Annular eclipse. Madrid 2005

Imagen
October the 3rd, 2005 there was an annular eclipse in Spain and a big chunk of Africa. In particular, the line of the maximum eclipse run right through my hometown, Madrid. It was even slightly de­vi­at­ed to the north, making the match even more perfect for my university. You cannot get it much easier than that!
But, before we begin; what is an annular eclipse? Chances are you just read it in the previous page about solar eclipses, so we can move on.
2005 seems like yesterday. Midway across the first decade of the third millennium. However, it is such a long time ago as far as my ex­pe­ri­ence in Astronomy and Photography goes. But if you can take a humble lesson from this website, it should be not to let your lack of experience or expertise hold you back. So, even though I could do much better now, this is why I am a bit proud of the pictures below.
The annular eclipse of 2005 was one of the first big events I or­gan­ized for the astronomy club of the university, Antares. And despite the fact that many people were amazingly in­dif­fe­rent towards the eclipse (people right in its path just kept work­ing in their offices, classes at schools and the university continued) it was quite suc­cess­ful!
Below you have a .gif image (sorry if it can be a bit annoying) com­posed from the pictures I took from the eclipse. And yes, you are right, this is film photography! My first attempts at astrophotography were using a classic Olympus OM-1, because it was easier to fit in the telescope than my digital compact camera of the time. And yes, I could look for the negative copies and make a decent scan of them. Perhaps I will. But these old-fashioned-looking pictures with all their defaults look rather neat!
Do not forget to look for the subtle detail in the edge of the Moon (at 3 or 4 o'clock on the Moon).
And below you have the original frames, in their original 35 mm format. Today, with a digital camera, I would have taken a thousand pictures and probably a video as well!
In the last two pictures you can see projections of the eclipse. The first one is an artificial projection using a telescope (be very careful with this! Read more advice on solar viewing safety), very convenient for crowds and outreach events. The last one is a poor attempt to capture the hundreds of little eclipse-projections produced by every tree. Not the greatest detail, but a very cute effect you should not miss during the next eclipse (a partial eclipse is good enough to notice this).
In short, annular eclipses are fascinating events. The Sun-ring is so weird! If there is an annular eclipse not so far from your town, you should definitely check it out. However, I would save my main resources to catch a total eclipse, an absolute must-do!