Roy Fischler's photos

Roy Fischler's photos - page 2

1991-1993

Turks and Caicos Club Med, January 1991 (no pictures worth showing)

L. A. and Baja solar eclipse trip, July 1991

These 3 shots of the total solar eclipse on 7-11-91, that we saw from a town near the southern tip of the Baja penninsula, were taken over the space of about 30 seconds, as totality approached and it went from dim daylight to virtually night, with a "sunset" at the horizon completely surrounding us:

These 2 shots were taken by my friend, not me, but I'm including them anyway. They're about the best shots of a solar eclipse taken with a film camera that I've seen, when film never captures what the corona looks like "in person". It either overexposes the inner corona or underexposes the outer corona, when the eye sees both at the same time. Video (and presumably digital cameras) come close, however.

The corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, surrounding the moon. This eclipse was not only one of the longest ever, 6 1/2 minutes of totality, but especially spectacular because of the 2 thick streamers sticking out far from the corona at the top and bottom, the sun's magnetic poles, highly unusual. This photo only shows the inner part of those streamers. The sun was extremely active that day.

The "diamond ring effect", as the 1st tiny point of sun suddenly bursts out from the side of the moon at the end of totality. Again, film doesn't capture it as a tiny brilliant point of light, can only show a big overexposed glare, and even video doesn't capture it too well. It becomes too bright to look at within seconds.