I Accidentally Photographed Something Unknown During the Eclipse - Smarter Every Day 298

You'll notice this video does not have a sponsor. I made it with Patreon support, and I'm super grateful to everyone who supports at www.patreon.com/smartereveryday ! Thank you! If you're a Patron, please be looking for a special post on Patreon for all paid members. I'm going to give you a copy of the photo... and a way to get a printout if you'd like. I had the photo rescanned on a special drum scanner.... so the file itself for this single photo is well over a gigabyte. Be on the lookout for this post! If you're able to figure out the satellite I'm super interested to know what you think! Thank you! Destin

You may have seen a satellite that you're not supposed to know about! Lol

17:00 - I should've had two cameras going so I could've kept my video rolling! But I was there for the experience; the ability to catch a satellite's transit and compare footage was just serendipity. It was so amazing meeting you and Dr. Telepun in southern MO!

That photo could definitely win an award. Amazing effort level to time this perfectly, on that day, in that location. This needs to be in a museum. For real.

Great job Destin! I'm a 68 year old, old timer, x-photographer, Brooks Institute of Photography 1979 Grad. I've done a lot of muti-exposure photography work including creating graphics and special effects by doing dozens of exposures on a single piece of film. It's so exciting to get it right and you nailed it. There is so much you can do with digital photography but getting back to the basics of film can be so exciting. Good luck to you man.

It’s fun to think that there may have been a satellite taking a photo of me at my camera tripod.

Fascinating… and what’s more, your obvious enthusiasm was infectious.

As an old-school physical film photographer, I remember the trepidation you felt with every snap and every roll of film being developed. You had no way to be certain your shots were captured and when your film was limited to 12, 24 or 36 shots per roll, you had to be super discriminating when to push that button... always hesitant to know if it was the best shot or the right timing. I'm a firm believer in the adage "The best camera is the one you have when you need to take a picture." and I do miss shooting on film but it's just not as convenient.

You are so right when you say that things are enjoyable when people are enjoying it. The professor's excitement was a pleasure to be a part of

Love the reaction from Dr. Telepun. Great job getting that shot!!

man, a big old nerd looking at your picture with magnification goggles and a magnifying glass saying "this is the best work i've ever seen" is surely something

Thanks for posting this. I'm 81 now, and all my life I have had this same abundance of joy whenever I learn something new, try something I have not done before, or experiencing one of the many goals I imagined doing at some point in my life.

Seeing your and Dr. Telepun's enthusiasm was really heartwarming, and seeing when your photo and Geerling's synched up almost gave me chills.

Wow! It was great to be a part of creating such a great image and memory. There was so many technical things that could have gone wrong - from accurate enough exposures for slide film, to development, to shutter speed consistency and movement of the camera, that the idea felt a bit unachievable in the beginning. Great to see it turn out this well 😍

Honest to goodness, this may be my favorite video you've ever done. Featuring so many people with a sense of wonder, curiosity and the desire to share scientific discovery and knowledge is a true testament to the positive impact science can have. Congrats on nailing the photo and kudos for sharing the wonder and passion of the solar eclipse with the whole community!

This is such an amazing shot! My dad is an astrophysicist so I have seen many images of all types of space objects/planets/stars/solar eclipses and this is pure perfection! Congrats on getting this done as a team.

Answer: Wind Dispersal Of Seeds or Anemochory. The wind was coming from the south that day in SE Missouri, using Baily's Beads in the eclipse video as a reference the seeds seen in the video were all traveling in the direction of the wind that day from south to north. Where it looks like they kind of line up in two different videos and locations, I believe is just a coincidence of seeing two different seeds out of thousands that happen to be in a similar video frame location in both videos. I have taken videos of seeds like this in the past if one blocks out the sun, sometimes the seeds are so numerous there can be thousands in view. Examples of wind-borne seeds are from cottonwood trees and willow trees in the spring time, each tree can release over 10 million seeds. The Mississippi river valley is filled with cottonwood trees (Populus deltoides). The seeds could likely be from another tree or plant species from farther south in Mexico as well since they will be spreading seeds earlier in the spring than in Missouri.

I found the nerdiest location possible for the eclipse. I found the EXACT spot that the 2024 total eclipse path intersected with the 2023 annular eclipse path (withing 100 feet or so) and drove almost 1000 miles to be there during the eclipse. In other words, the only spot you could PERFECTLY see both eclipses. About 50 other people had the exact same idea. It was across the street from a general store in the middle of a bunch of foresty campsights. It was completely cloudy all morning, EXCEPT for the 5 minutes of the actual eclipse! It was the only perfectly clear 5 minutes all morning, just in the area of the sun. We all got a perfect view. We all got extremely lucky. It was amazing.

When someone asks me "What is Happiness???" I will show them this video. This video has basically everything related to happiness: family, friends, knowledge, adventure, generations, joy, relationships, sharing, and so on. Absolutely AMAZING!!!!!

It deserves accolades that calculating how much border of safety on the film you want & the ability to pre-align your camera & tripod are also unforgiving make-or-break challenges. Congrats Destin & team on your beautiful success!