This photo shows the partially eclipsed sun setting over the Sierra Estrella mountians near Phoenix, Arizona. Part of the sun is being covered by the moon causing the big bite out of it. Further north, along the centerline of the eclipse track, it was possible to see the sun as a ring of fire when the moon was centered on it. I was south of the path of the full eclipse when I took this photograph, so only a partial eclipse was visible. The point of maximum eclipse was fairly high in the sky, so I waited for the sun to be in a better position making an interesting photograph. This caused the bite out of the sun to be somewhat smaller. The very red sky was caused by the sunlight passing through a layer of smoke from local forest fires.
This photo shows a cropped frame of just the sun at a different exposure to show the sun spots that were also visible on it. I took this photograph a few minutes before the sun was close to the mountian seen above. The exposure for this photograph is the same as shown below except that the shutter speed was 1/8000 sec. Notice that the moon is taking a bigger bite out of the sun in this version.
Photographer: Rick Scott
Date: May 210, 2012
Camera: Canon EOS 40D digital camera
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM IS at 200mm
Exposure: 1/1000 sec (sun), 0.3 sec (foreground), both at f/8 with an ND 1.8 (6X) neutral density filter)
Camera Mode: ISO 100 RAW
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5 for RAW conversion and image processing
Updated: May 22, 2012