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Frank Ginn's picture

Totality with Flares - Clarksville Texas

We made the trip to Dallas/Fort Worth. We had planned months in advance hoping for clear skies like so many others who went south for the best chance historically for less clouds. The weather predictions as April 8th approached were very doubtful to be able to photograph the eclipse from first to last contact. In an effort to beat the clouds we started driving north early Monday, after a couple of hours and thinking how much further it would be to drive back to Arlington, I settled on the town of Clarksville, Texas. The city has a small town square, which was already hopping with activity - photographers with telescopes, trackers and computers were already setup, including a truck sized battery supplying power. Binoculars fitted with solar filters and regular cameras were also present. There was a country rock band playing, hot dogs and tee shirts, too! The sky was a bit overcast but it was clearing. I was hopeful as I setup my gear. The first half of the eclipse went pretty well until we were getting to totality and the clouds were getting bigger and staying longer. We didn't get Beads or Diamond Rings. The saving grace for Clarksville was it's location, almost center of the band of totality with 4 minutes and 20-some seconds of complete coverage. As we all hoped and prayed the giant cloud moved off and the cheers and gasps were expressed all across the square! Here is an image at totality revealing several solar flares I was able to get. I pushed the White Balance up to 8000K to get the orange glow, as the RAW was white except for the red flares which retained their color here.

Nikon D850
480mm · f/6.3 · 1/1000 sec · ISO 64
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2 Comments

Great work! Different from most of the usual eclipse photos, which almost look alike. I already photographed two eclipses (not the US 2024) and will only travel to locations where the eclipse is at a lower angle to enable landscapes. Mark your calendar August 2026 in Spain and 2028 ion Western Australia. See you there!

Thank you very much, Juergen.
I hope to photograph more eclipses...I now have filters to accomplish this. I did try a series of wide angle shots but have yet to review the images. Although I think I panicked, and moved my camera somewhere in the confusion of totality. I will try and post one from this camera showing the clouds that we were dealing with.
Good luck to you in Spain and Australia!