The 13 November 2012 total solar eclipse (TSE 2012) was visible from land only across the northern regions of Queensland and the Northern Territory in Australia.  Because totality was (a) very low to the horizon and (b) logistically more difficult in the Northern Territory, TSE 2012 saw a huge influx of both fledging, and hard-core, eclipse chasers concentrated in a very small geographic region along the east coast of Cape York from Cairns to Port Douglas.  For TSE 2012, I traveled to Trinity Beach with Joel Moskowitz to meet up with Joe Cali and a host of other like-minded umbraphiles from around the globe.  Our "baseline" plan was to observe TSE 2012 from an ultralight landing strip on the Cavallaro family farm just a few kilometers inland from Port Douglas.  The (anticipated) weather predictions the evening before the eclipse, however, dictated otherwise.  So, at midnight 13-14 November (local time), we struck out for a previously scouted alternate observing site inland at Maitland Downs, appx. 63 km NW of Mount Olive (~ 5 KM SE of the Maitland Downs airstrip).  Arriving at about 3 AM, we spent the next three hours setting up equipment in a cow paddock rich with natural fertilizer (i.e., cow manure).  A number of others elected to fly on a standby chartered aircraft to the west coast of Cape York (e.g., see THIS REPORT by Geoff Sims).  From our site at "Cow Poop Paddock" (below), the Sun would rise just at 1st contact, but (as a priori known) obscured by low hills to the east, and then climb through a surrounding canopy of ghost gum trees during partial ingress, clearing the highest branches just prior to totality from some parts of the observing field (a photographic esthetic opportunity, for this eclipse, I took advantage of).

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For this, my 30th total solar eclipse, given the anticipated visual reduction in coronal extent due to sky conditions, I advantageously used the local flora to provide foreground context for both the wide-field camera (above), and intermediate image scale camera (see immediately below).  My thanks to Joe Cali (also see bottom of page) for the use of his precision inclinometer in setting up these images.  This was something a bit different for me, but post priori, quite happy with that decision.

The corona beyond about four solar radii was visually obscured due to atmospheric extinction with the Sun only 13° above the horizon and from scattering lowering corona-to-sky contrast by very thin, high clouds (visible in the wide-field image at the top of this page).  The structure of the corona to the full radial extent seen was quite complex and typical of a "solar maximum" corona with streamers radiating circumferentially at all heliocentric azimuth angles  (and it was pretty too!). 

The mid/outer corona (above/top) and inner corona with prominences (above/bottom) were imaged on 35 mm film using two synchronously exposing cameras (Pentax ZX-30 and ZX-50).   During totality, log-normal exposure time ramps with exposures ranging from 53 ms to 993 millisecond were executed from  C2 to mid-eclipse, and symmetrically inverted to C3 with an inter-frame cadence of 4.3s. 

TRANSITION TO/FROM TOTALITY

The above montage, captured as individual frames with the lug-a-scope eclipse camera, progresses from right to left with (first) the shrinking and breaking of the pre-totality photospheric arc into Baily's beads and the emergence, then disappearance, of the ruby-red chromosphere with solar prominences dotting the solar limb.  The eight composited images on the right of the totally eclipsed Sun (showing inner corona and prominences) were exposed at -6, -4, -2, 0, +4.3, +8.6, +12.9, and +17.2 seconds with respect to the predicted time of second contact at 20:37:42.8 UTC.   A symmetrical third contact sequence appears to the left of the totally eclipsed Sun with respect to the predicted time of C3 at 20:39:46.3 UTC.  The image of the eclipsed Sun is a two-farme composite from images taken +/- 19.2 seconds with respect to mid-eclipse (20:38:46 UTC) reveal the array of prominences distributed around the periphery of the Sun visible near the time of mid-eclipse.

CHROMOSPHERE

The Sun's chromosphere, an appx 20,000 km thin layer glowing in the ruby-red (at 6563Å) light of singly ionized hydrogen atoms, immediately surrounds the solar photosphere (1,391,000 km in diameter). The Moon's apparent angular diameter, as seen from Maitland Downs was appx 3.7% larger than the Sun's, so completely obscured the chromosphere for most of totality (see 'Transition to/from Totality" and Inner Corona  images above). Chromospheric arcs, however, alternatively visible for a few seconds at the east/west limbs of the Sun, became visible just as the silhouette of the over-sized Moon covered those respective  hemispheres of the Sun's photosphere immediately adjacent (interior) to the respective solar limbs.  The image above digitally combines the contact 2 and 3 chromospheric arcs to show the appearance of the chromosphere as it would have appeared - except at the solar poles - if the Moon had been a little further away from the Earth.  The chromosphere (also punctuated by hydrogen-alpha red prominences) is "broken", in many places, many small beads by the irregulaities in the lunar limb profile.

A WALK AROUND THE SOLAR LIMB

DIAMOND RING!...

All film-camera exposures were autonomously acquired (as detailed HERE ) using G. Schneider's UMBRAPHILE automated eclipse imaging software, following a similar inter-camera relative sensitivity paradigm as detailed for imaging TSE 2006.  

Second (left) & third (right) contact diamond rings, and coronal multi-image composites (middle), simultaneously imaged in two cameras with UMBRAPHLE.
Click HERE or on the above image to see at 2x scale and resolution.
TOP: Camera 2 (400 mm f/6.3, Kodak Elite Chrome 200).  Bottom: Camera 1 (1200 mm f/12, Ektar 25).