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The best photographs from the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse do more than show a black Moon surrounded by a white corona. They capture the event at several scales: the magnetic structure of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the Moon’s shadow moving across North America, a frigatebird crossing the diamond ring, landmarks emerging in strange light, and people realizing that afternoon has briefly become night.
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This is an editorial selection, not an objective ranking. Here, best means the strongest combination of visual impact, photographic difficulty, scientific or historical value, human storytelling, geographic range, and verifiable provenance. Each entry is labeled by eclipse phase, viewpoint, and image type so that a multi-exposure composite is not mistaken for a single frame—and a partial eclipse is not mislabeled as totality.
Important: The source links below are the original galleries or image pages. Use the authorized high-resolution asset and the credit line supplied by the rights holder when publishing; do not copy images from these pages without permission.
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From Mexico to Canada, from the Dallas sky to a spacecraft a million miles away, these are the most compelling visual records of the 2024 eclipse.
How to read this gallery
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Totality | The Moon completely covered the Sun’s bright photosphere at the photographer’s location. |
| Partial eclipse | Part of the bright solar disk remained visible. This includes places outside the path of totality, such as Washington, D.C. |
| Composite | Multiple exposures or frames were combined to show a wider range of brightness, a sequence of movement, or a planned alignment. |
| Panorama or 360-degree image | Several views were stitched together, or a 360-degree camera captured the surrounding environment. |
| View from space | The image shows the Moon’s shadow on Earth rather than the eclipsed Sun as seen from the ground. |
The eclipse crossed Mexico, the United States, and Canada. In the United States, the path of totality crossed parts of 15 states; it then continued through southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland. The maximum predicted central duration was approximately 4 minutes 28 seconds near Torreón, Mexico. NASA’s path and timing guide and eclipse FAQ provide the geographic and timing details.
The opening three: the eclipse at three scales
Dallas, Texas, United States · Totality · Multi-exposure composite
The ideal opening image is Barber’s broad view of totality: a dark lunar disk, delicate inner corona, and longer outer streamers extending into space. It is a composite of multiple exposures, not a single exposure representing the entire brightness range. Combining exposures allows the bright inner corona and much fainter outer structure to appear together. NASA also published a prediction-versus-reality comparison using this work.
Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber. Check NASA’s image and media guidelines and any third-party notices before reuse.
Off Sinaloa, Mexico · Totality and diamond-ring phase · Still photograph
Liron Gertsman’s image is memorable because the eclipse is not isolated from the living world. A frigatebird crosses the frame as the diamond ring appears, combining wildlife behavior, ocean landscape, and a split-second eclipse phenomenon. Gertsman photographed from a boat off Sinaloa during roughly four and a half minutes of totality, after scouting bird behavior and planning for the possibility that seabirds would remain airborne during the sudden darkness.
Credit: Liron Gertsman. This is independently copyrighted work; license it directly or obtain written permission through the photographer’s site.
DSCOVR/EPIC · Approximately one million miles from Earth · Satellite sequence
From the ground, the eclipse was a black circle in the sky. From the DSCOVR spacecraft, the defining subject was the Moon’s shadow sweeping over Earth. The EPIC image-use page says its imagery is available for reproduction or reuse, including commercial purposes, with credit requested; confirm the specific image record and required credit before publication.
Credit: NASA/DSCOVR EPIC.
The eclipse itself: corona, prominences, and hidden detail
Totality changes what can be seen. During the partial phase, the Moon gradually takes a bite from the Sun’s bright photosphere. Near the beginning and end of totality, sunlight shines through valleys along the Moon’s irregular edge, creating Baily’s beads. The last bright point of photospheric sunlight combined with the surrounding corona produces the diamond-ring effect. Once the photosphere is fully hidden, the faint corona becomes visible.
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Texas, United States · Totality · Close-up photograph
The pink-red structures around the Moon are solar prominences: plasma structures held above the Sun’s surface by magnetic fields. They are not automatically solar flares. The prominence close-up is a useful companion to Barber’s wide corona composite because it shows a different kind of solar structure at the edge of the black lunar disk. NASA described the 2024 prominences as many times larger than Earth.
Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber. Confirm the image-specific credit and reuse terms on the source page.
Mexico · Totality · Processed astronomical photograph
Petr Horálek’s Mexican corona image rewards close inspection. ESA identifies Comet SOHO-5008 within the processed field, turning a familiar eclipse composition into a small solar-system hunt. The comet is a secondary detail, not the main subject, and its visibility depends on the image’s processing and contrast.
Credit: Petr Horálek. ESA states on the page that no ESA licence is available; obtain permission from the credited photographer before reuse.
Mexico · Totality · HDR composite
Zixiong Jin’s photograph addresses one of eclipse photography’s hardest problems: the corona is bright beside a nearly black lunar disk, while Earthshine—the faint sunlight reflected from Earth onto the Moon’s dark side—is much dimmer still. Jin describes combining six sets of 17-stop HDR images, from 1/8000 second to 8 seconds, with a telescope and equatorial mount. The image received Bronze in the Nature/Astrophotography category at the 2024 Budapest International Foto Awards. That makes it award-recognized, not necessarily the overall winning eclipse photograph.
Credit: Zixiong Jin. Independently copyrighted; consult the award page or photographer for licensing.
The seconds around totality
The moments before and after totality are often more difficult to photograph than totality itself. Baily’s beads and the diamond ring last only briefly, and the photographer must be ready for the instant when the photosphere disappears or reappears. The visual language is also different: rather than a balanced corona, these images are about timing, lunar topography, and a single burst of sunlight.
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Indianapolis, Indiana, United States · Totality boundary/diamond-ring phase · Single frame
Joel Kowsky’s photograph places the diamond ring over a recognizable public venue and audience. It connects the precise instant of third or second contact with the collective experience of eclipse day. NASA’s larger 232-image eclipse album contains alternate frames and surrounding context.
Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky. Follow the image-specific NASA credit and media guidance.
New Boston, Texas, United States · Third contact · Stabilized, sped-up video sequence
This is a bonus moving image rather than one of the still-photo entries. David Duarte recorded the transition after totality with a Sky-Watcher Evostar 80ED telescope, QHY 183C camera, and 600 mm focal length. The sequence was stabilized and sped up, making the return of sunlight legible as a progression rather than a single frozen instant.
Capture details: photographer’s description. Obtain permission for any video or frame reproduction.
When the landscape matters as much as the Sun
A close-up corona is not automatically a better eclipse photograph. Landscape, architecture, clouds, and changing ambient light can communicate what it felt like to stand inside or near the path. They also make phase labeling especially important: a landmark alignment may be a striking partial eclipse, not totality.
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Bill Ingalls’ Washington Monument image belongs in this gallery precisely because it is not totality. Washington, D.C., was outside the path of totality, so the Sun remained partly visible. The monument supplies scale and a strong vertical counterpoint to the crescent Sun. It is a reminder that partial-eclipse photography can be excellent when composition carries the image.
Eustis, Maine, United States · Totality · HDR composite
Space.com reports that Jim Abels drove approximately 1,100 miles and changed locations in response to the forecast. His multiple-exposure HDR image brings out the corona, stars, and Earthshine together. It should be labeled clearly: the tonal range was assembled from multiple exposures and does not represent one ordinary exposure of the scene.
North America · Phase varies by image · Atmospheric and landscape photography
Clouds are not simply photographic failure. They can soften a partial Sun, hide the corona while preserving the strange light of totality, or create a horizon-wide glow resembling sunset in every direction. Live Science’s gallery includes cloud-obscured scenes from places including Niagara Falls, Toronto, and Texas. Each individual frame should retain the phase and location given by its original caption.
