Aug 21, total solar eclipse video?

Cometstorm

Cometstorm

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I'm blessed to live close to the path of totality and will be viewing it from a pasture near Pinkneyville, Illinois.

Wife and I traveled to Aruba in 1998 to view one. We know how spectacular they are... IF you position yourself IN the path of totality. Closer to the centerline the better.

Anyone have any Phantom plans for same? Not to video the eclipse of course, but maybe do a POINT OF INTEREST flight to video the light fall-off in the final seconds before totality?

Quadcopter or not, do NOT MISS THIS!

I've got a longtime friend with a house and acreage ON the centerline. He says he's leaving for a float tri that day instead.

Unfreaking believable!

Total Solar Eclipse 2017: When, Where and How to See It (Safely)

http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/path_through_the_US.htm
 
I live about 90 minutes from the path of totality and may take my bird with me.

Let me ask you this, I have only been in central part of the path for one eclipse, but it was annular so there was always light peaking around the moon. How quickly does the drop in light take place at the height of the event?
 
Sorry.... the eclipse was cancelled due to budgetary constraints. The sun won't be appearing that day, but will resume normal operations the following week.
 
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Great question. I too witnessed the 1994 annular.... HUGE difference!

It takes very little of the "remaining sun" to still light up the surrounding landscape to near normal.

Just prior to totality in a "total," when the sun looks like a crescent moon... ambient sunlight is pretty close to normal.

THEN, in the remaining seconds when the ends of the crescent close in on each other... it's like the big Man himself put his hand on a solar dimmer switch.

Sunlight falloff now takes maybe ten/twenty seconds to near total darkness.

In Aruba, we were at the highest point of the tiny island... in the desert at an unmanned weather post.

An unexpected surprise was the thousands of photocell controlled lights that turned on like so many jewels laid out far below us.

Unreal and surrealistic to say the least!
 
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Cometstorm said:
Great question. I too witnessed the 1994 annular.... HUGE difference!

It takes very little of the "remaining sun" to still light up the surrounding landscape to near normal.

Just prior to totality in a "total," when the sun looks like a crescent moon... ambient sunlight is pretty close to normal.

THEN, in the remaining seconds when the ends of the crescent close in on each other... it's like the big Man himself put his hand on a solar dimmer switch.

Sunlight falloff now takes maybe ten/twenty seconds to near total darkness.

In Aruba, we were at the highest point of the tiny island... in the desert at an unmanned weather post.

An unexpected surprise was the thousands of photocell controlled lights that turned on like so many jewels laid out far below us.

Unreal and surrealistic to say the least!
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There is a small town in North Georgia that is right on the middle of the path. I am wondering if I should book a hotel (it is about a 90 minute drive) or just drive up the day of the eclipse. I am sort of wondering how much this town might attract traffic... hotels are scarce and they appear to already be booked up.

BTW, you talked about some of the hidden gems that people might not expect...

The annular that I saw was in 1984. I was at Piedmont Park - located in the direct path. It was a 99.7% eclipse and you are right - that .3% light was significant. It just got really 'dim'.

But, as the moon passed just a bit further, something caught my eye. Looking on the ground, the light that was piercing through the trees was casting little crescents on the ground, effectively turning the trees into thousands of little pinhole cameras. It looked very odd and, to me, was the highlight of the event.
 
Jim Roof said:
There is a small town in North Georgia that is right on the middle of the path. I am wondering if I should book a hotel (it is about a 90 minute drive) or just drive up the day of the eclipse. I am sort of wondering how much this town might attract traffic... hotels are scarce and they appear to already be booked up.
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Chances are, motels anywhere near the centerline across the country have been booked solid for ages. This WILL attract world wide visitors who have planned this for years.

I called a motel here in Missouri for Aug 20 (night before eclipse) for a reservation.

Their response was: "You're kidding, Right?"

We choose to visit relatives near the centerline in Illinois.
 
I'm flying from Naples, FL to a small airport (possibly Berkeley County) near Charleston, SC and getting myself from the airport to the center of the Eclipse path, either by car or hiking (I know rental cars have all been rented for months). I plan to have a P4P and Spark flying during the eclipse, each pointing a different way. I will be on the edge of a lake with unobstructed views so should be a great place as long as there's no cloud cover. I would like to get some video of the reflection off the lake during the eclipse too. Anyone else going to be in that area?
 
ronbo747 said:
I'm flying from Naples, FL to a small airport (possibly Berkeley County) near Charleston, SC and getting myself from the airport to the center of the Eclipse path, either by car or hiking (I know rental cars have all been rented for months). I plan to have a P4P and Spark flying during the eclipse, each pointing a different way. I will be on the edge of a lake with unobstructed views so should be a great place as long as there's no cloud cover. I would like to get some video of the reflection off the lake during the eclipse too. Anyone else going to be in that area?
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Yes I live very close to Lake Moultrie. Thinking of flying my P3S . Not sure exactly where though.
 
