Eclipse and Ecliptic

Photo Composite. When I was in Chile for the total Solar eclipse of 2nd July 2019, I planned to photograph a panorama of Ecliptic with the total Solar eclipse. Thanks to the wide open horizon of our site, a 1700-m hilltop about 40 km northeast of La Serena, I was able to do this, including an all-sky panorama of the eclipse showing four planets and a good number of stars recorded in the Lunar shadow. After the eclipse and sunset, I first shot some pictures of the darkening sky over the western horizon where Mercury and Mars were briefly visible. Then I shot more photos of the sky along ecliptic later at night up to Capricornus. This was enough to include Jupiter and Saturn, shining against the galactic core.

I processed the panorama from the total Solar eclipse and the panorama of the night time ecliptic separately, with both panoramas having identical parameters of projection. After achieving two separate panoramas the only remaining task was to merge the two images with a smooth transition. This turned out to be the most difficult and time consuming stage.

The four classical planets, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn are covered in the night time photography.The eclipse provided the remaining three: Moon, Sun, and Venus. Zodiacal Light, sunlight scattered by the dust along the plane of the Solar System, can also be traced from Cancer through Leo, Virgo to Libra.