Total Solar Eclipse - August 21, 2017
Taken from Goreville, Illinois


On August 21, 2017, my friend, Steve, from work, his brother, Franklin, and myself, headed down to Goreville, Illinois to view and photograph the total solar eclipse. We agreed that I would pay for gas, if he drove. Google Maps showed the trip to take about 7 hours, but we obviously expected delays, but didn't know to what extent. It took us 10 hours to arrive at our destination, The Goreville Village Park. They were charging $10 to get in there, or the large church parking lot and lawn next door. We decided that we saw plenty of places we could turn into just outside of town, so we turned around. The next place we turned into was another church more out in the country, with a larger lot. They wanted $20 for parking. We continued farther out of town going north on Highway 37, and came to Cana Cemetery, with about 40 vehicles between the highway, and the graves that didn't start until well off the road. There was still plenty of space, and no one collecting a parking fee, so we quickly parked and got set up. I took my first picture at 12:53, exactly an hour after the start of the partial eclipse, and 27 minutes before the beginning of the 2 minutes and 40 seconds of totality (at that particular location).


12:56 - One of my first pictures, 27 minutes before totality.


1:17 - 3 minutes before totality.


1:19 - About a minute yet...


1:20 - I love this one! Seconds before totality.


1:21 - TOTALITY! But still not the best shot of an eclipse......


1:22 - The moment of truth - The "Diamond Ring" shot. Besides my own mistakes of never looking at my settings, and over-exposing a lot of pictures of the day (why I don't do wedding photography), the Diamond Ring shots show the very thin clouds that were over the sun at this time. I remember there being about a 40% cloud cover at this time and location, so we were all pretty lucky here. I can live with the pictures I got, with a slight adjustment of "levels" in Photoshop


1:23 - GAME OVER!

I will update this page with some interesting pictures that Steve got with his phone, and some horror stories of the trip back, if you're interested, in a few days. For now, (8:20 PM on the 24th) I want to upload this page, and send out a link to a bunch of friends that are waiting.... Thanks for viewing for now!

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