The most spectacular sight in all of nature, a total solar eclipse draws travelers from all over the globe.  The path of this eclipse traveled from the North Atlantic across Europe and into western Asia.  Cloudy weather prevented many people in western Europe from seeing the eclipse.  Conditions in eastern Europe and Asia were better.  I traveled to Turkey as part of a tour group.  Three days after we left Istanbul for home, western Turkey was devastated by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake.   The nearly symmetrical corona and numerous prominences seen here are typical of that seen near solar maximum.

Instrument:  C5
F-ratio:  f/10
Exposures:  1/1000 second, 1/60 sec., 1/15 sec., 1/4 sec., 1/2 sec., 1 sec.
Film:  Elite Chrome 200
Date:  August 11, 1999
Location:  Bagdere, Turkey
Technical Notes:  A technique described in a paper by Russell Brown <http://www.adobe.com/print/tips/phseclipse/main.html> was used to create this image.  Six exposures were combined digitally with Layer Masks in Photoshop.  An unsharp mask was created with a radial blur of 10 and added to the composite image, then added again to enhance detail.