Well, this actually worked out. When I went out to set up the camera gear on the garage apron around 12:45, things didn't look so hot. Clouds had rolled in, and the way it looked, I thought that was going to be the story for the entire day. The first hint of the eclipse was supposed to be visible at 1:09, and at 1:10 the cloud bank stretched from one horizon to the other. I was almost going to just pack up the gear and call it a day, but decided that there really was no harm in just sitting in the lawn chair I had out with me and just wait a while. Sure enough, the skies cleared up and I rushed to get the sun centered on the camera, focused (I hope!), and video running. There were a few patches of clouds that did obscure the sun here and there. And right at 2:30 it actually started to rain. The weird thing was that the rain was coming out of nowhere. Wasn't really any clouds at all around me, so I really don't know where the raid was coming from. Probably just Murphy messing with me. But it wasn't hard and didn't last more than 10 minutes or so. I just sat it out and kept the video running.
Then around 3:30 or so, my camera died. I thought the sunlight had killed it, but fortunately it was just the battery. Apparently the Nikon P900 doesn't actually run off of the AC adapter. The adapter just applies a charge to the battery, and evidently taking video depletes the battery faster than the charger can keep a charge in the battery. I didn't remember to take out a spare battery with me, so I lost time running to the house to get a spare and load it up in the camera.
Honestly, someone walking outside around here when the moon had obscured the sun as much as it was going to would likely have never even noticed the eclipse. The sunlight did get reduced in intensity quite a bit, but no more than a high cloud might do.
BTW, when I got finished and came back into the house, I checked the weather radar and it appears that luck was really with me concerning the weather. Heavy clouds and rain to the east and west of me. And DARN lucky we didn't decide to run up to Santee, SC to try to catch the total eclipse. From what I can see of the weather radar up there, it looked like it would have been a complete waste of our time going there.
Anyway, hopefully I'll process the video real soon. I won't be able to do any timelapse, since I had to manually adjust the position of the camera with the camera mount, and timelapse would just have the sun/moon swinging all over the video. Probably enough to make people actually ill to watch it. It wasn't until the eclipse was mostly over with that I discovered what seemed to be the best way to use that Allview mount to track the sun. Oh well. Maybe in my next life I'll remember this. I don't think there are any more solar eclipses in store for me in this life.
Oh I did a screen capture of the weather radar to show how fortunate I actually turned out being today for this eclipse.
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