Solar Eclipse, 2012

	Total Eclipse of the Sun, 2017
	About a year prior, I started investigating the idea of watching the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. I had only seen the annular eclipse of 2012, so this upcoming eclipse seemed like another worthy adventure. The path of totality was well north of my location in New Mexico, so I found a few airports on or near centerline that could make for an easy flight with my camera equipment. I also figured I could have one of the uncontrolled airports mostly to myself. Fast forward to July 2017 and eclipse frenzy has overtaken the country! My airport of choice, KAIA (Alliance, NE) had required and then stopped taking reservations once they had over 225 small aircraft and jets scheduled! It was going to be a zoo! The new plan was to drive to Nebraska and meet up with some friends who also planned to see the eclipse. Classes had already started at NMSU the week prior, so I had to arrange for a teacher's assistant to fill in while I was gone. Of course, with the new "drive plan", there were no hotels available within any nearby state for preposition lodging. I found a good camp location at one of the lakes in Nebraska, and after the eclipse, I would hightail it back to NMSU to give my 8:55am lecture on Tuesday. Traffic was the unknown, but I definitely planned to avoid I-25 and all of the Denver area traffic. The drive up was just fine, but unfortunately afterwards, a 30-minute drive took over 3 hours to get past the Hwy 85 traffic going into the east side of Denver. I drove straight through the night, got one hour of sleep, and made it to my lecture with 5 minutes to spare!


	The original "fly plan" to Alliance airport. The blue line on the map inset shows the centerline of totality right over the runways. The flight would've taken about 3 hrs 50 mins. Had the weather not been cooperative, there would've been no alternative to relocate.	The resulting "drive plan" up the back roads of Colorado. On the way up, we actually went through C-Springs for a mandatory "On The Border" stop!


	The vehicle completely loaded for the "Zombie Eclipalypse" as we began to refer to the eclipse event. My mom indicated there were already fuel shortages at some gas stations in Oregon, and the risk was non-zero that I could face the same situation.	Meeting up with Lynda at "On The Border". Lynda just started her teaching position at USAFA, a welcome break from her Pentagon tour.



	A nice, quiet location to set up camp in Nebraska since all of the hotels were long since booked.	Gear in place! From left to right, I had my large telescope with a solar white light filter, my new hydrogen-alpha solar scope, and regular 400mm lens on tripod and all with cameras. Ray's camera is to the far right.


	The complete gang in place, waiting for the big event.	My remaining camera is visible in the foreground where it is set up for an animation sequence (whenever I get around to it). Located on Hwy 85, we're in the middle of nowhere, but this day it is packed with cars looking south...


	...and packed with cars looking north!	We met several of our short-term neighbors, to include Scott & Jeannie and Jennifer & Dominique. Peter and Eric made good use of their smartphone cameras with my telescope!


	Proof that Ray gets his best eclipse picture with his smartphone through my camera and telescope set up! As you can see, he is very serious about his photography as well!	The eclipsing sun as seen through my hydrogen-alpha scope. The H-a scope permits only a very narrow bandwidth of light, making it possible to see more detail on the sun's surface. The textures around the sun spots are visible in this photo.


	The eclipse itself was amazing to see in person with the corona shining as brilliant white light and fiery prominances visible from the sun's limb.	The sun is now starting to peek back out from behind the moon. A very full weekend, but in the end, well worth witnessing the rare event.