100 days to Total Solar Eclipse August 12, 2026

 100 days to go to Total Solar Eclipse August 12, 2026.

Eclipse August 12, 2026

 

All my bookings are completed for the Eclipse of August 12, 2026. I will be staying near Burgos in Carrion de los Condes on the Camino de Santiago. I stayed before in this location back in 2017 when I walked the Camino from Burgos to Santiago de Compostella.

1 Year to Go : Total Solar Eclipse August 12, 2026

1 Year to go for the Total Solar Eclipse of August 12, 2026 which starts in Greenland, over Iceland and Spain.

Less then 400 days to Total Solar Eclipse August 12 2026 Spain

On August 12, 2026 we a total solar eclipse can be seen from Greenland over Iceland and Spain. I planned my trip to Spain and booked in the town Carrion de los Condes, which I passed on my Camino the Santiago in 2017. 

Kerrville(Texas) Louise Hays Park Flooding

 

Louise Hays Park in Kerrville - July 4th 2025

Currently due to heavy rain (>250l/m2), Kerr county in central Texas is hit by severe floods. The Guadalupe river passes through the center of Kerrville and Louise Hays Park. We visited this Park last year in April to see the total solar eclipse. According the news a lot of areas are flooding including Louise Hays Park in central Kerrville. 

Wishing a lot of strength to the residents of Kerrville and, by extension, all of Texas.

Solar Eclipse in Louise Hays Park in Kerrville (April 2024)

Partial Solar Eclipse March 29, 2025

 

Sun March 29 - One hour before partial solar eclipse

Imaging the Sun one hour before the Partial Solar Eclipse. This test was done at my home before moving to the public perfornace.

Partial Solar Eclipse

The partial solar eclipse imaged during public performance at "Het Moment" (Abbey of Averbode). I used my TLAPO80/480 f/6 with ND3.8 solar filter, IR/UV cut filter and OIII filter.

Editing using CS4 after conversion to DNG format. 

Reworking 2017 Eclipse pictures using Larson-Sekanina

After attending the The Dark Day (DDD see https://pascalhilkensastropage.blogspot.com/2024/11/dr-sebastian-voltmer.html) I searched my 2017 Solar Eclipse images.

I found two sets: 1/15s and 1/50s. Each set was stacked and then treated with special Larson-Sekanina filter (low radius, low rotation) in Fitswork 4. The stacked image and the LS filter image are substracted; The results of the two sets are then stacked and edited. The final image shows the low and high corona.

My picture of Lunar Occultation of Saturn published in Heelal

My picture and article of the Lunar occultation of Saturn are published in the astronomical magazine Heelal.

This is the link to my article on my blog.

Pictures of Solar Eclipse April 8 2024 in Kerrville Texas

Below my pictures of the Total Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024 taken in Kerrville Texas. For my report of the trip please see this link on my blog 

Equipment: used: 

Nikon D7500 with TLAPO80/480 f/6

Filters : Solar filter ND3.8 and UV/IR Cut

Setting : ISO100 

Diamant ring, Baily's bead and Prominences

Total Solar Eclipse Kerrville Texas - Report

Today, April 8, 2024 was the day we planned for... the solar eclipse. At half past four this morning we left San Antonio for Kerrville. The latest weather forecast  were no't good at all and we even had some droplets falling on the way to Kerrville.

We arrived at six o'clock and went straight to the parking lot..... and it closed. So we drove back for a couple of miles to stop at Starbucks for a coffee and muffin! At seven o'clock we drove back to the parking lot and took the shuttle bus to the recreation park "Louse Hays Park" in the middle of the city. 

Everything was ready for the Kerrville Eclipse Festival. The park was still empty when we arrived around a quarter to eight, but it was filling up by eleven o'clock up to 20.000 people. In the meantime, we had already met people from Seattle, Chile, Mexico, etc. Everyone was in a good mood and willing to have a chat. NASA was also present and provided the necessary explanation about the solar eclipse. Astronaut Reid Wiseman gave an interview. He was recently named commander of NASA's Artemis II mission to the moon. 

 Despite the cloudy sky, the sun regularly came through and we could enjoy the natural spectacle. Just as the sun completely disappeared behind the moon, the sky opened slightly, just enough to see the full solar eclipse. It remains an amazing phenomenon: it slowly gets colder and darker until it is as dark as night. As befits a festival, a group also came to sing: Judah and the lion. They played country/folk music and quite a few people stayed around to listen. Despite the clouds, it was still a successful eclipse.

After leaving the park we went back to San Antonio which took us 1 hour longer due to traffic jams.

We found out that a couple a days before the eclipcse,  Kerrville issued disaster declaration. 

First release of Solar Eclipse 2024 in Kerreville Texas

This is a first release of my pictures of the Solar Eclipse april 8,2024 @ Kerreville Texas. Due to high and later low clouds pictures are reworked. I could not make pictures of third and fourth contact due to low clouds. A more detailed report will follow later.

All pictures taken with TLAPO 80/480 f/6 and Nikon D7500 with solarfilter ND3.8 and IR/UV cut filter.

Solar Eclipse 1 month to go

 One month to go for April 8th 2024 Solar Eclipse....

Solar Eclipse 50 days to go

Solar Eclipse April 8th, 2024.... 50 days to go.

100 days to go

Total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024.... 100 days to go.

1 Year to go: Total Solar Eclipse April 8 2024

 One year from now, on April 8, 2024, the next total solar eclipse in northern America will be visible. 

See also this link to Total Solar Eclipse 

400 Days to go

Exactly 400 days to go.... On April 8, 2024 the next Total Solar Eclipse in the US will be visible.

Total Solar Eclipse 2024 - Mexico-US-Canada

The Total Solar Eclipse of Monday April 8, 2024 crosses Mexico, US and Canada. About 32 million US people live in the totality path and the weather is a challenge.

Both Mexico as Texas are still below 50% cloud coverage with the Mexican coast about 35%.

For more information about the weather statistics around April 1 for the totality path : see this link.

See also this website of Xavier Jubier for timings and locations of the solar eclipse.

Partial Solar eclipse Oct 25, 2022 - calculating max coverage using ImageJ

The partial solar eclipse of October 25, 2022 was tracked from Averbode. With some clouds, the conditions were less good than last year on June 10, 2021, but still sufficient.The solar eclipse was tracked with a TLAPO80/480 f/6 and Nikon D7500. A solar filter ND3.8 and OIII filter were used. A total of 127 photos were taken represesnting 3.56Gb of data. Several photos were edited and one timelapse of the process was created. You can visit my blog for this see this link .

I tried to determine the maximum of the solar eclipse as well as the time of the maximum. ImageJ software was used. To determine the surface of the sun, raw photos were uploaded and after selection via color contrast, the number of pixels that  which are not obscured are calculated. The “solidity” was also calculated. This is the result of dividing the area of ​​the eclipse by the convex area (smallest perimeter of a surface). To calibrate the time with my Nion D7500 photos, I used the time via the Frankfurt atomic clock.

I have shown in the top right corner the data for Averbode as obtained from www.timeanddate.com

Conclusion: the solidity gives much lower coverage values ​​than the pixel values. The traject of the eclipse and the calculations are influenced by the clouds on the photos. The time of the maximum is 2 minutes earlier than indicated on the website. The coverage value is 2% points higher than indicated on the website. 

A fun exercise that mainly shows the power of the ImageJ program.