I've been researching where to go and it sounds like the entire path will be a zoo. I was hoping to make it to the SE part of Lake Moultrie since that is directly in the path of totality. I think the roads will be grid-locked though, so I will probably just fly in to Berkeley County airport and watch it from there. If that's the case, I won't be flying my drones. That airport is about 7 miles from the center line, so I might hike as far NE as I can get to be closer to the lake.
 
ronbo747 said:
I've been researching where to go and it sounds like the entire path will be a zoo. I was hoping to make it to the SE part of Lake Moultrie since that is directly in the path of totality. I think the roads will be grid-locked though, so I will probably just fly in to Berkeley County airport and watch it from there. If that's the case, I won't be flying my drones. That airport is about 7 miles from the center line, so I might hike as far NE as I can get to be closer to the lake.
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Check back with me in about a week. I might be willing to give you a ride depending on my viewing plans.
 
Firstly, a bit of advice for the humans who go to observe the eclipse - always make sure that you've got the correct type of dark filter to watch the partial phase through - right up to the start of totality, the sun is bright enough to cause serious, permanent damage to your eyes.

Secondly, a camera also needs a filter similar to the one noted above to prevent damage if you intend shooting images pointing directly at the sun during the partial phase.

However, I would guess that the effects visible from a height of the reducing amounts of light on the ground would be quite interesting.

Here's hoping that you get good weather on the 21st.
 
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I am planning to film the eclipse too. I'm looking for advice on what camera settings would yield the best video. I'm not planning on looking at the eclipse directly but rather filming the darkness falling across the land.
I am fortunate enough to live in the path to see about 99.x total darkness. I have two P3P. I was thinking maybe doing a point of interest on one and maybe random shots with the other. This will be the first time I've tried a two camera shoot. Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks
 
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The drone will not be able to see the eclipse as the event will happen near noon when the Sun is high in the sky. You'd have to tilt the camera up to about 50 degrees or more above the horizon and the Phantom drones can't do that. Also, the FOV of the Phantom cameras is about 84 degrees whereas the Sun is just over 0.5 degrees so that even if you could point the camera towards the Sun it would only occupy 1/168 of the FOV or about 23 pixels by 23 pixels.

Nope, the best bet is either a telescope or a camera with a telephoto lens in the 600mm (35mm equivalent). So, bring your longer lenses and use either a tripod or piggyback to a tracking telescope mount.


Brian
 
It's coming directly over where I live in Idaho Falls so I'll be out there with my P4P. The shadow will begin around 10:15 am (1min 41 seconds of totality at around11:33am) with total eclipse around 1pm. The P4P gives you the ability to tilt the camera up 30 degrees, so there's no reason I shouldn't be able to get some great footage. (as long as I have the optimal camera settings of course!)
Being that our city is one of the top 2 cities in the country for the best viewing area with the clearest skies, we're expecting well over 1 million visitors from all over the world. Should be interesting!
 
Flying Gamec*ck said:
Check back with me in about a week. I might be willing to give you a ride depending on my viewing plans.
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Come to SE Idaho. Even though we're expecting a ton of people, there are literally millions of wide open unobstructed acres with which to view the whole thing. As long as you don't need a hotel room or spot for your RV, you'll be good to go. Even with RV's though, there are hundreds of farmers who intend to open up their land to allow RV camping.....going rate last I heard was 20 bucks for just a spot to park for the night, no facilities. Good luck!
 
Living in SLC I have a number of options from Oregon to Idaho to Wyoming to Nebraska -- all within a comfortable days drive so unless the weather's bad everywhere I should be able to see the show somewhere in this area. And, that's the thing, booking rooms at inflated prices only to discover the night before that your area will be rained out would be expensively painful. So, I'll wait to see what the weather is going to be like and decide where to go a day or two before. But, if there is no weather issues I'll likely go to Wyoming and probably somewhere between Dubois and Casper.

Further west in Wyoming, near Jackson, I expect to be pretty crowded and rooms REALLY EXPENSIVE. Idaho Falls would be another good area, particularly NW of Idaho Falls and north of The Craters of the Moon (Challis to Arco). The area where totality will be longest, about 2:40, is much further east and centered just west of the Mississippi River in Missouri.

USA - 2017 August 21 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier


Brian
 
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I did some checking of hotel/motel availability and prices and man the hotel industry is chock full of greedy b@stards. One place I checked that was actually pretty far away from the zone of totality and pretty far from anything that could be called a major city and all but one was listed at "no vacancy". The one place that did have a room, a lower tier hotel, had a room listed at $900/night when on any other night it would be more like $60/night.


Brian
 
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Yeah it's messed up for sure. We had a hotel in town here that was canceling reservations just do they could rebook at much higher rates. Once the local news got ahold of them they changed their tune but I can only imagine how many places across the country are doing this.
 
Jacking up hotel room prices for an event like this is bad but when they jack up the prices after a tornado or other weather event that makes many people homeless is another level of greed. How many of these greedy b@stards go to church on Sunday and act pious and judgmental.

My plans are to wait until I know for sure what the weather is going to be like and if it will cooperate I expect to get up early on the day of the eclipse and drive there then drive home without getting a hotel. I will not shell out even 2X to normal rate let alone 15X.


Brian
 
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