TV-85: Dennis di Cicco / Sean Walker
2008 August Eclipse from China

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This amazing TV-85 image of the August 1st, 2008 total solar eclipse reveals faint, fine, wide-field details of solar coronal streamers and magnetic loops as well as flaring limb prominences, some earthshine on the moon and stars!

Image from pages 64-65 of June 2009 issue. Courtesy of Sky & Telescope.

The imager was a Nikon D300 camera set to ISO 200, autobracket and continuous shooting mode. The camera took a 9-frame bracket with 1-stop intervals in a span of 2.3 seconds. Exposures ranged from 1/500 to ½ second.

The individual frames were combined using a high-dynamic-range technique to reveal details beyond the dynamic range of any of the individual frames. You can zoom in on the full-frame image here (hover your mouse or click + hold on touch screens) or see a pop-up of the screen filling, full-size, 4033 x 2592px image — you'll have to use the sliders on your browser to examine the frame. A crop from the full-size image is shown below.

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Taken from the "official" Chinese observing village near Hami, by Dennis di Cicco. Image processing by Sean Walker.