My wife and I decided to travel to Albuquerque New Mexico for the annular solar eclipse, that is where the moon comes directly between the sun and our little earth. We choose that city because it was far enough west to see the complete annular part of the eclipse and was directly on the center line where the moon would be exactly in the center. Here is a poster of the images I took while there:

Annular solar eclipse

I even shot a little video of the eclipse and if you missed the actual eclipse, you can see it in less than 60 seconds by clicking below

eclipse-01

If you want to see upcoming solar eclipse dates, check out NASA’s eclipse page.

While in the area, no astronomy buff would dare leave before seeing the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, also know as the Very Large Array or VLA. This has been included in many movies such as Contact and is an absolutely awesome place to visit.

VLA1

Very Large Array 2

You can read a ton more information about the very large array Wikipedia page.

While there was still some daylight left we turned east and went to White Sands National Monument. This place is just breathtaking. Their sign says something about you must see the place at sunset to really get an appreciation of the beauty of it. I agree. My sunset picture does NOT do this place justice and I am still trying to coax a better image out of what I have. The entire sky just lights on fire, and I mean the entire sky, not just the area close to the setting sun, it is simply amazing.

Around here when the sun goes down you get some red/orange towards the setting sun. You can even get some up close to the zenith if you are lucky. Here, the zenith was on fire and the horizon to the east was showing some red/orange colors too. I would not have believed it had I not seen it.

White sands

White sands at sunset

More information can be found at the White Sands National Monument Wikipedia page.

We went for the annular solar eclipse and wound up seeing so much more, what an awesome trip. I hope you enjoy looking at the images as much as I enjoyed taking them!