies).
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I recorded a time lapse video during totality using my best guess pre-set exposure. It turned out it was fine for seeing prominences near the surface just after totality, but the exposure setting was not enough to capture corona effects during totality … and I was busy looking up directly with my eyes during totality rather than adjusting the camera settings.  Looking directly at the Sun and seeing the corona around it was very captivating! ​

Here is a link to my time lapse recording that does give a feel of the total eclipse event. It also conveys the dramatic difference between the partial eclipse portion and the total eclipse portion.  Not to sound trite, but it is literally a night and day difference.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzm6GRg-S84

It was during the dark portion of this time lapse video clip that we were able to look up directly at the Sun and see the corona extending out from it. Since I did not capture any images during totality, Thom Pfeil has allowed me to post the following image he captured, which is an excellent reminder of what we saw as we looked up that day...
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​In spite of the initial morning cloudy skies, the trip was well worth it. I'll never forget what I saw as I looked up during totality, and I enjoyed experiencing the images from the DS2.3+ both in real time and later as captured images.​
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So, in seven years I’ll be ready to apply what I learned and do this all over again.  Who knows what advances we will see in video astronomy in seven years!