The following images were taken during the last partial eclipse visible from England and show the point of maximum obscuration by the moon. Unfortunately, the clouds were ever present and all shots were through a thin veil of high cirrus combined with some lower cumulus. The lens is a 1000mm f10 mirror lens of Russian Maksutov design used in combination with a full aperture front element solar filter and a 2x teleconverter to get optimum plate scale. The images are full frame slides on Fujichrome Sensia 100 scanned onto Kodak PCD.
Exposures are 1/1000s at f20 even with the filter in place, and focussing was accomplished by having a cardboard aperture mask with two 10mm holes about 80mm apart to cope with the high light levels, and give a very clear indication of focus. Out of focus gives two displaced images of the sun. Even with the photographic filter in place the image of the sun was painfully bright to the eye and to avoid a risk overheating the shutter the optics were left capped when not being used. The yellow/green colour is an artefact of the solar filter.
The sun visible though low cloud at maximum eclipse.
The sun almost free from cloud in one of the rare gaps in the UK cloud base.
There are several manufacturers produce filters suitable for safe continuum solar imaging, but the usual warnings apply about never looking at the sun directly through any optical instrument. Solar projection is a much safer way of imaging the sun, but even there it is necessary to supervise the scope so that noone has the chance to inadvertantly look into the eyepiece. The best photographic filter is too bright for human eyes, but OK for the camera. Be very careful observing the sun - you only get one pair of eyes.
Use a cheap Huygens or Ramsden eyepiece for solar projection and do not use your best Orthoscopic or Plossl eyepiece or spotting scope as the concentrated solar heat can melt or crack the lens or melt the mounting glue.
