08.01 China eclipse report

jiahao1986 · Post by **jiahao1986** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:17 pm

Hi folks,

Just got back from the trip this morning. People who went for our trip are me(jiahao1986), Andrew(Tachyon), Srini(asterixsg), Jinglei(iohutom) and Qi Hui(stormchaser). The trip was five days, from Urumqi to Weizixia, Yiwu, and on the way we visited some places of interest.

The eclipse part was amazing and exciting. A patch of cloud covered the sun 1 minute before totality and almost spoiled the show. We were lucky that the cloud moved away right before 2nd contact.

Totality was simply beyond words and pictures. Only those who are right there know its real beauty. We now understand what drives those eclipse chasers to travel all around the world for those few minutes' experience.

So far only got time to process part of the astro photos, here I post in this thread. When I come up with more reports and photos, I will add them up here.

The other participants must be busy processing their photos, lets wait for their gorgeous photos to come up here.

Totality, right after 2nd contact:

Right after 3rd contact, note the shadow band, and the anti-crepuscular rays casted by the clouds; in the picture can also see our team and our vehicle:

jiahao1986 · Post by **jiahao1986** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:17 pm

A few days before the eclipse, I traveled to a mountain grassland in Xinjiang and did some night shots there. The site was totally free from light pollution, the brightness of the sky was recorded mag. 22.2 using Andrew's sky quality meter. In the photo below, rare phenomenas like Gegenschein and Airglow can be seen other than the milky way. The Gegenschein is the grayish/whitish pacth in between Saggittarius and Capricornus, which is more obvious in the enchanced picture. The airglow can be seen easily at the lower left of the photo as red and green cloud-like patches, and it's also marked in the enchanced picture.

Another shot with a meteor and a jeep in the view:

After 3am the moon rised and the sky was lit up dark blue with ground features visible, which was ideal for celestial-terrestrial combination shots. Got these two photos showing the night sky, mountains, grassland and local yurts:

*All the above photos are shot with Nikon D50 and Tokina 11~16mm f/2.8 lens.

jiahao1986 · Post by **jiahao1986** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:19 pm

Here are photos of us~:

Post by **weixing** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:47 pm

Hi,
WOW!!! Beautiful clear night sky!!! What setting (ISO & exposure time) did you use for the star trail photo??

By the way, can you see your shadow under the milky way?? [smilie=confused.gif]

Have a nice day.

jiahao1986 · Post by **jiahao1986** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:01 pm

The star trail shot is a combination of two 10 minutes shots at ISO 200, f/4. I had wanted to take longer shots but it was too cold out there.

Zephyrus · Post by **Zephyrus** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 12:14 am

Wow, great skies and great pictures! I sure hope I'll be able to travel overseas for such an wonderful experience. The skies there are completely different from what we experience here in Singapore--light polluted skies, stars being dimmed and hardly visible to the naked eyes and bad/cloudy weather conditions. I guess I'll have to save up and make a trip when I'm older. It's really awesome from these pictures I see.

Thanks for sharing! ^_^

Bergkamp_ · Post by **Bergkamp_** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:15 am

the pics are reallie reallie nice... wah.. now nice if i can be there..

Post by **rcj** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:16 am

outstanding wide fields! are you guys planning another one to central china next year? or the southern jap islands?

cataclysm · Post by **cataclysm** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:49 pm

Wow! Excellent pictures, wish I was there.....

wucheeyiun · Post by **wucheeyiun** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 5:12 pm

Great report Jia Hao !