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Solar eclipse acquisition settings [Solar System] Acquisition techniques · Chase Davidson · ... · 5 · 285 · 7

Black_Dog_Astrophotography 0.90
Chase Davidson
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Hello everyone, I’m traveling a few hours away to capture the solar eclipse in a few weeks. I’ve never attempted capturing the sun in any fashion so I was hoping to have some practice beforehand…except it’s been cloudy EVERY DAY since I’ve got my new solar filters and I’m leaving for vacation for a week. I’m afraid I’ll have no time for practice.

so im reaching out to gather acquisition techniques to get a leg up in case I’m pushed to the wire on testing the setup. Here is what I’m working with:
  • Spectrum Full Aperture Glass Solar Filters - ST350G (x2)
  • baader Astro solar safety film 140mmx155mm
  • tele vue sol searcher solar finder
  • Redcat51 w/ redcat guide scope
  • Electric automatic focuser
  • Am5 w/ carbon fiber tripod
  • Eqm 35 pro w/ steel tripod (haven’t used in a year or so)
  • ASIair plus
  • asiair pro (haven’t used in a long time either)
  • Cheap dslr manual tripod
  • asi 2600mm pro w/ 7 filter wheel
  • Asi183mc pro
  • nikon 5000 dslr w/ 18-105mm lens
  • Asi174mm mini


Here’s my initial plan, set up the redcat on the am5, asi183mc and with one of the solar filters. I’m not sure if the guide scope with the 174mm mini will work with the ASIair plus on the sun, even if I put the solar filter over the end of it? Will
the ASIair even register the distance it’s off and auto correct to keep the sun in frame? 

then assuming I get all that figured out, I then need some advice on ASIair settings. I was hoping to do as many captures as I can over the course of the few hours of the eclipse. Should I take off the filter during the total eclipse? What should the exposure time be and the gain with/without these filters?

the second setup I was thinking is just putting the Nikon on the manual
tripod and attaching the second solar filter to the end of it and taking another video(?) or lots of exposures(?) I don’t have a lot of experience with dslrs so that could get complicated for me. I’d also have to constantly adjust the tripod to keep the sun in focus so I’m not sure how that’s going to go either.

Would it be better to get out my old ASIair pro on the old eqm35 with my Nikon? If so again what should my ASIair settings be?

any help would be greatly appreciated! CS everyone!
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drmdvl 0.00
Scott Horton
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Likely best advice, given no practice time and going on vacation for a week - leave the gear at home and enjoy the eclipse or you will be extremely busy fussing with the gear and miss the whole thing. Are you going to be in totality? Yup, filters off about 30 seconds before and after totality.

But if you are brave and willing to miss the event visually - I would say easiest is tripod, nikon, lens on manual focus with intervalometer and remote trigger - widefield partials with landscape
More complex - long focal length, take partials, bracket 9-13 stops during totality. Frame the sun so it drifts slowly and recenter manually every so often. 
Added complexity - burst mode diamond rings, baileys beads before C2 and start of C3

More complex, AM5 with the above setup - though the redcat will get you better focal length with the nikon. Learn to daytime polar align / drift align on our sun and solar track wtih asiair only. Manually obtain images as above.
Leave the guide scope at home and astrocams at home. 
*Beware, depending on your viewing location, the sun is set to cross the meridian during totality in souuthern states, be prepared to deal with that!

Most complex - do the above but automate your image acquisition with elicpse maestro, elicpse orchestrator or setnc.

Start with these resources and then decide how you want to tackle it.
Id watch Nebula Photos 5 part series here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGiziVV7YDM
Solar eclipse timer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp57Z_vmOwE
Automated acquisition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLHfURDO1YY
Alan Dyer lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EMnVvOmEIo
Stan Honda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yan7ri9kFSQ

Eclipse circumstances for your viewing location (timing your acquisition) http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html
Exposure calculator (this is a guideline not hard and fast, requires testing) http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/SolarEclipseExposure.html


Best of luck!!
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sfanutti 1.91
Steven Fanutti
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I've never seen or captured a total solar eclipse, but I have many years of experience in solar photography. The common advice I read is that if you have never seen a total solar eclipse, enjoy the moment visually or else you will get all caught up in adjusting camera settings and totality will be over before you know it.

If you really want to capture the eclipse and are perhaps willing to compromise, you can capture the partial phases and just enjoy totality visually. For me, this is the plan (weather permitting), although I won't experience totality as I live in one of those 99% areas and I made the personal decision to avoid crowds and traffic during that day. For my most recent solar imaging project, I used a Sigma 150-500 mm lens with a 1.4x telextender for a total focal length of 700 mm. I used a Canon EOS T3 Rebel. I used Thousand Oaks Silver Black Polymer for the filter. For exposure, I used AV mode, ISO 200 and center-weighted average metering to get the right shutter speed. I then stacked 220 images and processed the result for the final image:



The Sun - March 5, 2024

You can photograph the partial phases the same way, but with a few differences. Here my tips apply to DSLR cameras:
  1. As more of the Sun gets covered, your camera will likely compensate by increasing the exposure time, overexposing the visible Sun. To avoid this, take a photo of the pre-eclipsed Sun, make note of the settings and dial the settings in Manual mode so that they remain the same during the partial phases of the eclipse.
  2. As the Moon is moving, if you are planning on stacking images, you won't be able to stack nearly as many as on a pre-eclipsed Sun. The Moon will be in a slightly different position relative to the Sun after each successive shot, even when shooting in a rapid sequence. However, you can still get greatly improved images by stacking as little as 10 photos. This keeps the visible motion of the Moon to a minimum in the stack.
  3. I recommend choosing a medium aperture value, such as f/10. In my experience, using a narrow aperture such as f/16, f/18, etc. revealed dust spots on the sensor, even after sensor cleaning. To minimize the chances of dust spots on the sensor showing on your images, do the Dust Delete Data procedure on your camera.
  4. There's a lot of buzz about the eclipse, but don't forget the Sun itself! This a solar maximum year, so a very large sunspot group may be visible. Even if you don't capture totality, seeing the Moon cover such a sunspot would make a nice photo to post on AstroBin!


