Dedication to Free People, e.g. Gaza/Palestine

2024 solar eclipse expedition *dedicated* to Freedom loving people in the world, esp Gaza/Palestine

Resilience & Courage of Gaza/Palestine..

"In a time of Need you'll know WHO YOUR REAL FRIENDS ARE"

^^^ THIS. Congrats to Ireland, S. Africa, Houthi rebels (Yemen) for stepping-up

"If you have a Belief, a REAL BELIEF, you should be WILLING TO DIE FOR IT"

-- Charles Strong, US Army (machine gunner)

[ "Bloods of Nam" (African American soldiers in Vietnam conflict) ]

Thank you

1) Rachel Corrie (MURDERED by IDF)

"I'm here for the children"

2) Aaron Bushnell (USAF employee who couldn't take the US Govt hypocrisy)

self-immolation as act of REBELLION

3) actress Susan Sarandon

4) actress Vanessa Redgrave

5) Argentina soccer super-star Diego Maradona

6) Muhammad Ali

& others for standing up for WHAT IS RIGHT

"My Dad gave me some advice which served me well during my Life. Son, there is NO RIGHT WAY to DO WRONG. Also, You have to be WHO YOU ARE..YOU CAN'T BE WHO YOU AREN'T"

-- James Williams, US Navy (river boats, Vietnam Conflict), Congressional Medal of Honor

Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, James Williams US Navy

Shout out to REAL Americans who understand Freedom, willing to back it up with words/action:

See "Life is about Moments, NOT things" meme above. Gaza/Palestine is a lesson in Courage & Resilience in face of EVIL (aided by US Govt)

"Love the Country, HATE THE GOVERNMENT"

-- Race-Dezert.com poster

[ Public lands (paid by US citizens) for Offroad Racing are being taken away by BLM (US Govt) ]

Offroad Racers & Palestinians share the SAME ENEMY -- Big Brother..Money, Power, GREED

Below graphic via Barbara Lenkart (nee Eastwood) from her Winterwheats antique shopShe was my BRILLIANT, but fiery/idealistic, 6th grade History teacher

[ "old school" Tough Love mold, graduated 2nd in her high-school class (Louisville/KY), Woodrow Wilson scholar at U of Illinois, Masters Degree Education. She & her husband were U of I grads, educated/englightened during turbulent 60's:

Down with the Establishment, Civil Rights movement (e.g. Black rights), Women's rights

naturally part of the anti-Vietnam movement. As any common-sense American would be.. ]

"I shall pass through the world but once

Any good, there that I can door any kindness that I can show

let me do it now 

Let me not defer or neglect it

For I shall not pass this way again"

Appropro article on eclipse, the metaphor of eclipse (light turned into darkness, than transformed into light) with the tragedy of Humanity:

Cycle of War & Peace

Innocent people caught up between war-ing Governments (Money, Power, Greed)

Classic KARMA .. Israel = DONE

EVERY freedom loving people around the world

[ look at ALL the mass-protests!! ]

HATES Israel -- countries around-the-world will simply REFUSE to do business with them.

preparation for Smoky Mountains, hiking & MTB'ing

purchase of Salcano MTB (22" frame) for $20 (!!) off Craigslist/Atlanta

2024 solar eclipse, sites (Texas)

Wide-angle video (4k), GoPro 6 UltraWide View

Apr 8 2024 solar eclipse, Goreville/IL (Matt Payne farm) GoPro 6 UltraWide View (4k)

Ran out of 5G weekly limit upload, for Vimeo. Resort to clever workaround -- temporarily using (low res) "record screen" of VideoPad video-editor

4/8 2024 Solar Eclipse, Goreville/IL, GoPro 6 UltraWide View (4k) from Bob Yen on Vimeo.

