The 2012 annular solar eclipse is just two weeks away. We are still scheduled to witness this magnificent event from Page, Arizona, almost exactly on the centerline of the annular eclipse path. The eclipse will occur about an hour before sunset, so the sun will be low in the western sky at the peak of annularity.
I took a minute yesterday afternoon to check the SOHO website for active sunspots and found that large spot 1472 was showing midway between the center and the limb of the sun. I went outside with the SX-40 and the solar adapter to take some practice shots. For the image at the right, I used the filter (of course) 1/1600′ shutter speed and F8.0 aperture with a film speed of 3200. Sunspot 1472 shows up at about 7 o’clock on the solar disk in the image.
I wanted to make sure that my earlier experiments would work when we are in Page on May 20th. I think that using the filter, a very fast film speed, a fast shutter speed and a normal aperture will enable me to capture the lunar/solar images just fine. Now, if the weather will cooperate, we have it made. 😉 Click on the solar image to enlarge.
Our recent vacation to visit friends on the Colorado River was great. We both had a lot of fun and enjoyed our friends and their friends company. There was one small glitch when I waded from the riverbank out to a pontoon boat; I totally forgot that my little SX110IS camera was in the cargo compartment of my shorts. The camera was off, of course, but water leaked into the battery compartment, the LCD display and other electro-mechanical stuff. 
