Reply To: Color of the Solar Corona

Hi Giovanni,
After many years I finally got to see a totality! I was in Zaragoza, Spain watching at over 40C! The eclipse was nothing like I was expecting from all the pictures and video’s one can see online.
I was struck by the very same fact, the eclipse was not as dark as I had imagined and everything was bathed in a remarkable yellow light. Being interested in atmospheric effects I had hoped to take some all sky images to look at this kind of thing but my camera failed due to the heat. (I’m glad I wasn’t trying to actually record the eclipse!)
I had tried to observe the Perseids on the night before and after the eclipse but it was impossible from my location as the sky was dreadful. In exposures it appeared bright yellow with absolutely no stars! I think this was from a large amount of dust and smoke from the huge wild fires around the country (combined with a lot of light pollution where I was…). The dust/smoke was also variable time wise. On one day I had an extremely clear blue sky, the following day the sky was cloud free but towards the sun there was a lot of scattered light and it looked almost white.
I don’t know how widespread this was over the track but compounded with the relatively low altitude of the eclipse it had a remarkable impact on the view to be sure!
I believe this made this eclipse a particularly unique one indeed.
Cheers,
Bill.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by Bill Ward. Reason: spelling