Prior to eclipse… big sunspot visible. Click image to view full size on all of these.
The last corona shot, just before the “Diamond Ring” thing appeared.
Here’s the shot taken just at the end of totality, when it was clear that I had better hurry up and screw the solar filter back on.
Here’s the cheap Kickstarter piece of shit I used to take these photos…
What I would do differently, in hindsight.
Firstly, I wouldn’t use the supplied tripod. Way too flimsy and wiggly. I mean, stupid as it is, to take a photo, you have to touch the iPhone with your finger. On a couple occasions, I could see it flash some red text saying “waiting for stabilization” or similar. It should’ve done that every time, and the delay should’ve been twice as long.
Here’s how flimsy their shit tripod is – to re-center the sun/moon (because they move, relative to us), I had to push the thing far enough that the sun was no longer visible on the iPhone screen at all, plus a little more, then let go, and let the springiness of the tripod settle back and see if I guessed right.
But I was also at a shooting range (with nobody at it), with heavy concrete things that look like the best municipal park picnic bench/table you’ve ever seen, but for only one person. I would’ve been able to put the Hestia on my better tripod, with it shrunk to it’s shortest height (un-telescoped legs, center “neck” post dropped all the way), which is the most rigid the tripod can be.
Secondly, once the telescope and iPhone were in a stable, rigid position, buy and use a bluetooth remote shutter trigger, assuming it would work with Vaonis’ Gravity app (I don’t like the chances of that).
Thirdly, I would be careful to only screw the solar filter on a tiny part of the way. Like a half turn once the threads engaged. It’s not a lug nut holding a wheel on in 4WD low range to go climb that hill. It’s only got to keep a breeze from blowing it off. The struggle necessary to get the filter off once in totality, then get the corona image visible again in the phone, was way too much. Of course, this would’ve been improved by using a not-shitty tripod in a most-rigid setup.
