The Great American Eclipse

Day Two - The Great American Eclipse - 2017

The Great American Eclipse, followed by a trip down Iron Mountain Road to Mount Rushmore to catch the Evening Lighting Ceremony.

1. Agate Fossil Beds National Monument #1

Sunflowers grow on the prairie of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

I woke up on Eclipse Day both excited and anxious. The excitement should be self-explanatory; the anxiety, however, was concerning the weather. When I was in the planning stages of this trip some eight months earlier, I examined historical weather reports for a variety of locations along the path of totality in order to determine the best viewing location. While this might seem comically excessive, I wanted to ensure that I was giving myself the best chance of seeing the eclipse, and -after reviewing several possible locations- I settled on the Nebraska Panhandle. The weather was traditionally pretty rain-free, the straight, high speed-limit roads would allow for me to call an “audible” in case I needed to quickly change locations, and the flat grasslands meant there would be no obstruction from mountains or trees. Perfect!

Of course I realize you can’t predict the weather eight months in advance, but I felt like I had given myself every advantage possible. Unfortunately, in the hours leading up to the Eclipse, the weather report was calling for fog the morning of the eclipse. On the plus side, the fog appeared to be moving quickly from west to east. So, I made the decision before leaving Rapid City to not head to my primary destination -the only-in-America tourist trap of “Carhenge” in Alliance, Nebraska- and instead head to my backup location, the small Agate Fossil Beds National Monument about an hour to the west.

As I got close to the South Dakota-Nebraska state line, dense fog filled the air, temporarily filling me with dread. But, as I pulled onto the secondary road heading towards Agate Fossil Beds and away from Alliance, the fog quickly lifted. Having arrived, we were greeted with crystal clear skies, and I knew I made the right decision. You can see the fog in the background of this easterly photograph.

2. The Great American Eclipse #1

The Great American Eclipse began at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument at 10:25AM - by 10:35AM, the top-right of the sun was obscured.

We knew getting into Agate Fossil Beds National Monument was going to be a crapshoot - we had no idea if the National Parks Service was going to limit visitor numbers, we had no idea how they were going to triage so many cars headed into the small National Monument, and we had no idea how they were going to handle the parking situation since the facility itself has only a couple of small parking lots. Let me say, the National Parks Service handled the situation brilliantly - if I recall correctly, we hit the queue only 20 minutes or so before being parked up and ready to go for the day. Bear in mind: Agate Fossil Beds National Monument averages about 15,000 visitors a year - on Eclipse Day, they handled the same number. Kudos to them!

Armed with our special eclipse glasses, we caught the first glances of the Moon moving in front of the Sun. From here, it was about an hour and twenty-minute wait until totality. This gave me lots of time to snap photographs of the moon’s movement.

Photographer’s Comment: There are a lot of options for safely photographing total eclipses, from taping the lens from a pair of eclipse glasses in front of a cellphone camera lens, to building a home-made SLR lens cover out of cardboard and super-dense plastic. I opted to buy a proper glass lens filter, and -while I pad a premium price for what I knew would be a rarely-used item- I knew the picture quality would be beyond compare. The downside of using a lens filter was that I couldn’t easily transition from the partial eclipse (when the filter would be on) to totality (when the filter would have to be removed); as such, I decided to run a two camera setup. The “partial eclipse” setup would consist of my 70-300mm Canon medium-range telephoto mounted to my older t3i camera body with a Marumi 5.0 (16.5 stop) neutral density filter mounted on my Manfroto tripod. The “total eclipse” setup would be my Tamron 150-600mm mounted on my Canon 80D, which I would hand-hold during totality. I chose this arrangement for two reasons: first, the burst rate is higher and the buffer is larger on the 80D as compared to the t3i, meaning I would have a greater chance of a clear, centered photograph while hand-holding the whopper Tamron lens; and, second, buying a 5.0 ND filter for the 58mm 70-300mm was about a quarter of the price than buying one for the 95mm lens threaded Tamron.

3. The Great American Eclipse #2

Eclipse position at 10:51AM.

The effects from The Great American Eclipse started a bit slower than anticipated - by this time, you didn’t really get a strong impression that the sun was slowly being blocked out. Furthermore, while you could take a gander through the eclipse glasses, the Sun’s strength was still quite strong and you only felt like you could get away with a quick gander before your eyes were in danger.

4. The Great American Eclipse #3

The Moon’s craters prevent the edge of an eclipse from being a perfect arc.

