Steve and I studied Google Maps and an eclipse website to find an appropriate site to view the big event. The ranch was close but at 99.98% totality, I wanted more. It would have been about a 2-hour drive to the centerline and 4+ minutes of totality, but the clouds were threatening so we might not have seen anything. That was not worth the gamble so we found a much closer location (30-minute drive) that gave us 1.5 minutes of totality. It was a large parking area outside Glenn Cemetery on the outskirts of Bluff Dale. The news led us to believe there would be wall-to-wall people everywhere for the eclipse so we were pleasantly surprised to find we were alone at our selected site.
We drove the last 3/4 mile on a dirt road. It was secluded and ideal.
The cemetery proved to be an interesting diversion while waiting for the moon and sun to align.
The parking area also provided us with some beautiful shade under a large live oak tree.
We were fortunate that the clouds cooperated and gave us clear views throughout the entirety of the eclipse. I replaced the telescope tube with my camera on the tracking mount. I mounted a mylar filter on the Sony a7iv and 600mm lens using a 3-D printed part my son, Jon designed. It was serendipitous that it fit both my telescope and the telephoto lens.
I used a remote app on the phone to control exposures on the camera and I took a lot of exposures! (700+)
I could not be more thrilled when I saw the solar prominences during totality - I was not expecting that with my basic mylar filter. Some of us simply chilled in the shade and marveled at the neat effect of the crescent solar disc imaged through the pinholes between the tree leaves.
Totality ended around 2:00 and we were hungry. Just a few miles down the road in Stephenville was Hard Eight BBQ, a place Steve had wanted to try. It was fantastic!
Angie treated us to great BBQ! It was memorable.
I would have to say the day could not have been more perfect.
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