 This video is sponsored by Squarespace. The next total solar eclipse is just nine months away. It's going to occur on April 8th, 2024. And I know from the last one in 2017 that it's never too early to start preparing. So this is the first video in a new series on the channel. Well, I'm going to be showing you everything you need to do to prepare for the 2024 eclipse and any other future total solar eclipses. There's a lot that we can actually learn and plan for well ahead of time. And actually, if you do leave it to the last minute, there's a lot that can go wrong. So in this first part today, I'm going to share some lessons I learned from the 2017 eclipse. I'm going to give an overview of what to expect with the 2024 eclipse in the US and Mexico and Canada in terms of its path and the weather forecasts and all that. And then I'll let you know what I think you should be doing right now, nine months ahead in terms of preparation. And at the end, I'll give you a preview of all the topics I plan to cover in future videos in this series leading up to April 8th, 2024. Hi, for anyone that's new to this channel, my name is Nico Carver and I cover astrophotography. And photographing a solar eclipse, a total solar eclipse, is a very specialized kind of astrophotography because these events are relatively rare and when they do come along, they're short. They're just a few minutes long. My first experience with one was the 2017 total solar eclipse that went across the United States from Oregon to South Carolina. And people are not exaggerating when they tell you this is one of the most breathtaking astronomical events you can witness. So if at all possible, I'd encourage you to see a total solar eclipse in person at some point in your life, make it a plan. And for us in North America, this one in April, on April 8th, 2024 is gonna be our best total solar eclipse opportunity for a very long time. And you might be wondering, so why should I trust you? What's so special about this kind of eclipse versus any of the other ones? Well, during totality for a few minutes, the moon completely covers up the sun from our vantage point on earth, meaning you're completely under the darkest part of the moon's shadow called the umbra. And this shadow is so extreme that it's very quickly gonna turn from broad daylight into twilight. It will actually get dark enough that you can observe some stars during the day. And then most important, it's the only time you can look at the sun, naked eye it, you can just stare at that sun because it's covered by the moon. And what is revealed is the sun's outer atmosphere called its corona. And the corona is constantly changing shape. So each total solar eclipse is a unique event because the solar corona is going to look different each time. Now, to see that though, and to actually be able to view the eclipse naked eye during totality, photograph the solar corona, all of that, you have to be inside the path of totality within the umbra. So if you're outside of it, you're gonna still see a partial eclipse, but you'll have to use solar filtration, solar filters or solar glasses the whole time. While if you're inside the path, you get all of those partial phases on both ends where we use the filters, but then in the middle we get totality. And the closer you are to the center line of the path of totality, the longer totality is going to last. And this 2024 eclipse, it's gonna be a bit over four and a half minutes at max eclipse. Well, with the 2017 event, it was just two and a half minutes. So this is a really good one. Okay, so what did I learn from photographing the 2017 solar eclipse? The biggest thing I learned is you cannot have enough backup plans when it comes to location. My primary location was like a solar party for this event in Missouri. And it was predicted to be a complete washout with thunderstorms predicted. And unfortunately, my backup location in Nebraska had the exact same forecast. I think it was a big storm. So I ended up pretty last minute finding some extended family in Nashville, Tennessee that I could drive to their yard the morning of, get set up very quickly with sort of a rush. And even Nashville was dicey because when it came to clouds, there was some scattered clouds. I hear that some people actually got clouded out who were in the Nashville area. I was very lucky because just minutes before totality, there was some big patchy clouds blocking the sun and you can actually see it in this screen capture from a 360 degree video I was recording. And then right as totality is starting, you can see it actually made for a pretty dramatic photo with all these clouds around. And there was a little gap where the eclipse was happening. But once totality really started, you can see the clouds did interfere with a clear photo of the corona. That was until the final 45 seconds of totality where the clouds finally passed along and I did get some clear shots of the corona which I was very happy about. And the whole thing was actually great. My favorite shot is actually this one of the diamond ring and second contact with the clouds all around. So even if you end up somewhere that's partially cloudy, you might still have a great eclipse day. The real worry is being completely clouded out, overcast sky or rain or anything like that. And my advice for avoiding that is having a vehicle and being prepared to move based on what you're seeing with local weather forecasts in the 48 hours leading up to the event. If you wanna set yourself up for having the best shot of clear skies in 2024, I'd recommend having your primary and backup locations being down in the southern part of the United States or even Mexico. I've booked a campsite in Texas right on the centerline to be my home base, my primary location. But I'm right now in the process of planning up four to five different spots that I could travel to within a few hours from there in every direction. So if I need to, I can chase the weather and chase those clear skies. Now, the reason I say your best shot is in the south is even though this eclipse is going to go through New Hampshire where I live right now, it's something like 90% cloudy historically on April 8th. While in Texas, it's more like 50% cloudy during April. And in Mexico, it actually drops even to under 50%. And