Solar Eclipse 2024

A shot 7 years in the making.

I had been a few years into an astrophotography hobby when the 2017 total solar eclipse was coming up. Part of me really wanted to book a flight to one of the totality states and travel. I would need to bring all my heavy gear and the logistics, price of hotels, weather uncertainty were all final factors which led me to abandon this idea. The total solar eclipse came and went. I did shoot a partial eclipse from Cambridge, MA and got some pretty cool videos with the crescent sun and clouds rolling in. But looking at some of the total eclipse photos did make me feel like I NEEDED to see a total eclipse and photograph it some day. And in 2024 that dream finally came through. And out of all the dates that it could have fallen on, it happened to be on my birthday. How cool is that!?

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The weeks leading up to the eclipse, I had ordered a portable battery unit to power the mount and laptop I would be using, checked all gear I was going to bring, did a solar filter check, etc. The weather was looking very good in most of New England but Maine especially looked clear. The morning of April 8th, we drove to meet up with another group that wanted to have the clearest sky with the longest totality. Patten, Maine was our top pick and it was over 5 hours away.

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"What a treasure to have seen that."

It wasn't until I got home and was going through all the videos I had captured that I heard this iconic phrase a gentleman sitting nearby said; "What a treasure to have seen that." And it really was! This experience was life changing and I'm so happy I was able to capture it. For the next several months I could not stop thinking about this solar eclipse.