Reading Time: 7 minutes
On Saturday, October 14 2023, an annular total solar eclipse was visible as it swept through the skies. In the United States the path of annularity went from Oregon to Texas followed by Mexico, Central American and into South America. An annular solar eclipse means that the moon will not completely cover the sun and there will be a “Ring of Fire” around the moon. This is actually a pretty cool look. The path of annularity is only about a 100 miles wide. In this 100 mile wide path you can see the Ring of Fire. A perfect ring of fire is only visible from within a few miles of the center of the path of annularity.
I was planning on just viewing the partial eclipse as I wasn’t scheduled to be anywhere near the path of annularity. However, a work emergency brought me to Oregon, just the weekend before the annular solar eclipse would make its apperance. First it looked like I wont be staying until the weekend but the project dragged on until Friday and I planned on watching and now even photographing the eclipse in its annularity phase.
Unfortunately, I had no solar filters for my camera and was doing some research of which one to get. Lee had a solar filter in their product catalog which would fit in my filter holder. But it wasn’t save for optical observation and it would throw off the colors. After some research I found Thousand Oaks Optical in Arizona. It seems they are very big in the astronomy scene to provide solar filters for telescopes.
The Sunday before the eclipse, I ordered a 77mm screw-on filter for my telephoto lens and a sheet of filter material. According to their website it would take two days to prepare the order and with my selected shipping method, another two days to get to me. This would cut it really close and I wasn’t sure if I would get them in time.
On Monday the next issue started. The weather turned, but to the worse. Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous days in the Eugene area. However, with Monday the clouds and rain rolled in and it didn’t change munch. Saturday, the day of the eclipse was forecasted to have almost total cloud coverage.
I needed a backup plan but that plant was depending if I would get my filters in time. Therefore, I couldn’t make any commitment towards a hotel reservation. My Plan B option would be Winnemucca, Nevada, as it sits as well in the path of annularity and had somewhat of a favorable forecast for Saturday’s eclipse. Winnemucca is a 7.5-hour drive from Eugene. Luckily the filters showed up Friday afternoon about 3 p.m. and now it was time to find a hotel. Everything in Winnemucca was sold out. I found hotels available in Reno, NV but that would be about a 2.5-hour drive to get back to the path of annularity. Just before I gave up and booked a hotel in Reno, I checked one more time a few hotel chains in Winnemucca and a Super 8 actually had availability. It was almost $200 for a Super 8 in the middle of nowhere but it would be worth it if I get the shot.
Have I mentioned, that I never photographed any eclipse. I witnessed a few myself, but never actually tried to photograph them. So that would be something to add to my portfolio.
So at about 4 p.m. I got on a 7.5 hour road trip to Winnemucca through the less traveled roads of Oregon. It was actually a very pretty drive until the sun set around 6:30 p.m. After that it was just black. Lot’s of long dead zones with no cell coverage either. This messed with my plan to listen to a bunch of podcast. The drive went well and I was in the hotel room just a few minutes before midnight.
I went to bed right away to get up early in the morning to get ready for the eclipse. Since I never used a solar filter on my camera, I planned on doing a couple test shots of just the sun after sunrise. Well that turned out to be a problem. When I woke up in the morning there was a heavy layer of clouds over my area with no end in sight. I got breakfast at the hotel, which wasn’t very good either and hoped in the car to see if I could find some openings in the cloud coverage. This is chasing the eclipse within the chase of the eclipse. I already chased the eclipse to Winnemucca now I needed to find an open spot in the sky to see the sun. I drove west on I-80 and actually saw some openings in the clouds in the distance. I tried to see which roads would take me there and it looked like NV-400 would be my best bet and it was.
As I drove down the road I actually found a spot where the sun rays hit the ground right in the area of the road. I pulled of the small highway and set up my camera. By the time I had the camera mounted on the tripod, the spot already moved out of my area and the sun was covered with clouds again. Unfortunately, I couldn’t chase this opening as it was going perpendicular to the road.
I saw what looked like another opening further down the road. I headed there and all of a sudden I came to an intersection where the road would turn into a gravel road in all directions. To the right of me was a spot which looked promising and I drove a bit towards the mountains, pulled over and actually was able to get my first few pictures of the eclipse but then clouds came back in. A camper van, I noticed earlier on another spot I pulled over, also relocated to this spot.
Of course clouds came back in and completely blocked the view of the sun again. The annular solar eclipse had already started but I wanted to get some shots of the ring of fire. I decided to relocate again and went down the other way at the intersection where a opening in the clouds was. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to reach it as the road ended with a gate in the middle of the dirt road.
I turned back around and just before I would come back to the intersection, the clouds started to break and open up. This road was barely traveled, I pulled off to the side and rushed to set up my camera. There they are, the sun and moon doing its dance. I set the tripod next to my car and I was sitting at the edge of the trunk to have a more comfortable way to look through the lens to see the eclipse. I kept on shooting and shooting and shooting.
The images above are my favorites. Below you see the whole Flickr album.
Some light cloud patches rolled through but I was still able to see the eclipse through the clouds. About 10-minutes after totality a guy in his Jeep came from the backcountry my way and stopped next to me. He asked me if I am alright and told him, yeah everything is good I am just sitting out here to watch the eclipse. He didn’t care much about the eclipse, but it seems he cared a lot about my wellbeing. I was way to focused on photographing the eclipse and he probably noticed and went his way. What I didn’t realize, but he probably did, that I was sitting there with a flat tire. Completely flat, but only at the bottom. 😉
Heavy clouds came in and I knew I wouldn’t get anymore pictures in this location. I packed up quickly and tried to chase NV-400 back toward I-80 to maybe get another chance for some more pictures. Right when I drove off, I noticed the weird sound, stopped, and saw the message on my display about tire pressure. Great! I was pissed! Funny thing is, that I had the display the whole time set to show the tire pressure as I was worried I might run a hole in the tires and if I would notice a drop, I could turn around and at least try to make it back as far as possible to the main road.
The tires of my rental car weren’t the best anymore and I noticed the low tire tread already when I picked it up. I have been on worst gravel roads and this road seemed not to sketchy and I wasn’t too worried. For some reason I still ran a flat, but was so focused on the eclipse that I stopped checking the display. Luckily I wasn’t too far from the main road.
As heavy clouds came in and covered the sun and moon again, it was now officially the end of the eclipse for me. No visibility at my current location and no way to move as I had to put on the spare tire first. For some odd reason I had issues opening the trunk hatch. It wouldn’t open and just beep to indicate a problem. I checked the display and it showed that the hatch was already open, which it wasn’t. After a few more tries I got the hatch to open, finally, and was able to get my spare tire put on. Now I had to crawl back with 50 mph on the freeway to a tire shop in Winnemucca. They were able to get me fixed up and told me that I actually had two holes in my tire.
After they fixed my tires I started my 7.5 hours long journey back to Eugene, where I would stay overnight before flying to my next project.
I hope you guys had a chance to watch the annular solar eclipse and didn’t get into as much trouble as I did. Share your experience in the comments.
Peter is an award-winning photographer who travels all over the world to capture the beauty of our planet as well as the achievements of humanity. Follow Peter on his travel blog Gate to Adventures for more amazing places to go and explore.
