2024 Total Eclipse, Searcy, Arkansas

When we bought our house in Liberty Hill, TX, we knew that the path of totality for the 2024 eclipse would pass right over our ranch. When we sold that ranch and bought a new ranch in Mabank, we made sure to check that the path of totality would still pass right over our new ranch.

So when the 10 day forecast put clouds right over the entire eclipse path from Mexico to Ohio, we were discouraged. We had people visiting from Boston, Midland, and Dallas. We had a lot invested in staying at home. But the forecast was steady, and the only change was a predicted "Mostly Sunny" forecast over northern Arkansas and southern Missouri.

Jon Bennet was to have flown in on Saturday, two days before the eclipse, and he decided he had a better forecast in northwest New York state. When Chuck and Tina arrived on Sunday afternoon, we decided that our best chance for decent photos was a 300 mile drive to northern Arkansas.

There was one hotel in Searcy, AR with rooms left, so we booked a room for Sunday through Tuesday, loaded up the Jeep Liberty, and headed out.

The forecast Monday morning was great... sunny from noon on, with the eclipse starting at 12:30pm. But as we started shooting, we noticed high clouds getting thicker and thicker. Fortunately the band of clouds were being blown East by high level winds, and ten minutes before C2, the sky around the sun was totally clear.

Comet 12P/Pons-brooks was touted in the news as being close the the sun during totality (about 25 degrees away, near Jupiter). So I had my wide-angle camera shooting pictures every 3 minutes. But it just never got dark enough to see the comet. None of my photographer friends were able to see or photograph the comet, either. I did get a picture with Jupiter and Venus in the shot with the sun and moon.

A note about color

This was my first eclipse with an "astro-modified camera", in this case a Canon 5D mark IV that was modified by Spencer's Camera and Photo of Alpine, Utah for astronomy work. Specifically this was a "full spectrum" mod, meaning the UV and IR filters built into the camera were removed.

The resulting images tend to get a pinkish cast during daylight photography, so during processing in Lightroom CS6, I lowered the color temperature to 2,300 degrees K. That made the normally white corona look bluish, but I like the contrast between the blue corona and red-orange solar prominences.

The captures

Any person, group, company, or media outlet is welcome to use these images royalty-free for any legal purpose, as long as (1) they do not edit the images other than to resize, and (2) proper credit is given to "Michael Mauldin, Team Toad".

Click on the images to see the high-resolution version. Right-click on the main images to download to your machine.

Location Searcy, Arkansas, GPS: 35°14'N, 91°42'W

"Diamonds" Searcy, Arkansas April 8, 2024 EXIF: Canon 5d4a with EF 600mm f4L 600mm, ISO 800, f/7.1, 1/8000sec Processed in Lightroom CS6 with Color temperature 2,300K	"Corona" Searcy, Arkansas April 8, 2024 EXIF: Canon 5d4a with EF 600mm f4L 600mm, ISO 800, f/7.1, 1/8000sec Processed in Lightroom CS6 with Color temperature 2,300K
"No Comet Visible" Searcy, Arkansas April 8, 2024 EXIF: Canon 5d3 with EF 16-36mm f/2.8L 35mm, ISO 400, f/5.6, for 0.8 seconds Processed in Lightroom CS6	"C2 Prominences" Searcy, Arkansas April 8, 2024 EXIF: Canon 5d4a with EF 600mm f4L 600mm, ISO 800, f/7.1, 1/8000sec Processed in Lightroom CS6 with Color temperature 2,300K