Source: NASA The final event of 2014 occurs at the Moon's ascending node in southern Virgo. Although it is only a partial solar eclipse, it is of particular interest because the event is widely visible from Canada and the USA.

Just prior to the eclipse beginning, Sunspot AR2192 is clearly visible. The presence of this sunspot, one of the largest in the last two decades, will likely make this an interesting partial eclipse.

The eclipse begins in earnest with the moon beginning to creep into view.

The moon begins to "eat up" part of the sun making it look a little like Pac-Man

Yep, definitely some Pac-Man action going on here

Sinking towards the horizon, the sun and moon appear to pass through a small veil of cirrus clouds

While the eclipse was clearly visible on the cameras, to the naked eye, it was just a sunny afternoon.. with the sunlight strangely beginning to fade before dusk?

The sun and moon tango in the clouds

Capturing the eclipse was not simply a case of pointing the camera at the sun and cranking down the iris while blasting the shutter speed. The key was a special 1000x neutral density filter that dropped the light by 10 full f-stops. It's visible on the center lens.

The moon approaches 40% coverage.

I hate switching lenses, this especially becomes a problem when your zoomed in because reacquiring your target slows you down substantially. So instead of jumping between the 70-200 and 400mm + 2x converter I just used two bodies. I kept the 400mm with the extender on my more powerful 5DMKIII and the 70-200 on my T4i. This allowed me to play around without having to do much else than fiddle with the camera body. I kept my old Canon XSI hanging on my shoulder for other shots between the eclipse action such as this one.

The eclipse, nearing 50%, begins to descend below the horizon and out of view.

The eclipse is now quickly vanishing at the horizon line

In less the minute little is left of the sun and moon

As the eclipse vanished from view, I took this shot of my gear at the side of the road. I also took off the 1000X filter and left it on my hood. It was slowing down my shutter speed way too much in the dim light. All in all it was a fun event, a little underwhelming, but eventually, a total eclipse will come our way!