Kudos to the editorial skills of one the club’s best photographers, John N., for drafting the following for the OLLI E-News:
“Photo Club Members Record Exciting Events
“Recently, members of the OLLI Photo Club clicked away to photograph the August 21 eclipse of the sun and showed their results at the August Photo Club meeting.
“George B. and Hillary R. traveled down to South Carolina to witness and record this amazing event. “I was in Anderson, SC, in the parking lot of my hotel with many other people,” said George who had cameras on tripods to record the event. “This was absolutely spectacular,” he said, and his pictures reveal the detail of the amazing event.
“Hillary and her family were in Lexington, SC. Just before, during and after totality, she pointed her camera and clicked away. Her picture of “the diamond ring” when the sun just begins to reappear is breath-taking. Here’s what she said about experiencing the eclipse:
“At 1:30 we put on our "sun" glasses and began watching the moon creep over the sun, slowly heading from east to west forming crescents as it crawled onwards. After 25 minutes, just as the moon approached the last curve, the sun flashed a bright orange "C", its final farewell. At the same time, on the eastern curve, a dazzling burst, a diamond ring, blazed with a rainbow prism, and lit up the sky. THEN IT HAPPENED! It was the longest two minutes and the shortest two minutes. The light switched off. And the world was navy blue. And it was still. And it was quiet. And it was cool. And it was soft. And we looked up.”
What a wonderful description! Not only does Hillary keep a poet’s pen in her desk, she has shared with us a most expressive, rhythmic and focused story, perfectly matching the experience. Now, for adventurous souls, comes my mundane, chaotic and wordy blog… in the following PDF files:
Unexpurgated geeky version of blog:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqMo42Yo9nXygY0GeO4fDl-cHq6mwQ
Partially expurgated, somewhat non-geeky version of blog:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AqMo42Yo9nXygY0FPNnfQzSS1J4sVw
Gallery of my eclipse photos:
https://diversions.smugmug.com/Galleries/Galleries-by-Subject/Astrophotography/Solar-Eclipse-20170821
