Anniversary of the Shadow by Patrick Cullis, on FlickrHappy 1 Year Anniversary of the 2017 Great American Eclipse!!! What an incredible experience! This is a photo from my Canon 5D mkii at 72,000 feet as the 70-mile wide shadow came streaking across the mountains of Wyoming. I launched the high altitude balloon with video and still cameras from Union Pass, about 50 miles west of the Grand Tetons, and then sat back for the event itself. When the eclipse had passed, I learned that the GPS tracking units had gone haywire because of A) cold batteries and B) high spin during the parachute descent. This wasn't my first rodeo, but it was my most remote launch with temperatures at our camping spot below freezing the night before. Without a good GPS lock, I lost the cameras in to the mountains of the Wind River Range and was unable to recover them until this past summer, 10-months after launching them. When I finally found it, which was an adventure all its own, I was blown away with the photos. In this image, the shadow has engulfed the Grand Tetons and is about to pass over the Gros Ventre mountains. In the foreground, on the left is the Wind River Range where the balloon remains eventually landed on their parachute. On the right are the Brider-Tetons.
Video of the event with footage from the ground, telescopes, GoPro video, and DSLR photography. All footage by Patrick Cullis. www.PatrickCullis.com
