Solar Eclipse

So I had new filters for my camera, charged my batteries and had everything set just in case there were clear skies for the solar eclipse this morning. My alarm woke me at 7am and I was surprised to see clear skies and bright sunshine, I forced my poor tired body to get up and I had all my camera stuff on the bus before 8am! It wasn't until I was almost in town that I realised I left my spare battery in the charger "no problem", I thought "the current battery is fully charged".

I got up to the top of Calton Hill by 8:30 and set up my camera and tripod... the eclipse started shortly afterwards and I could see it pretty well through my camera view finder, however I could not see my view screen very well and it did not look as if the pictures I was taking were coming out anywhere near as clearly as I could see, looking at the images at home this evening I think there was still far to much light, if I had increased the shutter speed and F-Stop I might have gotten better images :-(. I persevered, trying various settings and lenses but I was not hopeful. A drinking buddy appeared with his camera, he did not have any filters and was not getting good results, when I lent him my filters he got what looked like some good clear images on his screen.

Before the eclipse reached it's peak my camera started indicating the battery was getting low, I managed to get a few more shots before it died completely :-( And of course, I had left my spare battery in the charger at home.

This was one of the last images I took, maybe if my battery had not died I could have got a better shot, but this isn't too bad.

After the eclipse I headed back down the hill and decided to check out Cairngorm Coffee, which is a relatively new coffee shop in town, their coffee isn't the best I've had in Edinburgh but it was good, but I also had a very nice toasted bacon sandwich, which is actually quite hard to get in town, I'll definitely be returning.

After wandering around town for a bit and buying a new battery for my camera, I ended up going to the Hanging Bat for a few beers.