Photo gallery at the park by Mary Anne Weber

Houston Audubon hosted a great eclipse watch party at Fiorenza Park on Monday. Before the eclipse started we birded around the hill and found lots of egrets, herons, pelicans and more enjoying the day. On top of the hill we were joined by many friends and made many new friends who are now looking forward to joining us on our regular bird surveys at Fiorenza. Everyone decorated their own eclipse cookies and had fun watching the eclipse with colanders and Ritz crackers. Board of Directors member Joe Smith took some amazing shots of the sun as the eclipse was happening. Looking forward to 2024!

Details of the solor photos for serious photographers by Joseph Smith.

Solar filter was a 6 inch filter with Mylar film made by Celestron. Purchased from B & H Photo.

Camera: Nikon D 500

Lens: Nikon 300mm f4.0 E PF ED VR

White Balance set to Cloudy.

Live View used to take the picture. Mainly used to get the sun on the LCD. Lens was pre-focused on white clouds and then AF was turned off.

Handheld. (Plan F) Plans A, B,C, D and E did not work!

All camera settings were set manually.

Post processing in Nikon software--just minor tweaking for contrast and sharpening and cropping.

Peak time photo (above): Time, 1:17:13 (just past max here in Houston) ISO 100, 1/250, f6.3

Before peak time photo (below): Time: 12:50:27. ISO 100, 1/125, f6.3, White balance--Cloudy.