Excitement is building for next month’s total solar eclipse that will see the moon’s shadow fall across a large part of the U.S., from Maine in the northeast all the way to Texas in the south.
Folks who make their way to the best viewing spots are reminded to protect their eyes by using specially designed solar specs or other safe viewing devices when witnessing the celestial event on April 8. Others may want to photograph the moment the moon comes directly between our planet and the sun (solar specs are still required!), and Nikon shared a video on Thursday offering some handy tips on how to do just that.
Nikon ambassador Mike Mezeul II highlights the different settings you might want to use when photographing the coming total solar eclipse. The tips are more for standalone cameras than smartphones or basic point-and-shoots, and while the video focuses on Nikon camera settings, they should look familiar to those with non-Nikon cameras, too.
He also notes how the eclipse will go through various phases, including the diamond ring effect, where a tiny part of the sun breaks through from behind the moon to create such an effect, and totality, where the moon briefly comes directly between Earth and the sun.
Preparations for the shoot include getting a decent solar filter for your camera, which reduces the sun’s visible and infrared energy by a factor of around 100,000.
Other tips include shooting in RAW so that you can pull out more detail later on when you edit your images, though Mezeul adds that if you’ve only ever shot with JPGs, then stick with that for now. With the movement of the Earth and the moon, and possibly windy conditions, a fast shutter speed is recommended, too. A low ISO for relatively noiseless images, and an aperture of around f8 should also be possible.
Mezuel explains how you will need to make some quick adjustments between the diamond ring effect and totality, including removing your solar filter. A process known as bracketing, where the camera captures the same scene at different settings for a final image with more dynamic range, is recommended for totality, so if you’re not familiar with it then it’s worth learning more about it before April 8.
Indeed, Mezuel recommends practicing the entire routine before the big day so that you won’t be left panicking during the special event. After all, you want to enjoy it!
NASA also offers some useful information about April’s total eclipse, a phenomenon that will not occur again in the U.S. until 2044.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.