Solar Eclipse Maestro is the most versatile and feature-rich application for solar eclipses. It can handle any solar eclipse, provide you Baily's beads preview and animation, simulate an all-sky view or weather statistics, and a lot more.
To help you enjoy the event, it can controls up to four USB or Firewire connected cameras (Nikon and Canon DSLRs, plus Nikon Coolpix line) and up to four USB or Ethernet connected SBIG CCD cameras with their filter wheels during an eclipse so that you can be free to concentrate on observing the event visually. Actions can be preprogrammed according to a script. Observer position (latitude and longitude coordinates, altitude) is used to calculate local circumstances so that camera actions can be referenced to specific eclipse events. Refraction, lunar limb profile effects, and ∆T correction supported. Sun/Moon diagram and large event countdown display. Eclipse color coded map with mouse-over geographic cursor coordinates and eclipse duration info to indicate where to move to increase your eclipse duration. A maximum eclipse diagram at the mouse-over location can also be displayed.
- Live View (Lv) mode support to allow easier focussing and exposure compensation.
- Night vision mode to preserve your dark adaptation for totality.
- Exposure Calculator to find the best exposure for each eclipse event.
- Support for all Nikon and Canon DSLRs.
- Support for all SBIG CCD cameras with their filter wheels.
- Baily's beads simulator
- Sky chart.
- PDF exports.
- etc...
This program allows to spectate the Solar Eclipse, using USB cameras (up to four at once). This is great, because you can record what you see, yet the program requires a lot of adjustments to be done, which are not that simple to perform for a general user.