Image

Baily's beads at the third contact

Digital photography has a lot of advantages but it is not very well suited for total solar eclipse photography. Classical negative film is still an easier way to take good eclipse images. The reason for that is the fantastic dynamic range of negative film, which is practically impossible to overexpose. During the 2005 South Pacific eclipse I tried to use combination of a classical film and a digital camera. The solution, from my point of view, was correct. The image you are looking at is not possible to obtain using a digital camera only. It is the numerical processing result of 22 digital images and a single one image taken on a classical film. This combination makes possible to handle easily brightness ratio over one to million. Such an unique necklace of pearls is possible to see only during very short eclipse like the South Pacific one.
Click on the image or on the following reference to display the higher resolution image version (1.1 MB, PNG format).

ImageEcl2005_3rd_bp18_pub.png
Date08. 04. 2005
TimeSecond contact 19:51:19 UT, third contact 19:51:52 UT
Total eclipse duration 33 s
PlaceAboard Discovery ship in South Pacific ocean
CoordinateS 22° 37.19', W 129° 38.67'
ConditionsImages taken through cirrus cloud
OpticsCanon EF 100-400 mm 1:4.5-5.6 L IS (set to 400 mm) for digital camera
MC 3M-5CA 1:8 500 mm (Maksutov-Cassegrain) for classical camera
CameraCanon EOS 1D Mark II digital camera
Canon EOS 300X classical camera
FilmFujicolor Press 800 Professional (push processed to 3200 ISO)
Exposure1/4000 s to 1/125 s digital camera
1/1000 s classical camera
ProcessingComposition of 23 images processed by means of Corona 3.0 and ACC 6.0 software
Image processing by Miloslav Druckmüller
SoftwareSofo ACC 6.0 with Match II module, Corona 3.0
OrientationThe image is presented in the orientation as it was visible on the sky. The image must be rotated 135° clockwise to achieve the standard orientation i.e. North top, East left
Copyright© 2005 Miloslav Druckmüller
 

Miloslav Druckmüller
Institute of Mathematics, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
druckmuller@fme.vutbr.cz
Page last update: 27.11.2019