Total Solar Eclipse 29 March 2006

This shot was taken in Hacibektas, Turkey with a Canon 10D and Tamron 500mm lens. The RAW image was decoded on a Mac and then processed in Photodesk using a combination of linear equalisation and gamma adjustment.

2006 was a very quiet year in the sun's 11-year cycle, and so there was not much activity on the sun's surface - prominences, spots and so on - and the corona was very much smaller and simpler than our previous eclipse in Zambia in 2001 (compare with this image).

This is, unfortunately, the longest exposure we managed to get (1/20sec). Chris intended to take exposures up to 1 or 2 seconds to capture the outer corona, but excitement and wonder got the better of him, and he stood around gawking for too long ... by the time he started with longer exposures, the eclipse was very nearly ended (the sun is in fact just about to reappear at about 5 o'clock on this image; the next shot is vastly overexposed as the diamond ring makes its second appearance).

Eclipses are just too damn short.

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