Overview

This section will incrementally introduce new features that will be important to get the best results.

Using a Real Camera

Now that we have seen a simple startup using a Simulated camera it is time to introduce more features of the program and talk about the best way to make use of them.

I strongly recommend that you ALWAYS power cycle your camera before starting this App. I also strongly recommend that if you lose connection to your camera you restart the app instead of connecting again. That is why there is no Close.

This is also a good time to remind you of some settings that you will have to manually perform on the camera. In some cases the program can determine if they are made. In others it cannot and you will have problems if they are not set

Camera Automatic Shutoff This needs to be set to either off or a long time
AF/MF This needs to be set to MF
Program Mode The dial needs to be set to M
Image Stabilize This needs to be off
White Balance For most cameras this should be set to AWB. Some cameras {e.g. one of mine} require an exotic setting that I did not want to impose as yet another option
Image Review I would set this off since it just saps the battery

And while we are at it a reminder to either turn off sleep on your Mac^® or set it for a long time. It is 90 minutes from C1 to C2. You will probably be letting the computer run during that time. While the partial phases are boring, you don't want your computer to take a nap.

The Canon camera support has a bug when running on Sonoma; however, it is one easily avoided. If when you attach your camera the card is empty (i.e. freshly formatted or all images erased) the connection to the camera will hang. When running on Sonoma you will receive the warning shown below. If you are unsure just fire off an image using the manual release.

Connect your Camera then start the App. Since you ran the Quickstart you will see the Open Dialog for the Texas 24 site. This one is fine. Accept it.

This time instead of the "Did Not Find" dialog you will get a dialog to select a camera.

When you accept the camera the Canon software may take a considerable time before it continues (it builds a catalog of its chip). The Button is replaced by a spinner to confirm I am not hung.

If this is the first time you have run with a camera you may get a permissions dialogs. The one shown appears to only happen on Catalina (which is no longer a supported version). If you do see it You must answer OK to this!
If you forget and and answer DONT ALLOW then you will have to fix the problem by going to System Preferences-> Security and Privacy-> Privacy-> Files and Folders-> CaptureEclipse.app and click Allow Removable.

You may also get a dialog to allow access to the Documents directory. This is where all of the user visible files are stored. You must say yes to this (CaptureEclipse is restricted to just its named directory) or the program will die a horrible death

You will get another Camera Preferences dialog (since this is a different camera) and a new Scenario.

Select Time->C2 again. The main monitor window will be the same as what you saw before.

Now we press run. Since we did not adjust the Camera Parameters the camera will be running in its default mode.
Note when we get to C2 the camera will start rapidly taking pictures. These are your Bailey's Bead Shots! Later I will show you how you can get even finer resolution.

The pictures will be captured in the camera for the user to download later.

A Short Eclipse

Note: This concerns the April 23 eclipse which is now just a memory. The text still conveys some valuable information since, for example, the sample 2026 Spanish site is not able to complete a full set of exposures either.

So far we have only been dealing with the Texas 24 eclipse. Ah if all eclipses were that long. Unfortunately Texas 24 is an outlier far as its length.

In April 23 thousands of people are going to crowd a small peninsula in North Western Australia as it is the only first-world land this short eclipse will cross. The next example is from one of the towns on that peninsula, Learmonth. It is not on the centerline and that makes a short eclipse even shorter.

EclipseWise

Launch the program. If you get the Open Dialog then cancel it. Go to Site->New. Select the "2023 April Australia" Example

Select the simulated camera when it is offered. If you have run the previous examples the camera preferences dialog will not happen. You should go to the Scenario Editor, but instead you get this.
What this is telling you is there is not enough time to take all of the photos you requested.

Once the dialog is acknowledged the Scenario Editor is displayed. Note that Earthshine is deselected. You can't take this image with the current camera settings so the program will not let you ask for it.
If you want to get creative you could reduce the corona exposures to allow the Earthshine to be take, but frankly Earthshine is both the longest and least important exposure of the set.
An alternative would be to reduce the delay between corona exposures using Delay Test; however, part of the reason for the delay is to allow the camera to catch up from the Burst Task.

Annular Eclipse

On October 14, 2023 the moon shadow crossed the US again - sort of. The moon was too far from the earth to cause a total eclipse.

http://eclipsewise.com

What will happen instead is a "Ring of Fire" or, more properly, an Annular Eclipse.
Annular Eclipses will not draw the mass crowds of a Total Eclipse (since you will NEVER be able to look at the sun without eye protection), but being in the US it will draw people like yourself who are interested in eclipses.

Annular Eclipses require different script generation. Let's see the example.
Open the program. If the Open Dialog is shown then Cancel and select Site->New. Version 1.5 includes a new sample site for the 2027 eclipse in Argentina the "2027 Annular" button. This will give the parameters for Mar del Plata, Argentina (south of Buenos Aires) which is on the track

A reminder. . .

During an annular eclipse the sun surface will always be exposed. It is NEVER safe to look at the sun without eye protection.