Aircraft view · Totality · 360-degree capture or stitched panorama
Sichun Wang used two DJI Action 4 cameras and an Insta360 X3 while flying beneath the eclipse shadow. This kind of image shows the environment changing around the observer: the eclipse is not only a telephoto subject but also a broad alteration of the horizon and daylight. Identify the selected asset accurately as a 360-degree capture, stitched panorama, or still extracted from that capture; it is not a conventional single-lens landscape photograph.
The same eclipse from space
Two NASA viewpoints turn the event into a planetary-scale phenomenon. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station saw the Moon’s shadow moving across Earth; they were not looking at the Sun being covered from the ground. DSCOVR’s EPIC instrument, roughly one million miles away, recorded the shadow crossing North America from the Sun-facing side of the spacecraft.
Low Earth orbit · View from space · Still photograph
The ISS image reverses the usual direction of attention. Instead of showing the covered Sun, it shows the Moon’s umbra—the central shadow—on Earth. NASA identifies the April 8 photographs as taken with a Nikon Z 9 and 24 mm and 28 mm lenses. The accompanying NASA Johnson album provides additional frames and metadata.
DSCOVR/EPIC · Deep-space viewpoint · Satellite sequence
EPIC’s sequence supplies the widest geographical context in the gallery. The shadow is not a small dark spot added for drama; it is the visible footprint of the Moon blocking direct sunlight across a moving strip of Earth. The sequence works especially well between ground-based sections because it changes the scale from a human crowd or camera sensor to an entire continent.
NASA WB-57 aircraft · High-altitude viewpoint · Scientific imaging
NASA’s 2024 collection also includes imagery made from WB-57 aircraft. High-altitude observations can provide a different atmospheric vantage point from both the ground and orbit, while the larger NASA collection places the aircraft work alongside the ISS, EPIC, and ground-based photographs.
People, animals, and the shared event
Photojournalism adds something a technically perfect corona cannot: evidence of how the eclipse entered ordinary life. The strongest human-scale images do not need to show every detail of the Sun. A child in eclipse clothing, a crowd at a landmark, a flight full of observers, or animals responding to the sudden darkness can explain the event’s emotional and social scale.
Fort Worth, Texas, United States · Eclipse-day documentary photograph
AP photographer Mat Otero’s Fort Worth Zoo image connects the eclipse with animal behavior and the people watching it. Otero described working with a 200–600 mm lens, solar filtering, manual preparation, and a slow exposure of 1/50 second at ISO 160 and f/6.3 to retain prominences. The technical details matter because they show how much preparation is hidden inside an apparently spontaneous news photograph.
Credit: Mat Otero/AP. AP imagery requires licensing; do not download and republish the image from the article page.
Mexico, the United States, and Canada · Phase varies by image · Photojournalism
TIME’s gallery is useful for the human geography of the event: viewers gathered in cities, at landmarks, on flights, and along the path of totality. Select individual images for their specific place and phase rather than treating every eclipse-day photograph as a view of totality.
North America · Phase varies by image · Human-scale photojournalism
The Guardian’s Mexico, U.S., and Canada coverage broadens the gallery beyond specialist astronomy. Crowds, protective glasses, landmarks, and unusual light make the eclipse legible to readers who were not standing inside the path. As with all agency and publication galleries, individual reuse requires permission or a license.
What makes these photographs difficult to make?
Eclipse photography compresses a complicated series of decisions into a few minutes. The photographer must plan the solar altitude, foreground, focal length, weather route, focus, exposure range, and timing before the Moon covers the Sun. There is little time during totality to troubleshoot or change lenses.
- Exposure range: The bright inner corona, faint outer corona, prominences, Earthshine, and stars do not fit comfortably into one ordinary exposure. Bracketing and HDR processing can reveal them together.
- Timing: Baily’s beads and the diamond ring appear near second and third contact and may last only moments. A preprogrammed sequence or a practiced manual workflow helps.
- Focus and stability: NASA recommends practicing beforehand, using a tripod, setting manual focus, and testing exposures. A tracking mount can help with longer astronomical exposures, while a wide-angle camera preserves the landscape.