this information, by the way, is coming from Jay Anderson's eclipseofile.com, which is a great resource. I'll link it in the description. Now, in terms of travel plans, you might be too late to book a hotel, at least at a reasonable rate along the path of the eclipse. You may get lucky and find something, but if you don't mind camping, there is still plenty of sites available at reasonable rates. And as far as finding camping sites, I got a tip from Brian Fulda, who goes by absorbing photons here on YouTube and on Instagram, that there's a website called hipcamp.com that has an interactive eclipse map that lets you see available campsites within the path of totality and book them really easily. Now, there are two more things I'd like to say about this, about booking locations. Number one, don't delay. If you're going to travel for the eclipse, spend some time today thinking about your plan and then go ahead and make a booking or reach out to a relative who is near the path because I think pretty soon most of the remaining good deals in terms of booking a campsite or an Airbnb or anything like that are going to be gone. And then number two, even if you have the money, I'm going to ask you not to make multiple reservations for lodging or camping. And believe me, I get the impulse, but it just means that you're keeping someone else from making a solid plan today by holding multiple spots. So even if you plan to cancel those later, I really ask you just to make one reservation. And what I'd suggest instead, instead of booking multiple places, is just book one lodging or campsite that's in a good location where you can travel to all of your backup locations the day of. And then you still have a dedicated place to sleep, but you also have all these backups of places you can go like parks and events and things like that. Okay, so that's the first thing you should be doing now is if you're going to travel for this, book your lodging or campsite or talk to family or friends who you can stay with, do that today. The second thing I want you to do right now is purchase a white light filter or filter making material for any telescopes or camera lenses or binoculars that you plan to use for imaging or viewing the eclipse. And the reason to do this now is my memory of the 2017 eclipse was the eclipse glasses were pretty easy to get up to about two weeks out. But filters, especially this astrosolar film became very difficult to find the closer we got to the event. I think it's sold out months in advance. So there are many good options for white light filters, but I recommend this astrosolar film because it's very affordable and it works for both solar observation and solar photography at high magnification. And again, so the point of this is we need these white light filters for the whole partial phase, but then when totality starts, we want to take off our filters very quickly. So it's very nice to have these custom filters that fit the optics exactly because then that makes them easy to take off and on. And in the next video in the series, I'll walk through making custom filters with this film. But in the meantime, what I suggest you do is buy enough film for all the telescopes and lenses and binoculars you plan to use for the eclipse. And if you have friends who also want to make filters, you can buy a bigger sheet or even a roll of this stuff and cut it up and it becomes even more economical that way. This is the smallest size I think they make, but it still would work for like a 120 millimeter refractor. Next time in this series, I'm gonna go over equipment for photographing the total solar eclipse and review different kinds of setups from simple to more complex and also cover field of view, what I think are the best focal length and sensor size combinations. And then like I said, I'll go over making custom filters with this film. In future episodes after that, I'll plan on covering fun experiments that you can do during totality, how to get involved with like citizen science projects, all that kind of stuff. I'll also cover automation software for controlling your camera and taking all the different pictures you want to take. I'll probably devote a video to each of the main options in terms of automation. And then of course, I'll cover the different kinds of images you can capture, how to come up with a capture plan for them depending on what kind of equipment you're using. And I might even do some videos on processing before the event so you can get some practice in ahead of time and feel like you know what you're doing once you actually have the pictures. If there's anything I'm forgetting, please let me know in the comments. I'll add it to my list. I of course hope that everyone watching is able to capture this beautiful event. But once you do, then what do you actually do with your finished photos? Well, something I definitely advocate for is to have your own website where you can present the photos exactly as you wish. And today's sponsor Squarespace makes that super easy. They have flexible website templates and there is a template for every use case and they're flexible in the sense that you can design them however you wish quite easily with their drag and drop engine. But the key thing is everything stays optimized for mobile and for desktop. And it's very easy to see what that's gonna look like as you're designing your website. I've also found Squarespace takes the hassle out of managing a website. For instance, the contact form is completely spam-free. I don't know how they do it but every time I try to design an anti-spam contact for myself, I still get tons of spam emails. But with Squarespace, it just works. I get the emails I need from actual customers and fans and no spam. And this is just one example of a ton of included features with Squarespace. Like you get all the commerce features if you need an online store, that's all built in. So if you're looking for a personal website or a professional portfolio or a site for your small business, I think you're gonna love Squarespace. You can get a free trial today at squarespace.com and when you're ready to launch use squarespace.com slash Nebula Photos for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Okay, that's it for this one. This has been Nico Carver at Nebula Photos. Clear skies.