Proceed as before past the dialog for the Simulated Camera to the Scenario Generator
Note that it looks very different than before. Since Annulars are a different breed it requires a different tool.

Accept the dialog

Now have a look at the middle of the Annual period. Note how different the tasks are
With annulars you want to capture a perfect picture of the ring (like mine above). Thus we have another Burst at max eclipse.

As a reminder v 1.5 will automatically insert marker exposures into the scenario so the user knows which exposures are for the Cxs and max. The log can be then used to determine the actual exposure time.

Deeper Into Camera Prefs

In previous lessons we have ignored the contents of the Camera Prefs Dialog. In fact, this dialog is extremely important to get the best results. So now let us open it up and dissect it.

First Let us have a look at the entire dialog for a live Camera (in this case a EOS 60Da). This looks different for a simulated camera since some features cannot be simulated.
The dialog is divided into sections. Let's look at them one at a time

At the top is the section containing the mount.

Setting this correctly is important

The mount controls what exposures are selected for automatic use. These can be overridden as described in Exposures, but it is important to know the defaults and why they exist.

Monopod and Ship This setting is for cases where either you are moving or when you are using a monopod to support your camera (which likely means you are on a ship). In this case the decision is to use the highest iso setting that gives an exposure. It will also not use an exposure that is slower than 1/100 sec. This should give you a better chance at a clear image.
Tripod This is the case where you are using a conventional camera tripod. The sun will be moving while you take your image so you do not want to shoot too slow, but you don't need to be as aggresive as the ship case. This will select an exposure that is <1/2 second.
Tracking In this case you have a tracking mount on land that is properly aligned. The exposure is limited to 2.0 secs

The second part of this section is to set the f/stop. This is a combination box if you are using a lens. If you are using a telescope this becomes a text box where you have to give the f/stop of your optics. This is required

The camera will tell the program whether it has a lens attached or not. If it says it does not then you are in telescope mode. You can simulate this by simply using the body cap for your camera.

lens

telescope f stop selection

telescope

The Final Part is to specify what solar filter you are using. This is described in the Exposures section below

The next section sets the ISO limits. In general, I would not change min ISO from 100. The max ISO can be set based on your confidence concerning how noisy your camera is. This is usually only relevant in ship mode.

The next sets some of the operating parameters for the camera. In the Live Camera demo we used the default which uses the same value as the priority exposure time ( default 1 second). If your camera can support faster exposures this is where you enable it.

Press the Test Delay Button will allow you to test whether your camera can be more aggressive and take more exposures. See that section for more explanation.

The times for Burst Delay, Priority images (Diamond ring, Chromo, and Prom) and Corona Image are displayed, but they have to be modified in the tester. The defaults are probably OK, but different cameras may respond differently.

The last section is a miscellaneous which enables two optional features.
The first is voice where you hear prompts recorded by me of various events. SEM had these and I found them useful. I added some more

A reminder to focus at C2 - 15 minutes
A reminder the Chromosphere is about to appear shortly before C3

"Sync Time" depends on your camera type. If your camera allows the program to set the time then this is enabled. The 60D shown here does not. For more information see Camera Time

Exposures

The single focus of this program is getting your eclipse images on time with the correct exposure. I must admit in the past I sometimes used rather ad hoc methods of picking exposures. Sometimes this was dictated by circumstance (such as having to rely on camera bracketing) and sometimes by the decisions of other programs.

In this program I made getting the exposures right a priority. For that I am relying again on "Mr Eclipse", Fred Espenak, and his paper How to Photograph a Solar Eclipse.. In that paper he presents an equation for calculating the correct eclipse exposure for each of the phenomenon. Over the years I have accumulated enough images to confirm that Fred's exposures for totality are correct.

Solar Filters

Unfortunately his settings for solar filters are obsolete. "ND4" is a type of solar filter referred to as "Photographic". It passes so much light that the only source I knew of stopped selling them for safety reasons. When I looked at the three filters I owned I found that all three had different sweet spots and none matched his "ND5"

Thus this program defines several solar filter exposures (which turn out to be one f/stop different). Based on my measurements. Your declare your filter type in the Camera Prefs dialog

SF_TO Matches the Solarlite filter made by Thousand Oaks. This is a very dark filter and this might be still underexposed.
SF_ND5 Matches none of the filters I own, but is the definition from Espenak
SF_B Matches a filter made with Baader Film such as those distributed by Kendrick.
SF_O Matches a glass filter made by Orion. This might be a tad underexposed, the sample below uses the SF_B setting.

Neutral Density filters such as those sold by Lee Filters are not compiliant with safety standards. They are not supported by this product.

Each of these is a good, safe product (when used as directed) . I personally prefer Baader film since it is easier to see sunspots, but it does give the sun a rather unnatural color. The focus tool has a feature that works best with Baader film.

Since we are talking about solar filters this is good time to reiterate the warning under voice.

