{"id":1147,"date":"2016-03-12T20:31:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T12:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/?p=1147"},"modified":"2016-03-12T20:35:51","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T12:35:51","slug":"partial-solar-eclipse-9-mar-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/2016\/03\/partial-solar-eclipse-9-mar-2016","title":{"rendered":"Partial Solar Eclipse 9 Mar 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A composite of the shots from the partial solar eclipse on 9 Mar 2016. The 3rd crescent from the left is of the maximum eclipse at 8:23am.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On 9 March 2016, a large part of the Pacific, including South East Asia and Australia was treated to a rare celestial event, a solar eclipse. Unfortunately, Singaporeans are only able to see a partial eclipse, with the\u00a087% of the sun being covered by the moon. It’s still a rare event nonetheless, with the last solar eclipse here being 18 years ago in 1998. And until this day, I have not once seen a solar eclipse, though I have seen and photographed the more common lunar eclipse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The sun at 8:05am on 9 Mar 2016.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the eclipse slated to start at 7:22am and reaching its maximum at 8:23am, it’s perfect timing of me to catch it just before work. I set off much earlier than normal and got to the rooftop of my building. I didn’t manage to get solar filters on time, so I mounted a 10-stop ND filter on my Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f\/4 lens. To maximise the magnification, I used my old Nikon V1 camera. With a crop factor of 2.7x, this gives me an effective focal length of 540mm to shoot the eclipse. The 10-stop ND filter reduced the brightness enough for me to take proper photos of it. Composing through the LCD also meant that I didn’t have to look at the sun through the optics of a traditional DSLR setup, which can be harmful to the eyes.<\/p>\n

\"My
My camera setup for shooting the eclipse. Nikon V1 with Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f\/4, Nikon FT-1 lens adapter and 10-stop ND filter.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The eclipse was already in progress when I arrived, and wanting to capture a bit of the clouds rather than having just a crescent-like object, I had inadvertently set the exposure to be too bright for most of the eclipse. I only realised this much later, which explains the almost-white crescent shaped sun you see in the composite above.\u00a0I also brought along 2 pieces of cardboard, one of which had a pinhole, to try out the pinhole projection method of viewing the eclipse safely. It sure is a novel way to view it.<\/p>\n

\"Pinhole
Pinhole projection of the sun at 8:16am.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One thing I realised is that because this is not a total eclipse, the sun is not fully covered by the moon at its peak. Despite having 87% coverage, the surroundings are still reasonably bright, resembling the even golden hour twilight. Hence, it’s still as dangerous to look at the sun without protection at this time.<\/p>\n

\"The
The beautiful light shortly after maximum eclipse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next eclipse visible in Singapore will be on 26 December 2019, and it will be a total eclipse. Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch that as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 9 March 2016, a large part of the Pacific, including South East Asia and Australia was treated to a rare celestial event, a solar eclipse. Unfortunately, Singaporeans are only able to see a partial eclipse, with the\u00a087% of the sun being covered by the moon. It’s still a rare event nonetheless, with the last… Continue reading Partial Solar Eclipse 9 Mar 2016<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[217,583,177,21,581,582],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1154,"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions\/1154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ckphoto.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}