Having never looked at the Sun through solar glasses before (during a partial eclipse in my primary school years, we looked at the Sun’s shadow on a piece of paper), I never truly appreciated how much of what we see in the sky when we see the Sun is its corona. I realize this is kind of a silly thought, especially while viewing a total eclipse - if you think about it, this day validates the size of the moon in the sky is roughly the same size as the Sun. But, even still, its a phenomenon you should really experience to fully appreciate. This shot, for example, is a heavily cropped (nearly 200%) version of an image taken at 300mm on a crop sensor with a 1.6x magnification (“crop”) factor.

Photographer’s Comment: I’m just going to come out and say it - photographing the Sun can be tricky. There’s a lot at play here, first and foremost among which is the fact that you constantly have to move your camera on your tripod while using a telephoto lens. This doesn’t affect your zoom (the Sun might as well be the definition of “infinite” zoom); however, it does significantly contribute to camera shake since you only have a few moments when the Sun is in frame to take a photograph. After a while, I tried to “get ahead” of the Sun’s movements so the shake would be eliminated by the time I snapped a photo. The second major problem is the amount of water in the air. Trust me when I say that this is about the clearest photograph I could muster, and even still the Sun’s spots appear somewhat blotchy. Trust me when I tell you ISO isn’t the culprit here - despite have a 16.5 stop ND filter on, I was still shooting at ISO 100 (at 1/1600th of a second, no less!)

5. The Great American Eclipse #4

Eclipse position at 11:01AM.

6. The Great American Eclipse #5

Eclipse position at 11:16AM.

7. The Great American Eclipse #6

Eclipse position at 11:31AM.

It was around this point the anticipation started to grow. The day’s light started to get a little dimmer, and I started to prepare myself for totality. I made a promise to myself that I would only take photographs of totality for only 20 of its 140 seconds of duration. I wanted at least two minutes to just enjoy this event for what it was, and not through the reflex mirror of a camera. As such, I began to prepare my other camera’s settings, ensuring it was close by and ready to go for the moment the light “went out.”

8. The Great American Eclipse #7

Eclipse position at 11:38AM.

Around this time, things really started to get surreal - crickets started chirping as they do at dusk, the temperature started to drop quickly, and the sky was filled with a blueish hue you don’t see during a normal sundown. My best understanding of the latter is that this “sundown” is absent the variable which create red sunsets, the longer travel of sunlight through atmospheric gasses on its journey from the Sun to the observer. It is very similar to a single large, thick cloud passing in front of the sun on an otherwise clear day, only the sensation is significantly more intense.

9. The Great American Eclipse #8

Eclipse position at 11:46AM.

Moments before totality, you could see darkness on the landscape to the west, and a giant shadow was sweeping across the landscape. Wild stuff to behold.

10. The Great American Eclipse #9

Totality was reached at 11:47:30AM.

Finally, totality arrived! There was cheering from the thousands of folks in Agate Fossil Beds when the last bit of Sun was swallowed up the Moon. I’m not overly fond of colorful adjectives, but the only ways to describe this experience are “electric” and “magical” - perhaps even “transformative”. In the run-up to The Great American Eclipse, scientists who have witnessed multiple eclipses claimed that there is no comparison between a partial eclipse -even a 99% eclipse- and a total eclipse. Having now experienced both, I can tell you their observations are 100% accurate.

Photographer’s Comment: True to my word, at totality I unleashed the burst mode on my camera for 14 seconds before I put it down to just stare up and look. To the 80D’s credit, it rattled off about 60 shots during this time. This strategy seemed to work really well and only a few of these photographs were off-center or out of frame. Make no mistake, though: photographing the Sun or Moon (or, I suppose, both!) at 600mm on a 1.6x “crop factor” camera body leaves little room for error. My advise if you are unable to hold such heavy equipment steady for even this period of time is don’t risk it - dial the lens back to 550 or even 500mm to make 100% certain you got the shot you were looking for. Believe me when I say, you don’t want to go the rest of your life having not seen what I saw because you were fumbling with your camera trying to get your photograph just right. Plan ahead of time, and you’ll be able to get what you are looking for. As long as we are talking preparation, I knew exactly what camera settings I was going to set up ahead of time. Simply, I looked at all the variables (ISO, f-stop, shutter speed), and knew shutter speed would be the most important since I was hand-holding. I went 1/1000th of a second since I was shooting at the equivalent of 960mm. At that setting, the most “open” my Tamron gets is f/6.3. As for ISO, I had it set to “AUTO” (my first time photographing an eclipse, after all), but I knew it would be in the 3200 to 6400 range. Sure enough, all of the shots settled out at 6400 ISO. If your camera doesn’t push that high (or the picture quality is really poor), definitely don’t hesitate to roll it back to 3200 and step it up a stop in your editing software.