If you enable voice commands then one of the commands is "Filters Off". It is critically important to understand that command. This is the point where it is safe to expose your camera to direct sunlight. It is NOT safe to look through your optics at this point . In fact, until you visually confirm, with your safety eclipse glasses on, that the last bead is out (i.e. you see nothing) it is unsafe to look at the sun. I specifically did NOT put a "OK it is safe now" message in the program, but did include the "CHROMO CHROMO" warning to prompt you that visually it is unsafe. Even here, as I describe in my video series, if you see a band of red along an edge it is time to stop looking Right Now

The only 100% safe method is to NEVER look through your optics (or binoculars).

To see what exposure choices are legal for each of the phenomenon I provide a tool that can be accessed under Camera->Exposure Calculator. For each phenomenon I present one of my photos as a sample image with its true exposure. You can then explore which exposures are legal for different camera settings. I think you will agree the ones the tools says are overexposed are and vice versa.

Prior to this version you had the opportunity to tune the exposures yourself. This feature is depreciated in Version 1.5. I may see about adding it back after April 2024, but only if asked.

Burst Capture

Please review the important information in Test Delay Dialog to understand how to properly enable Burst Capture.

Burst Mode is one of the major improvements over what I have done in the past (along with Focus discussed next). With this it is possible to take a set of images like those on the Mr Eclipse website

from http://www.mreclipse.com/

The trick here is to reduce the exposure delay during the C's ( and during Annular Max). This allows more photos to be taken in a very short time. The tradeoff is not all cameras support it (or support it well). I used two cameras during development (EOS 60Da and EOS 80D). The 60D would take 10 to 12 exposures within the 6 second C window (although with tests immediately before the release on an M1 native system I could no longer get that speed and had to go back to 1 sec). I could not coax the 80D to run that fast. It had to remain on the 1.0 second setting (OK I got it down to 0.8, but would probably run it at 1.0). But because this involves some risk of losing exposures the program requires you prove the camera is capable of correct operation before changing the defaults.

Note that the defaults may even be too fast for some cameras. My 20D (which this program cannot support) is not able to run this fast.

The Delay Test is a button in the Camera Prefs dialog. If you have passed the dialog you can access it by Camera->Edit Parameters.

I suggest only changing the burst Interval (In the combo box). You can also experiment with changing Corona Delay (although the program restricts the number of corona sets to 4). Changing this might allow you to squeeze out more images during a short eclipse.

Note that the Burst Time is twice the number you enter in the scenario generator. Even at a 1.0 second delay this will capture 6 shots during the C interval which is more than I have gotten in the past.

I would leave the Priority and Corona numbers as they are. But this is the place to change them. Feel free to experiment if you like. I was happy with being able to capture 6 seconds of C (which is 3 second on either side of the predicted C point for an ideal moon.

This is demonstration of the test running

Finally this is the scenario running. Notice the difference in the sound when the Burst Task is performed. If you need a refresher here is what it sounded like in the default mode

If you want to nerd out you can actually see the difference when you compare the two recordings. The top recording is the default 1.0 sec. The bottom is 0.5 sec. I have annotated the non C2 images. Compare the area above the red arrow.

Focus

NEVER try to focus your camera on the sun unless a proper solar filter is in place.

For me the single biggest stressor during an eclipse is getting focus. Previously I did not have any good way to do it. If you have a computer you could use a tool that would take a picture and download the image. Well that works, but is clumsy. The Canon SDK Sample program, which demonstrates the use of the Software Development Kit I am using, provided a better solution. It is able to couple to the Live Mode in the camera that provides a near real time look at what the camera sees. I greatly adapted that code for use in this program

One thing that makes focusing a challenge is that the only way to get a live focus on the sun is to do so with the solar filter on. This makes it hard to even find the sun in your lens. My Photographing Solar Eclipses tutorial talks about some ways to make that easier. Here I want to concentrate on to use this program to tune the focus both with a lens that this program can control and with a telescope that the program cannot.

I have always used sunspots as a focus target. You cannot use the edge of the sun for final focus since it is naturally fuzzy. Sunspots usually have lots of detail if you zoom in on them. The morning of the eclipse I look at Space Weather and use the Mac^® SOHO App or iOS^® SOHO App to locate a sun spot. Then the task is to focus.

Now let me demonstrate with a real world example. This is the SOHO image for the day I recorded the example. If this was April 20, 2023 I would be reaching for my Maalox. One tiny sunspot. I did get my camera focused in 2016 with a similarly small spot, but it took forever and I was afraid to touch the camera afterwards.

So how did the program do?

Focus with a Lens

A couple of points to note

You are dealing with real hardware making physical changes. Be patient.
I found that invert mode worked best on Baader filters and less so on the Thousand Oaks or Orion.
The sharp eyed reader will notice the spinner. This increments whenever a new image is received
You may have to increase the exposure to keep Live Focus happy

Focus with a Telescope

Now that we have seen how the tool helps when you can control the lens what about the case where the telescope focus has to be separately changed. Well first off this is a case where it helps to have friends. But even if you choose to use this as your eclipse day exercise the process is similar to the above.

To save time the telescope is already close to focus.