The important information for me to know was that the maximum eclipse was calculated to occur at 17:20:51 UT (10:20:51 AM Pacific time) with 62.1% obscuration. For some reason, I was not very interested in getting solar shades to look directly at the sun. I guess I prefer to capture events so I can relive them later. So I did 3 things...
First, I recorded a timelapse series with my GoPro HERO3+ which, according to this article, was deemed safe to use in directly photographing the sun, without the need for special filters. My setup was simple and involved mounting the GoPro on a tripod using a standard GoPro mount with 1/4" thread converter.
I pointed it at the sun and took 1 photo every 10 seconds. With a fully charged battery, I started the timelapse at 9:14 AM Pacific and ended 778 frames later at 11:23 AM Pacific when my battery died. Fortunately I had enough battery power to capture the maximum partial eclipse. I edited the photos in Lightroom by cropping the original 4000x3000 pixel images to 1920x1080, straightening the crop angle, and applying some other minor adjustments such as tweaks to highlights, shadows, and curves. I composed the video in Final Cut Pro X in 1080p 60fps. Each image was set to display for 2 frames (i.e., 2 frames divided by 60 frames/second = 1/30 second), so my final speed was 300x. I was surprised that even during maximum eclipse with 62.1% obscuration, the sun appeared to be circular in shape (see video below). I was not expecting to see a clean crescent, but I thought at least the sun would not appear to be a nice round circle. I suspect that this was due to a combination of the overwhelming brightness of the sun combined with usage of a low-resolution wide-angle GoPro.
Second, I read about binocular projections and decided to try making one by myself. I secured my binoculars to a tripod using rubber bands and pointed it at the sun—of course, without looking through the binoculars. After all, everybody knows that you're not supposed to look directly at the sun, right? I covered one of the lenses to avoid generating a duplicate image. I then placed a paper notepad on the ground, cardboard side up, onto which I projected the (monocular) image. For me, the trick in getting a better visualization of the eclipse was to create enough shade around the lens, and I did so by simply tearing a hole in a piece of paper and threading the the binocular lenses through the hole. My makeshift binocular projection looked like this:
As you can see, you get a much larger projection than with a pinhole camera, and naturally I was inclined to take photos of the binocular projection.
Third, I played around with pinhole projections. Instead of creating a typical pinhole-on-a-cereal-box viewer, I decided to play around with various objects such as a colander and strainer. I found the colander to be too large and unwieldy for me to cover its edges with paper to visualize the crescent projections. The strainer worked better due to its size, but with its relatively large holes (which I did not measure but estimate to be 3-4mm in diameter), the projections were blurry. Next time I'll try to prepare in advance some objects that have smaller holes. Nevertheless, I had fun searching for "natural" pinhole projections such as crescent formations through tree leaves and the tiny holes in our living room blinds.
A video with footage of the timelapse, binocular projection, and pinhole projections is available here:
Now that I have a little bit of experience with capturing a solar eclipse, I should be ready for the next American total eclipse on April 8, 2024. Hopefully next time I'll have a chance to travel to the path of totality.
