If you're on the path of totality, I have some advice for you: Experience the eclipse. Just *be there* for it.
Excellent advice from @philplait.bsky.social for a total solar eclipse: don't worry about your camera or phone, just experience it, and your experience is your own 🧪🔭 www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-so...
To make the most of any total solar eclipse, put down your gadgets and bask in one of our solar system’s most glorious spectacles
I was lucky to see the total eclipse in 1979, the most amazing spectacle I've ever seen. I have no photographs or other memorabilia, only my memory of the event. Extraordinary!
This was sound advice.
I absolutely did. Both times (saw 2017 too). I leave it to others to get photos. I just wanted to experience it.
I've seen two, and there are many things to say about them, but the one thing which really stands out for me is that for a small moment during each my field of vision expanded to the scale of the solar system in a way it never has before or since.
Okay but assuming I would like to take some pictures before and after, what kind of filter would I need to not f up my camera?
There was a solar scientist on the NOVA Livestream earlier today who had never seen a total before. Someone asked what he was most excited about, after a discussion of various bits of science being done, animal behavior, coronal studies, etc. He replied, "seeing my first total solar eclipse."
Of course. But you can also set up a device to record it and just let that device be while you have your experience. May help as a reminder of the experience later when you reminisce.
I experienced a total eclipse as a child in 1990 (location: Eastern Finland). It was like nothing else I had experienced before that, or ever since. It's not just dark, but this strange *unlight*, not a moment of night but the absence of day. (Or, in our case, of morning; it was about 5 AM.)
Okay this was great and I did totality in Cleveland and my mind is blown but for the love of god why was no one like “SUNSCREEN” protect your face not just your eyes. Next time we’re doing this I need someone on the sunscreen beat. Sincerely a lobster but it was worth it.
Got to see the last total solar eclipse and took just 1 photo of the eclipse before setting my camera down and just looking around. Absolutely worth experiencing without a camera the whole time.