Check back later in week (early Friday), for full 4K version

Wide-angle 4k video (8-bit 4:2:0), Panasonic GH4 + Rokinon 7.5mm fisheye

Apr 8 2024 solar eclipse, Goreville/IL (Matt Payne farm) Panasonic GH4 + Rokinon 7.5mm fisheye (4k, 8-bit 4:2:0 video) Ran out of 5G weekly limit upload, for Vimeo. Resort to clever workaround -- temporarily using (low res) "record screen" of VideoPad video-editor

4/8 2024 solar eclipse, GH4 + Rokinon 7.5mm, 10-bit 4:2:0, Goreville/IL from Bob Yen on Vimeo.

Check back later in week (early Friday), for full 4K version

Narrow-angle 4k video, Astro-Tech 102mm F7 ED (714mm FL) + Panasonic Lumix GH5 (10-bit 4:2:2)

GH5a final1 from Bob Yen on Vimeo.

^^^ Astro-Tech 102mm f7 ED + Panasonic GH5 (4k 10-bit 4:2:2), with Panasonic FZ2500 video-cam (4k mode) piggyback (zoomed out, 480mm effective FL). Note the custom counter-weight -- "what works..WORKS" (via Dr Lynn Conway, VLSI pioneer)

^^^ Panasonic GH5 video-cam (4K 10-bit 4:2:2, internal recording), note the flip/rotate view screen (very handy)

^^^ Panasonic FZ2500 (4k) zoomed out (480mm effective FL, 35mm format), piggyback on Astro-Tech 102 F7 ED + GH5

^^^ dusk looking towards SouthWest. Note custom counterweight ("what works..WORKS")

^^^ 3 mounts left-to-right, Matt Payne house in background:

1) Vixen GP (Great Polaris) mount for video

Astro-Tech 102mm F7 + Panasonic GH5 (4k 10-bit 4:2:2), with piggyback Panasonic FZ2500 (4k video, zoomed out to 480mm FL..effective 35mm format)

2) CG11 (Losmandy) mount, corona camera mount #1

Astrophysics 4.1" f6 (612mm FL) + Canon 5D2, with Nikon 300mm/2.8 (set to f4) + Canon 5D2

3) Takahashi EM100 ount, corona camera mount #2

Takahashi FC100 f8 (800mm FL) + Canon 5D2, with Tamron 400mm/4 + Canon 5D2

NOTE:

The camera (Canon T1i) on tripod is the 360x180 VR (Virtual Reality) setup -- 4 shots around (90 deg interval)

Pro Gaza/Palestine version, with support from Ireland:

4/8 2024 solar eclipse (Moreville/IL), Astro-Tech 102mm F7 ED, GH5 video cam from Bob Yen on Vimeo.

Wide-Angle video, me operating 3 equatorial mounts [ 4/8/24 solar eclipse, Moreville/IL ]

"toy" video using old smartphone (Blu G9 Pro)

sorry about clipping of bottom, never used front-facing selfie-cam. Thought ground was in the frame

Also, exposure makes it look like daylight. Does NOT have option to set exposure to "-1 stop under"

^^^ Bogen clamp with automotive smartphone holder, clamped on tripod. Samsung Gar 360 VR (Virtual Reality) camera on top

^^^ Blu G9 smartphone mounted (via car smartphone holder) in vertical format

^^^ Blu G9 smartphone mounted (via car smartphone holder) in vertical format

4/8 2024 Eclipse, Goreville/IL site pics [ 4/8/24 solar eclipse, Moreville/IL ]

Matt Payne's beautiful farm, gave me a private-area in horse-pasture (poop everywhere..kept me on my toes, LOL). In a depression, with rising hill to south. Latter is where Wide-Angle cameras setup..looking over beautiful pond

Tall cell-tower to the West, fiber-connected service. WiFi available in the field!

