Photo of the Week for August 23, 2019

For a good number of visitors to this site, August 21, 2017, will always be a special date. That’s when the Moon’s shadow sped across the United States, and many got to see their very first total eclipse of the Sun. However, witnessing such a spectacle usually requires journeying great distances, as Oakville, Ontario, eclipse chaser Kirby Alguire did when he captured this eclipse sequence on July 2, 2019, from a llama farm in Bella Vista, Argentina. “I have now stood in the Moon’s shadow three times on three different continents, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of it,” he says.

Kirby’s photo combines frames shot through a solar filter (before and after totality) ranging in exposure from 1/60 to 1/30 second, a 1/8-second totality image (without filter) and the background scene captured with a 1/500 second shutter speed. All were recorded with a Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera (operating at ISO400) and a 24-85mm zoom lens set to f/16.