Annular Eclipse Above Utah

From the photographer: “A week before the Oct 14 eclipse the weather forecast for the entire Southwest looked poor, requiring a drive even farther to New Mexico or Texas. Luckily, the prospects improved and we had fabulous skies eclipse morning. I was able to set up at a great site just outside the Park (away from the travel restrictions imposed that day by the Park), at a viewpoint behind the hotels in Bryce Canyon City, on private land but open to hotel guests for the eclipse.

It worked out very well as I could set up the wide-angle composite camera with a fine view below, and where I could keep an eye on it all morning. It had to be at that precise spot by that one fencepost to see the river below. Plus I could park steps away where I could set up my scope and mount. The telescope was the venerable Astro-Physics Traveler, a 105mm apo designed by Roland Christen for the 1991 eclipse in Mexico. I bought one of the first models back in 1992. I’ve used it now at 2 annulars and 3 totals. I’ll use it in 2024. I also set up a 400mm telephoto for an untracked time-lapse. Examples from the three cameras are attached.

As per usual at eclipses, despite prep and practice, two major things went wrong:
On setting up, I realized I had forgotten a crucial cable to connect the mount electronics to the motors, so I had no tracking! So much for a time-lapse sequence thru the scope. And at third contact the Canon R5 froze up with an Error, so none of the high-speed burst images from C3 recorded. It worked great at C2. It’s a known bug in Canon firmware and is intermittent, perhaps happening when the camera is not attached to an RF lens — it was on the scope.. I just updated the firmware and it still does it. Better now than on April 8, 2024.”