Just 30 yds away was my French eclipse-chaser friend (Nico LeFaudeux)

https://hdr-astrophotography.com/preparation/

[ he was setup just 30mi west of me in Eastern Oregon, during 2017 eclipse

http://www.eclipse-chaser.com/2017 ]

optical engineer with custom-built Maksutov-Cassegrain (with custom designed field-corrector). Accompanied with wife & 3 yo daughter. Nico flew into Houston on Thu, but faced a car-rental CRISIS (they didn't take his CC w/Debit feature). He got a BoA CC on-the-spot the next day (Fri), then drove hurriedly to Jonesboro/AR

During this time, I was in my own hurry-up mode:

Smokey & Bandit run

from LA to Amarillo/TX.. Awake for 31 hrs straight, left late on Wed @1pm. Had front drive-shaft resonant vibration @60mph, set CC (cruise control) to 57mph..to avoid vibration. Got PASSED by everyone (incl semi-trucks)..AARGH!

Blew into Amarillo/TX sleep-deprived, checked weather-forecast. Looked bad for TX, also AR. Had to text nice-lady in Shirley/AR (Rocky Creek Ranch)

https://www.hipcamp.com/en-US/land/arkansas-rocky-creek-ranch-kk9hlqx0

that I had to back-out. Left Amarillo 1am, then COULDN'T TAKE the front drive-shaft vibration, which had lowered from 60mph to 55mph!! Pulled over at 1:30am at a gas-station, REMOVED it! Whoala, no more vibration! Set CC (Cruise Control) & started JAMMIN' !

Destination was southern IL, even Indiana was an option

[ "Tibetan Cultural Center" south of Bloomington/IN. Steven and Jeff made HEROIC effort to find me a site, Jeff even offered his own farm! ]

Due to time constraints (practicalities in terms of Time/Energy/$$), it appeared Matt's farm was the FINAL destination

[ Indiana option was additional 3.5 hr drive -- I simply couldn't do it (already sleep-deprived), likely would have killed myself..]

Drove thru Oklahoma (NICE modern smooth highways!), then Missouri (clear skies as Friday dawned from the east). Drove thru Springfield/MO, then the eclipse-track in SE Missouri

[ there was a NICE campsite Lake Willippoor in this area ]

Continued on towards southern IL, some great modern highways! Poplar Bluff/IL was a pit-stop for gas.. Wonderful scenery, turnouts to forest parks. I texted Nico some pics along the way, which eventually led him to join me at Goreville/IL (Matt's farm)

I arrived @3pm, with Nico arriving Saturday afternoon. I heard someone speaking French, walked over..it was Nico (with wife & daughter)

site description, Pt 7 [ '17 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

I got to Mina/NV, pulled into dirt road. Camped out (slept in car), got morning pics of sunrise. Left, got to Bishop/CA. As I left Carl's Jr (fast food), my voltmeter indicated my charging system FAILED! (didn't read 14v). OMG WTF? I used voltmeter to check the Alternator AC windings -- ZILCH! ALternator FAILED.

Luckily, there was NAPA auto-parts 2 blocks away. Bought new alternator, did the install

I figured out the front-suspension vibration was due to "road surface roughness" on hwys in N. California & Nevada & Oregon. The highways near LA -- NO vibration. The damn Jeep DW (Death Wobble) is a harmonic vibration condition, due to THIN track-bar tab (passenger side). The circular hole gets "ovalized", leading to "play". Lesson in Physics -- oscillation.

The long drive in hot conditions, apparently caused the Alternator failure. Another lesson in Physics -- Heat.

^^^ eclipse-trip was an ass-kicker!! Ambitious eclipse-program, exacerbated by some issues with car.

site description, Pt 6 [ '17 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

I know how to work on cars, & brought my tools. I limped back to Caldwell/Idaho (60 mi away), with non-working charger. My battery was nearly dead, as I returned the 2 rental cameras at the UPS store.