11. The Great American Eclipse #10

Totality lasted 2 minutes and 24 seconds.

Photographer’s Comment: Trust me when I say this photograph and the photograph preceding it are nearly identical - the only major difference is -obviously- the colorization. To explain: when you view a total eclipse, it appears to the human eye as it does above - a grayish-white stream surrounding a pitch black disc. The preceding photograph is highly stylized to show the typical “yellow” color we associate with the Sun. The Sun’s yellow color comes from the dissipation of non-yellow colors’ light rays by the atmosphere, but during an eclipse, your eye (and the camera’s sensor) get this grayish-white instead. I’ve included both in case you prefer one variation over the other.

12. The Great American Eclipse #11

The next total eclipse in North America is on 8 April 2024.

Photographer’s Comment: After enjoying the eclipse for about 1 minute and 40 seconds, I grabbed my 80D for another 14 second burst in the hope of catching one or two of the unique phenomena that occur right at the beginning or end of an eclipse. I admittedly chickened out a bit, not wanting to burn my sensor or my retinas, and didn’t catch the absolute last moments of totality; however, you can see the beginnings of Baily’s Beads at the noon and three o’clock positions. If I catch another total eclipse (I am certain I will, they really are amazing), I’ll be sure to hold on a bit longer.

13. The Great American Eclipse #12

Eclipse position at 11:52AM.

And, with that, totality was over. Shadows began to reappear, crickets stopped chirping, and the temperature rose back several degrees. But, we still had one hour and 25 minutes of partial eclipse left, and I had no plans on leaving. I can also happily report, neither did but one or two people at Agate Fossil Beds.

14. The Great American Eclipse #13

Eclipse position at 11:57AM.

At this point, I decided to hand over my lens and ND filter to #SRV, one of my travel companions on this journey, so he could give some partial eclipse photography a go. This image and the following six are from the #SRV collection and are used with permission.

15. The Great American Eclipse #14

Eclipse position at 12:05PM.

16. The Great American Eclipse #15

Eclipse position at 12:22PM.

17. The Great American Eclipse #16

Eclipse position at 12:32PM.

18. The Great American Eclipse #17

Eclipse position at 12:46PM.

19. The Great American Eclipse #18

Eclipse position at 1:09PM.

20. The Great American Eclipse #19

The Sun emerged from the eclipse at 1:14PM.

21. Agate Fossil Beds National Monument #2

Daylight now having been fully restored, I decided to take one last photograph of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument before heading out (not after having explored this unsung National Parks Service location - I look forward to revisiting it one day…perhaps with fewer people nearby….)

22. En Route to Custer State Park #1

Beyond The Great American Eclipse, our day was relatively wide open until our planned visit to see the Mount Rushmore Evening Lighting Ceremony. We decided to spend this time exploring the southern unit of Custer State Park, then head to Mount Rushmore via the Iron Mountain Road. We took a secondary road off the highway into Custer State Park, and passed this farmstead.

23. En Route to Custer State Park #2

24. Custer State Park #1

Custer State Park is home to one of the largest free-roaming bison herds in the world, numbering over 1,500 animals.

On our leisurely drive in the park, we passed some bison grazing in a nearby field. Since I was already carrying the long-range telephoto, I figured I should put it to some use.

25. Custer State Park #2

26. Custer State Park #3

We also passed this young mule deer.

27. Iron Mountain Road #1

Iron Mountain Road was built in 1933 as a means to connect Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore, which was under construction.

28. Iron Mountain Road #2

The 17-mile (27-kilometer) Iron Mountain Road features 314 curves, 14 switchbacks, three stone-carved tunnels, two road splits (to avoid groves of full-growth trees, a rather progressive idea for 1933), and…

29. Iron Mountain Road #3

…Three bridge/tunnel combinations called “pigtails.”

These “pigtail” structures are pretty nifty - basically, traffic loops above / beneath itself to either gain or lose altitude in a short amount of space. While other building projects have used this idea (the Lincoln Tunnel approach on the New Jersey side comes to mind), these are typically employed to save space in urban environments; here, they appear to be used to minimize environmental impact.

30. Mount Rushmore Redux #1

We returned to Mount Rushmore to catch the illumination show (formally called the “Evening Lighting Ceremony.”) An admittedly schmaltzy, patriotic video about Mount Rushmore, the personages found thereon, and the Black Hills is played as the sun sets, juxtaposed with oral commentary by a National Park Service Ranger. Despite its melodrama, it’s not entirely pap - there is some good historical background in the presentation…it’s just very difficult to disentangle it from the overall product.

31. Mount Rushmore Redux #2

Then, after the presentation, the face of Mount Rushmore is lit.

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