- Filters: A proper solar filter is required during the partial phases. It should be removed only during true totality, when the bright photosphere is completely covered, and replaced before sunlight returns. Follow NASA’s photography guidance and never improvise a filter.
- Weather contingency: Abels changed locations after driving about 1,100 miles; other photographers accepted cloud, used it as atmosphere, or moved to a different part of the path. Forecast flexibility can matter as much as camera equipment.
- Two kinds of composition: A long telephoto lens isolates the corona; a wide lens, panorama, or second camera records the landscape, crowd, or horizon glow. Trying to make one setup do both jobs can cost the photographer the moment.
These trade-offs explain why no single image can represent the whole experience. A detailed corona portrait, a landmark alignment, a wildlife photograph, a cloud-obscured scene, and a satellite sequence answer different visual questions.
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Why the 2024 images look unlike one another
Single exposure versus composite
A single exposure records one moment and one exposure value. A composite may combine many moments or exposure levels. NASA’s Barber image and Jin’s Earthshine image are composites for different reasons: one reveals coronal structure across a wide brightness range, while the other reaches from the bright corona to the faintly illuminated lunar disk. A time-lapse composite can show the Moon’s progression against a landmark, and a 360-degree image can show a much wider field than a normal frame.
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- These sheets are a quality product of Thousand Oaks Optical, Arizona, a manufacturer of safe solar filters for over 30 years. "Stronger than Mylar with the filtering properties protected within the substrate. Guaranteed five years."
- Make a filter on your own for any telescope / binoculars / camera, and for a fraction of what factory made filters cost.
- The sun will appear in a natural orange color when viewed through your telescope using this filter.
- WARNING: ALWAYS MAKE SURE THE FILTER IS WELL ATTACHED TO THE TELESCOPE/BINOCULARS, USING STICKY TAPE, TO KEEP IT FROM FALLING WHILE OBSERVING!
What the eye saw versus what the camera shows
Long exposures and software can reveal stars, Earthshine, and faint coronal streamers that were not all simultaneously obvious to a human observer. Color can also be influenced by atmospheric conditions, solar filters, white balance, and post-processing. A blue, purple, orange, or red sky in a photograph should not automatically be described as the exact color seen by everyone at the location.
Prominence versus flare
The familiar pink or red loops around the Moon are normally solar prominences—magnetically supported plasma structures. Calling every red feature a solar flare is inaccurate. Use the terminology in NASA’s Heliopedia and 2024 eclipse recap.
Earthshine
Earthshine is sunlight reflected from Earth that illuminates the Moon’s otherwise dark side. It is not light emitted by the Moon. In an eclipse photograph, Earthshine is usually faint enough to require exposure blending, which is why the Maine and Zixiong Jin examples must be identified as HDR or composite images.
How to use the images legally
Being visible on a NASA, news, magazine, agency, or astronomy website does not mean that an image is free to copy. Build a published gallery from licensed assets, direct photographer permissions, public-domain material, or images whose individual license explicitly permits the planned use.
Generally safer starting points
- NASA imagery: NASA says its imagery is generally available for educational or informational use under its media guidelines, but third-party images displayed or hosted by NASA remain subject to their owners’ rights. Check each image’s credit and restrictions.
- NASA EPIC: The EPIC policy states that its products are available for reproduction or reuse, including commercial purposes, with credit requested. Confirm the particular image record before publication.
- Direct submissions: Written permission from the photographer should specify the publication, territory, duration, format, crop, caption, and credit.
- Public-domain or Creative Commons material: Check the license on the individual asset, not merely a search result or a gallery landing page.
Images that normally require licensing or permission
AP, Reuters, Getty Images, AFP, Anadolu, The Canadian Press, independent photographers, and many images hosted by ESA or other institutions require permission or a paid license. AP’s terms and photo licensing page explain why an image appearing in an AP story cannot simply be downloaded and republished. ESA’s Horálek page specifically states that no ESA licence is available, so permission must come from the credited photographer.