The Walmart mechanic told me

"DO NOT try to limp back to Los Angeles (900 mi drive) thru the desert (on 2 batteries)-- you WON'T MAKE IT"

I ended up find a website on my (dying) smartphone, about a charging system fix -- using external voltage regulator. I went to local NAPA auto-parts, got the parts & did the install. It worked..see pic

I hung around at Wendy's & McDonalds surfing web (checking out eclipse coverage, FB, etc), to eat/cleanup/chill out. I spent 4 days in desert

I headed back to LA, the next morning

site description, Pt 5 [ '17 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

3 guys from Oakland/CA came to my site at 2am on E-day, they were nice enough to charge my battery with their running car (using jumper cables). Also gave me 1 gallon water & Powerade -- I was RUNNING OUT of water (brought 4 gallons). Strange for me, since I always bring more than enough

Another guy (Bob Lawrence, auto-mechanic from nearby Ontario/Oregon) came by, after seeing my "open hood". See below pic.

I got his business-card, I ended up calling him after I got back home. Super nice guy, he was going to let me stay at his home, & help me get the charging system fixed. His son & daughter work at NAPA auto parts

1 of the things that came out of my eclipse trip, were the super nice people I met. Country folk in Oregon & Idaho, plus the 3 guys from Oakland/CA. I've been in touch with the latter, they are all college-educated

site description, Pt 4 [ '17 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

Notice the hood is up (see pic, previous blog post) -- I had car-charging problems!!

My trip to eclipse-site was EXACERBATED by 2 major car problems :

1) vibrating front suspension 
infamous Jeep DW = Death Wobble

2) FAILING charging system
started offroading to site with DEAD battery -- Jeep wouldn't start! I had bought a spare marine-battery in Caldwell/Idaho.

^^^^ I had to do major "battery management" for both my car AND eclipse-equipment!! I couldn't charge the

1) 2 Macbook Pro laptops

2) camera batteries

for fear of draining my already weak car battery! I was down to battery = 1 bar, for GH5 4K video-camera .. 30 min before Totality!! I almost didn't get below 4K video:

https://vimeo.com/232104650

I actually ran out of batteries, as I did the 4th contact video!!

2017 solar eclipse, 4K video [ Eldorado Mine, East Oregon ] from Bob Yen on Vimeo.

site description, Pt 3 [ '17 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

The pic (see previous blog post)

only shows the 3 sun-tracking mounts, there were 8 other tripods (cameras..film & digital, video-cameras).

I'm still working thru all the footage. Did the videos (rectilinear, 360 VR, time-lapse), then 4K video.

WASTED 1 week dealing with the 4K video 

[ Lumix GH5 was a rental (very high-end), requiring the latest codecs for Mac. Had to download latest Mac OS (El Capitan)..then Final Cut Pro X. IMovie would NOT work..spent 4 days "head butting" over this!! ]

before that WASTED 4 days doing the 360 VR

[ still getting stitching seams using stock stitcher. Now getting assistance from a Pro using an industrial stitcher (Mistika) ]

Need to get 4 rolls of film developed:

14mm, 20mm, 7.5mm (circular fisheye), 16mm full-frame fisheye

get 36 frames scanned for each (using a 23 yr old Mac 8500 + film-scanner!!), registered, converted to time-lapse

My main sun-tracking mount #1 (in middle) -- the 2 corona cameras & 1 narrow-angle camera didn't FIRE !!

[ glitch in automated controller SEM (Solar Eclipse Maestro) on Macbook Pro. 30 min before Totality, all 3 cameras were detected & did test "fire". Then, it went on "Simulated Time" (!!??), I changed back to "Actual Time". The Macbook Pro had startup GLITCH..took like 5 min to bootup. I.E., "spinning beachball" indicating some sort of problem ]

The sun-tracking mount #2 (also controlled by 2nd Macbook Pro running SEM), worked. However, 1 of the corona cameras (on 600mm f5.6)was out-of-focus!! (the images are somewhat salvageable). The other camera (on 800mm f8) were fine

I.E., only 1 out of 5 corona cameras was dead-on..!!!?? MAJOR BUMMER!

