Tim Connolly is a State Police trooper. When he’s not in uniform, he can be found in his backyard in the town of Saranac, taking photos of the sun, moon, planets and stars and posting them on his website, AstroNorth Astrophotography.

“I do the photography and solar imaging and the astrophotography for fun as a hobby because it keeps my head straight at times from all the stresses of being a cop,” he said.

His first venture into astrophotography was in 2013 when Comet Pan-STARRS appeared. Connolly had always loved astronomy but had never tried to take photos of space until then. He went outside, captured an image of the comet and was “hooked” ever since.

“Now I take pictures of everything in space and everything in the sky. It’s just very addictive,” he said.

He perfected his eclipse set-up last weekend: two telescopes on one tracking mount that’ll track the sun across the sky. The first telescope has a white light filter on it and is hooked up to his camera. The second telescope has a calcium K filter on it, which is a special purple filter that helps image the sun’s chromosphere — that is, the middle layer of the sun’s atmosphere.

“When you look at the sun, there’s all different wavelengths to image and different wavelengths will show you different features on the sun. So, for the eclipse, my preferred setup is white light and calcium K because you’re going to get the most detail from the solar disc,” he said.

He also has a hydrogen alpha telescope prepared for guests to get an up-close glimpse of the eclipse. This type of telescope is suited to observing the sun.

On eclipse day, Connolly plans to have a full house. Families from China and Lima, Peru are staying at his house, as well as guests from around the country.

“The path of totality goes right over my house, so we’re going to be out in the backyard with my huge solar scopes,” he said. “We’re going to be imaging the sun. We have solar glasses, and I’m hoping to get some awesome pictures.”

Out at the Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory in Tupper Lake, president Seth McGowan will be forgoing photography to helm the Sky Center’s livestream for NASA.

“There’s 12 sites across the United States that are providing NASA with the live feeds. We’re one of them, proud to say,” McGowan said.

The Sky Center will have two telescopes on the live feed. One will be a hydrogen alpha telescope and the other will be totally unfiltered for the moment of totality.

During the last total eclipse in August 2017, McGowan traveled to the path of totality, in Kentucky, to view and photograph the eclipse. He took photos with a DSLR — digital single-lens reflex — with a “hefty” lens and a solar filter.

“Essentially you point your camera with the filter on at the sun and you wait for the first point of contact,” he said. “As the moon moves across the surface of the sun, you just kind of keep taking pictures, and then at the moment of totality, you can take the filter off the front of the camera and be able to photograph with some pretty good detail the corona around the sun.”

The most important part, he said, is the filter — without a filter, the camera’s sensor and the photographer’s eyes could sustain permanent damage.

Connolly agreed that DSLR photography can give an aspiring astrophotographer some good results during the eclipse. The most important part, he said, is to pay attention to the phase of the eclipse. During partial phases, a filter is absolutely necessary. You can tell when the eclipse is transitioning into totality by looking for “Baily’s Beads” or the “diamond ring effect” — a moment just before totality when the last glimpses of sunlight will resemble beads or diamonds because of the way the light interacts with the terrain of the moon.

“When you see the Baily’s Beads come back, that’s when you need to put the solar filter back on,” Connolly said.

During totality, though, he recommends experimenting with different lengths of exposures to capture the corona of the sun.

McGowan said he’d recommend sticking with a “middle ground” exposure and playing around with focus.

“Once you can see the moon, focus on the edge of the moon and just try to get the nice orange glow of the sun as it’s working its way across,” he said.

Smartphone photography will difficult, McGowan and Connolly said.

Both photographers recommended taking a lens from a pair of eclipse glasses and taping it over smartphone cameras to protect their sensors from the strong rays of the sun.

McGowan said that it may be a better plan to put the phones away and simply enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime experience of a total eclipse in the North Country.

“There’s going to be eight bazillion people imaging this with great equipment. Just be in the moment. Don’t worry about posting your little picture on Facebook or something,” he said. “Document the faces of people around you. That’s what’s going to be stunning.”