Annular Eclipse and tips on how to take photo

[petrarch1603]

So I found out there's going to be an annular solar eclipse visible from Taiwan next monday morning around 6am.

http://earthsky.org/tonight/annular-eclipse-of-the-sun-china-to-texas-on-may-20-or-may-21

Its pretty early, but its gonna be just after sunrise, so I was thinking it could be a cool chance to get a photo of it with Taipei 101 in front of it. I went to a website where you can calculate the bearing for the sunrise on google maps:

http://www.sunearthtools.com/dp/tools/pos_sun.php

According to this site, the sunrise will be behind Taipei 101 in roughly the southern Da'an park area. Here's a screenshot of the line:




You'll see that there is a yellow straight line coming from Taipei 101 going slightly down and to the left. Anywhere along the line is where the sunrise will intersect Taipei 101. The line could go further down and to the left even more, but the site is kinda clunky and hard to use. You get a rough idea though. The line would keep on going just south of the zhongzheng bridge and along the river to that other bridge...I think its huazhong bridge. If you had a good camera with a nice telephoto lens you could get something like this one



You might need a filter, I don't know, its pretty early around sunrise. Also hopefully the weather is nice. If anyone takes some photos of this please post them here.

The other problem is getting access to a roof on that line at 6am. One option is that bridge from Wanhua to Yonghe. It has a nice view of the city (I'm usually not looking at 101 from there as I don't want to crash while driving on those narrow lanes). And if you're serious about this you could do a few dry runs to get an idea of where to take the photo.

Hopefully the weather will be good and you won't end up like Guilaume Le Gentil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Le_Gentil

[urodacus]

Le Gentil... Le poor unfortunate fucker. Thanks for that tidbit!

[petrarch1603]

Also, this gif reminds me of the problems with how to frame the photo, its not easy!

[Taiwan Luthiers]

Any good rooftop area with a good view to the sun at this time near Tianmu? I live right by Yangming Shan but the clear sky faces west...

[Typhun]

Given that it's that close to sunrise, I wonder if it won't be blocked by the mountains to the southeast.

[cranky laowai]

The closest spot to Tianmu might be somewhere east of Chinese Culture University -- though I'm not sure what exact place would work.

[petrarch1603]

I just got back from the river front park near Jiangzicui to take photos of the eclipse. I started out with a healthy McDonalds breakfast. The skies were touch and go. The west was very clear but the east, where the sun was rising, it was pretty cloudy. I even felt a few raindrops as I walked toward the 華江 bridge.




I was a little discouraged at this point as it took some will power to get out of the house so early in the morning. It was pretty cloudy although the sun was peeking through a few holes in the clouds. I think Neihu might have had some good visibility. Based on my perspective.




At about 6:05, 5 minutes before the 'maximum' of the eclipse a hole miraculously opens and some light appears. It was still shaded at my spot where the three rivers met. But further down toward the Xinzhuang/Sanzhong side I could see pure sunlight on the pillars and supports of the bridge. The light slowly made its way toward my location.





My first shot of the eclipse and a lucky one. I used an old Canon TX-1 which comes with 40x digital zoom. Keeping it steady and finding the sun was difficult. I took a couple of quick glances at the sun with my bare eyes, but it was much too bright to even contemplate staring at. The shadows actually were beneficial because a few times the clouds opened up and the naked sun illuminated my screen. However my camera was unable to take any pictures of that.

A few more:







All in all it was a pretty fun experience. Even if there was no eclipse the riverfront looked beautiful at that time of the morning. There were majestic billowy clouds over the Bali area and occasional rays of light illuminated the Grand Hotel and parts of Yangming Shan. I talked to a few other people who were taking photos but mostly it was old people and cyclists exercising. A few people stopped and didn't seem to realize what was going on.

Oh, and that advice about taking it from the Guting area was probably bad because that part of Taipei was cloudy for most of the eclipse.

[dosvog2002]

I took these from Da'an Park this morning. The clouds parted just at the right time. Right time and place, wrong photographer!

First few were taken with a haze filter at 210mm. Full annular shot were taken without a filter.

























Nice way to start the week!

[dosvog2002]

Oh, and I had the same experience, nobody seemed to realize anything special was going on.

[Taiwan Luthiers]

I didn't get up to see it because of the cloudy sky...

I was curious was there any noticeable darkening of the sky?