The 2012 total solar eclipse was visible from land only near the beginning of its track in Northern Australia. Our observing location was on a mountain ridge west of Port Douglas. The mountain ridge blocked several degrees of the western horizon, so the Sun was already partially eclipse when it cleared the mountain ridge. There were thin high clouds all over the eastern sky with thicker low clouds moving through. A hole in the low clouds appeared a few minutes before second contact; the hole began to close before third contact, while high clouds were present throught totality. The clouds and low elevation of the Sun made it difficult to reach precise focus, which accounts for the soft appearance of these images.

Second Contact

Equipment: Borg 77mm ED refractor/Kenko SkyMemo mount/Nikon D300
F-ratio: f/6.5
Exposures: 1/2000 second at ISO 200
Date: November 14, 2012
Location: Wetherby Station (near Mount Molloy), Queensland, Australia

Third Contact

Equipment: Borg 77mm ED refractor/Kenko SkyMemo mount/Nikon D300
F-ratio: f/6.5
Exposures: 1/1000 second at ISO 200
Date: November 14, 2012
Location: Wetherby Station (near Mount Molloy), Queensland, Australia

Composite image of the corona

Equipment: Borg 77mm ED refractor/Kenko SkyMemo mount/Nikon D300
F-ratio: f/6.5
Exposures: 1/2000, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8 second at ISO 200, using Eclipse Orchestrator 3.4
Date: November 14, 2012
Location: Wetherby Station (near Mount Molloy), Queensland, Australia

Technical Notes: The exposures were aligned and combined using Photomatix 4.2 to create a 32-bit high dynamic range image and converted to a 16-bit TIFF. The resulting image was processed using Photoshop CS3 and CS5. The original image was duplicated and then a Radial Blur of 10 pixels applied to it. This blurred copy was subtracted from the original image and the resulting image was then combined with the original image using Linear Light to enhance detail.