A composite image created by Assistant Professor Richard Monda, a faculty member in the Biology, Chemistry and Physics Department, appears on cover of the September 2024 issue of The Planetarian, a quarterly journal of the International Planetarium Society (IPS).
Monda titled the photo “Fire and Light: Annularity over Albuquerque” and describes it is a composite image of a hot air balloon photographed before dawn on Oct. 14, 2023, at the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta combined with an image of the annular solar eclipse taken nearby later that day. Monda was located a block away from where NASA was set up to live stream the eclipse. This area of Albuquerque was near the centerline of annularity that made such a spectacular image of the “Ring of Fire” eclipse possible.
Monda had traveled to New Mexico to witness and photograph the three-hour-long annular eclipse that occurred the same weekend as Albuquerque’s extremely popular annual hot air balloon festival, creating the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to capture both photographs within hours of one another.
Using protective solar eclipse glasses, viewers of an annular solar eclipse see the moon silhouetted against the sun with a ring (or “annulus”) of sunlight surrounding the moon. The “Ring of Fire” occurs when the moon is slightly farther from the Earth than average and appears smaller than the sun. The solar ring is seen when the moon is centered over the sun. Access this October 2023 Campus Chronicle article for more information and images of annual solar eclipse.
Monda, who served as director of the Schenectady Planetarium from 1989-1999, is a fellow of the IPS in recognition of his contributions to the field. He teaches Astronomy and Physics at HVCC.
Technical details: Both images were taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera. The solar eclipse image was obtained using a 100mm-200mm Canon EF zoom lens at 200mm with a matched Canon 2x teleconverter for an effective focal length of 400mm. The exposure was for 1/60 second at f/16 and ISO 800 using a Thousand Oaks solar filter on the telephoto lens. The time was 10:35 am MDT. The hot air balloon was taken with a Canon 24-105mm zoom lens at 47 mm and the exposure was for 1/50 second at f/6.7 using ISO 3200 at 6:15 a.m.