Below pic is equipment being broken down, placed into cases/bags, about to be loaded into Jeep.

site description, Pt 2 [ '17 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

I also had FOUR 360 VR cameras running (2 video, 1 time-lapse, 1 still). The still 360 cam (Canon DSLR + fisheye lens) is in above pic, which produced below 360 panorama:

http://eclipse-chaser.com/2017/pano/index.html

[ sound is enabled, you can hear 3 guys (car-pooled from Oakland/CA) observing 100 yds away on a hill. All 3 were highly educated, we exchanged contact info

They gave me water & Powerade, I was RUNNING OUT! (strange for me, since I usually bring MORE than I need. Plus, helped charge my car-battery, I had MAJOR car problems on the 880 mi drive to Oregon -- vibrating front suspension & FAILING car charging system! I started offroading this site on DEAD battery -- car wouldn't start!! ]

Below picture taken by Justin Nash (leader of 3-person group from Oakland/CA)

site description, Pt 1 [ '16 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

Dr Oh (KAIST group) & myself had similar eclipse photo/video strategy.


We were both using Panasonic 4k video cam

[ KAIST = Lumix GX85, me = Lumix GH5 ]

on high-end APO refractors

[ KAIST= Borg 125mm f6.4 & me = Astrophysics 105mm f6 ]

The above narrow-angle video is with a SECOND 4K video-setup -- Takahashi Mewlon 180 f12 (7" Cassegrain, 2160mm FL) on Lumix GX85. It's the big scope on right side of pic (see previous blog post)

We both used DSLR on Takahashi 4" f8 fluorite APO refractor

[ KAIST = Takahashi TSA102 800mm f8, me = (older) Takahashi FC100 800mm f8 ]

They were using state-of-art harmonic drive sun-tracking mounts, I was using old-fashioned GEM (German Equatorial Mount)

My "parallel" setup at Eldorado Mine (East Oregon)

3 sun-tracking mounts (1 video, 2 photo)

is in below pic.

1) video
(American made) Astrophysics 4.1" f6 (624mm FL) + Panasonic Lumix GH5 (4K video cam, 4:2:2 10-bit internal recording)

2) photo 1
Takahashi FC100 (800mm f8) + Nikon D810 (36M pixel)

3) photo 2
2 corona cameras (800mm f8 & 360mm/2.8), 1 narrow-angle (1040mm f8)

above pic taken by Justin Nash (leader of 3-person group from Oakland/CA)

KAIST group (Dr Oh) in Warm Springs/OR [ '17 Solar Eclipse, Oregon ]

This was setup (Dr Oh/KAIST's group) at Warm Springs/Oregon, via Jeong ByoungJun

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1532515743480540&set=p.1532515743480540&type=3&theater

There were using similar strategy/setup as me:

1) 4K video (Panasonic Lumix)
APO refrator & Cassegrain telescope

2) Takahashi 4" f8 APO
digital SLR

all on sun-tracking mounts

9/27 (Sunday) 2015 Lunar Eclipse [ Pasadena/CA ]

Weather looked good leading up to E-day (9/27 Sunday). However, weakening high-pressure allowed WESTERLY high clouds to move towards East starting at noon (9/27 Sunday). Looked not so good from Caltech webcam & Mt Wilson webcam.

Eclipsed moon rose from horizon at 6:43 pm, totality fromt 7:11pm to 8:23pm

Last minute rush to top of PCC parking lot, was able to salvage some photography. There were thick bands that blocked the eclipsed moon, but somewhat hazy/clear bands allowed some decent shots:

8:08pm (nearing totality-end)

8:15pm (nearing totality-end)

8:23pm (totality-end)

8:26pm (3 min after totality-end)

8:30pm

8:31 (8 min after totality-end)pm

8:33pm (10 min after totality-end)