A final point: Focal length really matters. Resolution goes up squarely proportional to the increase factor in focal length. For example, a lens with a 200 mm focal length will show the Sun in 4 times the resolution as a 100 mm lens will. A 700 mm focal length will show the Sun in 1.96 times the resolution a 500 mm lens will, which was the reason for my decision to purchase a 1.4x telextender. If you are planning to use a lens with less than a 200 mm focal length, you can still capture the partial phases and assemble a collage of the eclipse. A smaller solar disk will also affect the metering as there is more black in the image and you may have to do more trial and error with your camera settings.

Good luck! I hope this helps.
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Black_Dog_Astrophotography 0.90
Chase Davidson
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Steven Fanutti:
I've never seen or captured a total solar eclipse, but I have many years of experience in solar photography. The common advice I read is that if you have never seen a total solar eclipse, enjoy the moment visually or else you will get all caught up in adjusting camera settings and totality will be over before you know it.

If you really want to capture the eclipse and are perhaps willing to compromise, you can capture the partial phases and just enjoy totality visually. For me, this is the plan (weather permitting), although I won't experience totality as I live in one of those 99% areas and I made the personal decision to avoid crowds and traffic during that day. For my most recent solar imaging project, I used a Sigma 150-500 mm lens with a 1.4x telextender for a total focal length of 700 mm. I used a Canon EOS T3 Rebel. I used Thousand Oaks Silver Black Polymer for the filter. For exposure, I used AV mode, ISO 200 and center-weighted average metering to get the right shutter speed. I then stacked 220 images and processed the result for the final image:



The Sun - March 5, 2024

You can photograph the partial phases the same way, but with a few differences. Here my tips apply to DSLR cameras:
  1. As more of the Sun gets covered, your camera will likely compensate by increasing the exposure time, overexposing the visible Sun. To avoid this, take a photo of the pre-eclipsed Sun, make note of the settings and dial the settings in Manual mode so that they remain the same during the partial phases of the eclipse.
  2. As the Moon is moving, if you are planning on stacking images, you won't be able to stack nearly as many as on a pre-eclipsed Sun. The Moon will be in a slightly different position relative to the Sun after each successive shot, even when shooting in a rapid sequence. However, you can still get greatly improved images by stacking as little as 10 photos. This keeps the visible motion of the Moon to a minimum in the stack.
  3. I recommend choosing a medium aperture value, such as f/10. In my experience, using a narrow aperture such as f/16, f/18, etc. revealed dust spots on the sensor, even after sensor cleaning. To minimize the chances of dust spots on the sensor showing on your images, do the Dust Delete Data procedure on your camera.
  4. There's a lot of buzz about the eclipse, but don't forget the Sun itself! This a solar maximum year, so a very large sunspot group may be visible. Even if you don't capture totality, seeing the Moon cover such a sunspot would make a nice photo to post on AstroBin!


A final point: Focal length really matters. Resolution goes up squarely proportional to the increase factor in focal length. For example, a lens with a 200 mm focal length will show the Sun in 4 times the resolution as a 100 mm lens will. A 700 mm focal length will show the Sun in 1.96 times the resolution a 500 mm lens will, which was the reason for my decision to purchase a 1.4x telextender. If you are planning to use a lens with less than a 200 mm focal length, you can still capture the partial phases and assemble a collage of the eclipse. A smaller solar disk will also affect the metering as there is more black in the image and you may have to do more trial and error with your camera settings.

Good luck! I hope this helps.

Thanks a lot Steven, this was very helpful. I’ll try not to get wrapped up in the photography but no promises. It looks like a sunny day today so I’ll try to practice a bit. I’m thinking just taking a few shots of the total eclipse with my dslr is what will let me take it all in visually and not be fussing with the ASIAIR settings.
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sfanutti 1.91
Steven Fanutti
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There's a large sunspot group visible today. I was able to just see it with the eclipse viewer.

For the eclipse, I will probably piggyback my Canon 75-300 mm lens on my Sky-Watcher 102 mm short-tube refractor. That way, I can enjoy both photography and visual observing at the same time. I have a Meade 56 mm Plossl that I really enjoy using for low power solar viewing. I've tried this piggyback method for solar photography before with eclipses in mind and I really enjoyed the experience. Before the eclipse, I will probably take photos afocally through my telescope for high resolution. I tried this recently using just the stock 25 mm eyepiece that came with the telescope and I was stunned how comparable the result was to my DLSR images.


The Sun - February 26, 2024 (Smartphone Image Stack)
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sfanutti 1.91
Steven Fanutti
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Hi @Chase Davidson ,

Here's some additional information on the setup that I use and how I do things.



My Solar Setup


My Solar Shield

And today's Sun taken with that setup.


The Sun - March 24, 2024


The Sun - March 24, 2024

A Sun shield would be a good thing to make that would help taking your solar images.
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