For his birthday, my son-in-law Ron, wanted to witness the Annular Eclipse. I was totally on board with this desire. In 2017 I was lucky enough to witness a total eclipse while staying in the Grand Tetons. While that was amazing, the opportunity to view an annular eclipse seemed to good to pass up. While the total eclipse covered the sun completely, I thought seeing an eclipse where it would look like there was a hole in the sun would be pretty amazing as well.
So after a little research we decided to head to Albuquerque, New Mexico. As the drive was only 14 hours we decided that between the two of us it was the best way to get there as it allowed us to bring the camera gear we wanted.
We left on the 12th and planned to get to Albuquerque by around midnight. The trip started out poorly as Ron had ordered a solar filter which should have shown up before we left, but didn’t. So while I drove, he went online to order an inexpensive replacement that could be delivered the next day to our hotel. Our drive took us through Bakersfield, and up towards Tehachapi where we unfortunately were delayed for over an hour while they cleaned up the freeway from a truck fire, where the truck in question burned down to just pieces of the chassis. Because of this we ended up not getting into Albuquerque until 2 am. Fortunately since we had planned a whole extra day before the eclipse, we were able to just relax and not have to worry about this delay.
We spent the following day scouting locations and visiting the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. This turned out to be quite en amazing location. Besides exhibits highlighting the Manhattan Project, it also had exhibits about the Japanese and German efforts to develop the Atom Bomb. Better yet they had a B-29 and B-52 bomber among their airplane exhibit area behind the main building.
While there Ron gets a notice that his replacement Solar Filter was refused by our hotel. Now the earliest he could get it would be the following Monday. So since plan A and B didn’t work we would now need a plan C, if he was going to photograph the eclipse.
We chose Petroglyph National Monument as our viewing site. So the next day, we arrived early at the park and managed to find a parking spot perfectly situated for our viewing.
While I was able to take these photos using my Canon 6D Mark II, a 150 -600mm Tamron lens and the solar filter. Ron was still needing to come up with a way to take his own pictures.
We talked about sharing my lens and filter or just letting him take the photos from my camera. Fortunately another opportunity presented itself. While setting up our cameras a park ranger that we had talked with the day before happen to pass by and offer us solar filter viewing cards which provided a single strip of material that you could hold up and view the eclipse with without having to wear the cheap eclipse sunglasses. Turns out the strip was just large enough for him to use a camera filter.
Central Coast Senior 