Why I Built eclipseClick

The Eclipse Bug

I caught the eclipse bug in 2012 with the annular eclipse in California. Standing under that ring of fire, watching the world dim around me while this perfect circle hung in the sky — that moment hooked me. I've been chasing eclipses ever since.

I'm a software engineer by day and an astrophotographer by night — mostly deep sky imaging, the quiet patience of galaxies and nebulae. But eclipses are different. There's nothing else in astronomy with that combination of urgency, beauty, and the gut-wrenching reality that you get exactly one chance.

2017 — First Total Eclipse

My first total eclipse was the 2017 Great American Eclipse in Mitchell, Oregon. An absolutely life-changing experience. I used Eclipse Orchestrator to automate my captures, and I was genuinely impressed by what it could do. I got some good shots, though being my first time automating a total eclipse, I ran into some issues with missed frames, delayed shots, and focus drift.

Totally understandable for a first attempt — there's a learning curve to any automation setup, and nothing truly prepares you for the adrenaline of totality. Eclipse Orchestrator had been the gold standard for years, and I learned an enormous amount from using it.

2024 — Better Prepared, Same Stress

By the time 2024 rolled around, I was much more prepared. Better camera, more experience, and I'd gotten really precise with my Eclipse Orchestrator scripts. I watched from Mazatlan with my wife and kid — their first total eclipse — and the captures came out significantly better. The script worked for the most part, and I'm grateful for what Orchestrator enabled me to do across those two eclipses.

But here's what stayed with me after 2024: the stress.

The countless practice runs leading up to eclipse day. Going over scripts again and again. The hours of anxiety the morning of. The software was sensitive to unexpected actions — during practice runs, it would crash if I did something not quite ordinary. There was no immediate feedback on whether my shots were early, late, or by how much. USB disconnects weren't handled gracefully. If the software crashed, I'd have to restart, manually reconnect everything, and set up the eclipse all over again.

At some point during totality, I made the decision to just let go and be present with my family — and I'm glad I did. But I kept thinking afterward: it shouldn't have to be this way.

The Idea: Invisible Software

I don't think the stress was any single tool's fault. Eclipse automation is genuinely hard — you're coordinating precise timing, camera communication, exposure bracketing, and you get exactly one chance to get it right. But the experience planted an idea:

Connect your camera, load your sequence, and let go. That's what I started building. I called it eclipseClick.

What eclipseClick Does

Standing on Shoulders

eclipseClick is built on the shoulders of tools like Eclipse Orchestrator and Solar Eclipse Maestro. I learned a huge amount from using Orchestrator across two eclipses, and that experience directly shaped what I'm building. This isn't meant to replace what those tools have done for the community. It's my attempt to take everything I've learned and push toward that "invisible software" feeling.

The eclipse photography community on CloudyNights, the Solar Eclipse Mailing List (SEML), and countless forum threads taught me the science behind eclipse timing — Besselian elements, Watts limb profiles, Delta T corrections. I wanted to build something that honored that depth while making it accessible.

The Technical Challenge

Building eclipse automation software is a surprisingly deep technical challenge. You need:

• A contact time solver accurate to sub-second precision (Newton-Raphson iteration on Besselian fundamental plane equations)
• Lunar limb corrections from NASA LRO LOLA elevation data to predict exactly when totality starts and ends at your specific location
• Camera SDK integration across multiple vendors (Canon, Nikon, Sony), each with their own proprietary API and quirks
• Sub-millisecond timing precision for the execution engine — exposure bracketing during totality is time-critical
• Graceful error recovery — USB disconnects, camera timeouts, and unexpected state changes must be handled without crashing
• A simulation mode that perfectly mimics real execution so you can build confidence before eclipse day

I've spent over a year building this, and the deeper I've gone, the more I've appreciated the complexity that earlier tools navigated. Every edge case I encounter — a camera that doesn't respond to a USB command, a timing drift of 50 milliseconds, a lunar limb feature that shifts a contact time by 6 seconds — reminds me that eclipse automation is genuinely hard. But that's also what makes it satisfying to get right.

Looking Forward: 2026 and Beyond

The next total solar eclipses are:

My target is to have eclipseClick thoroughly tested and ready well before 2026. That's exactly why I started the beta early — I want a full year of testing, feedback, and iteration so that by the time people are seriously planning for Spain or Iceland, the app is proven and trusted.

If you're an eclipse chaser planning for 2026, I'd love to hear from you. Whether you want to beta test, share your automation war stories, or just talk about what "invisible software" would mean to you on eclipse day — reach out.

Clear skies,
Swaroop Shere