Every image record should include
- photographer, agency, or institution;
- exact location, including state, province, or country;
- date and eclipse phase;
- whether the image is a single exposure, HDR composite, time-lapse, panorama, satellite sequence, or video frame;
- equipment or processing details when they explain the image;
- license or permission status and the required credit line;
- the original source page and, when authorized, the high-resolution asset location.
Common mistakes in eclipse galleries
- Calling every event-day image totality: A gallery about the total eclipse may contain partial-eclipse frames from cities outside the path. Label each photograph individually.
- Presenting a composite as a single exposure: Disclosure takes only a few words and prevents readers from misunderstanding the image’s dynamic range.
- Publishing ten interchangeable corona close-ups: A strong retrospective needs visual and geographic discipline. One or two technically exceptional close-ups are more useful when surrounded by landscape, people, animals, and space-based views.
- Calling prominences flares: Use solar prominence unless a reliable source identifies a flare.
- Confusing 2023 with 2024: Famous Baily’s-beads images from Ryan Imperio’s October 14, 2023 annular eclipse are not photographs of the April 8, 2024 total eclipse. Astronomy’s coverage identifies the earlier date.
- Assuming NASA hosting equals universal permission: NASA’s own material and third-party work displayed on NASA pages must be treated differently.
- Ignoring cloud images: Clouds can obscure the corona but preserve the environmental drama—the 360-degree change in daylight, color, and horizon glow.
A final way to judge the gallery
The technically most detailed image is not necessarily the most memorable. The strongest 2024 eclipse photographs made the event understandable at different scales: the corona’s streamers, prominences on the Sun, Baily’s beads at the lunar edge, a bird crossing a diamond ring, crowds reacting in real time, and the umbra moving across an entire continent.
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That range is also what separates a retrospective from an immediate-news slideshow. Galleries from WIRED, Space.com, Live Science, AP, and the Washington Post preserve the breadth of the day. NASA’s primary-source collection adds the technical and planetary views needed to understand why these images continue to matter.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which photographs in this gallery show totality, and which show a partial eclipse?
The Dallas, Mexico, Sinaloa, Indianapolis, Maine, and New Boston examples are associated with totality or its immediate contact phases. Bill Ingalls’ Washington Monument sequence is explicitly a partial eclipse because Washington, D.C., was outside the path of totality. The human and landscape galleries contain images from multiple locations, so each individual asset must retain its original phase and location in the caption.
Are HDR eclipse photographs misleading?
Not inherently. The corona, prominences, Earthshine, and stars span a brightness range that a normal single exposure cannot record well. HDR and exposure stacking can reveal that information, but the caption should say that the image is a composite. It should not be described as exactly what the eye saw in one instant.
Why are the red structures around the eclipsed Sun called prominences instead of solar flares?
They are solar prominences: plasma structures held above the Sun’s surface by magnetic fields. A red feature in an eclipse photograph should not be called a flare unless a reliable source specifically identifies it as one. NASA’s Heliopedia provides the terminology.
Can I reuse these eclipse photographs?
Not automatically. NASA and EPIC imagery may have reuse provisions, but the individual credit and NASA guidelines still need to be checked. AP, Reuters, Getty, ESA-hosted work without an ESA licence, and independent photographers’ images generally require licensing or written permission. A publication should use authorized high-resolution assets rather than screenshots or downloaded copies from gallery pages.
What is the difference between the ISS and DSCOVR eclipse images?
The ISS photographs were taken from low Earth orbit and show the Moon’s umbra on Earth from above. DSCOVR’s EPIC instrument viewed the event from roughly one million miles away and recorded the shadow sweeping across North America at planetary scale. Neither viewpoint shows the familiar ground-based view of the Sun’s corona.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: The best total solar eclipse photos of 2024 are not all close-ups, and they are not all single exposures. Together, the most compelling images show the Sun’s corona, the Moon’s shadow, the fleeting diamond ring, wildlife and crowds, the landscape under altered light, and the difference between what a camera can assemble and what a person can see in a few extraordinary minutes.
Quick Recap
