As far as I know, this is the first picture of an analemma with an eclipse--at least, a proper one, not an illustration. I call it a "Tutulemma," a combination of analemma and tutulma (pronounced to-tool-ma), the Turkish word for eclipse.

Analemma photography is a difficult sport. At least a year of careful calculation and positioning of a camera at a good position is necessary. And the long duration and narrow windows of available photograpy time with many other technical problems make it very difficult. So, I decided to make a composite. At this point, I have to express my respect to single-film, multi-exposure achievers of the image, starting with Dennis DiCicco and ending with Anthony Ayiomamitis. Or should it be apologies?

My house is in Bursa, Turkey. But the total solar eclipse of 29th March 2006 would not be visible from home, but about 500 km south, from Antalya. So I had to calculate the exact position of an analemma containing the total eclipse visible from Antalya. So the aim was to find the time of day that an analemma in Bursa would be positioned exactly the same angle as an analemma in (or around) Antalya at 13:56 local summer time.

Credit and copyright: Tunc Tezel and Cenk Erim Tezel

The solar eclipse would be total around Antalya between 13:55-13:58 GMT+3. The calculations pointed 14:26 GMT+3 or 13:26 GMT+2. I constructed a styrofoam formwork on a chimney on the rooftom of our apartment block, for the digital SLR to be positioned at the intended part of the sky. And I started photography on 17th July 2005. I took 26 pictures of the Sun from the rooftop on these dates: 17, 28th July; 3, 14, 23rd August; 1, 11, 20, 25, 30th September; 9, 20, 27th October; 8, 22nd November; 3, 13, 21, 28th December 2005; 9, 18, 29th January; 4, 21st February; 4, 19th March 2006. A good spread of days, especially in Fall months. And then came the total solar eclipse... It was my second totality, again in Turkey. (The first one was in 1999, of course.)

After the eclipse, my day job came in the way. I temporarily moved to a jobsite (as a civil engineer) away from home; so I could not take any more sun pictures. What would happen to the project? Fortunately, after the eclipse, I did not have to take any pictures for about 3-4 weeks, as I had taken a good picture of the Sun at the crossover point of the analemma, on 1st September 2005. Then another idea came:

My brother Cenk could take the remaining pictures from the same spot. That he did precisely: He took 5 pictures on 23rd April; 9, 28th May; 16th June and 2nd July. The intervals were longer, but still good for me.

Then came the composite. It was a time-consuming process with Adobe Photoshop 7. After that process, the distorted images nicely fit each other. The analemma over Bursa was ready. But my aim was the Tutulemma over Side, Antalya. So, I put the picture that I had taken in the first minute of 3-minute-46-second totality, at 13:56 GMT+3 to the background. After some nip-tuck, here is the result: Tutulemma. Analemma with the beautiful total solar eclipse of 2006.

This long explanation of the composite is why I have to pay respect (and apologies) to analemma photographers.