I made the trip to Indianapolis for the total solar eclipse on April 8 and was rewarded with perfect skies. I took pretty much the same equipment as I took to Nashville in 2017--an iOptron mount, Orion 80mm refractor, a Mallincam DS10C camera and a solar filter. In Nashville, I spent lots of time adjusting equipment for the optimal images of the prominences and corona. Totality was just a couple of minutes and I spent much of it looking at my monitor. In Indy, I was determined to do things differently. I set up the scope and started capturing a movie at totality. I adjusted briefly for the corona, and then went back to the disk capture. For most of the eclipse, I just looked at the sky with my eyes, taking in the darkness and Venus and Jupiter, and enjoying the general awe of the experience. I was surprised that the corona was not more extensive--it looked more like that in Nashville (near solar minimum) than the corona of a sun approaching SolarMAX. My movie did not have the best focus, and I have not done any stacking of images as yet. But for now, here is a single frame from that movie--definitely an awe-inspiring experience!
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