Monday, April 6, 2015

Eclipse and Equinox in Synchrony

Spring equinox here came the 20th of March, which was also simultaneous with the total solar eclipse.

Before getting to that event, I want to record about the first spring bulbs that I spotted some days before the equinox. These snowdrops and crocuses were the only ones in full bloom that I saw throughout that district where I walked around that day, March 14.






Stunning cloud formations also adorned the sky one early afternoon. Some Powerful Hands painted the clouds with all the "colors of the wind" as shown by these rainbow clouds. And a big heart full of love accompanied this manifestation of a wise Creator-Artist.


























The snow that buried the grass carpets hardened to ice which was then in the melting process.






March 17 came the geomagnetic storm which was responsible for the vibrant aurora that night. You may view my photos here: Extremely Brilliant Aurora

The long-awaited day came. Many skywatchers from around the world traveled to Faroe Islands to witness the solar eclipse in its totality. In our place, we could see about 87 % of the eclipse, which was good enough.

The day came beautifully, a perfect day with equal length of day and night. I captured these from our kitchen window at about 6:00 a.m. and on my way to work shortly before 7:00.






I took a few minutes off from my work to watch the development of the eclipse at past 10:00. I felt downhearted when I couldn't capture the eclipse with my digicam and mobile phone. I didn't have time to prepare the right gadgets so I took chances with my plain unfiltered camera. I saw the eclipse through a reflection, alright, but my attempts to capture it failed. All I got were light explosions and sunbeams.






I tried to capture  it with my mobile camera through a reflection on an icy puddle in vain, but these stones beautifully reflected the colors of the light.




When I uploaded the shots, I noticed a lens flare in each photo. Looking closely, I realized that the flares captured the eclipse! I googled about lens flares which usually annoy many photographers but I learned that some photographers use these to show details of extremely bright objects that make it impossible to see their actual forms. Ah, serendipity! So I shot the progression of the eclipse after all. They're so tiny compared to the light burst of the sun's disk, but visible enough.


















Here's the maximum eclipse in Umeå taken at 11:06 a.m. The flare reversed the position of the sun's crescent. I felt elated!




That afternoon, a sun halo formed again while clouds started to gather until they turned to snow clouds.






Then clusters of snowflakes floated down that lasted through the night, which wrapped up the spring equinox.






Thanks, my dear readers, for dropping by! Have a wonderful week!

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