I had the good fortune to be able to travel to Madras, Oregon for the Eclipse last month, and like any good nerd, I did some shopping in advance and bought a bunch of eclipse gear: solar filters, solar sunglasses, an extra iPhone tripod, etc…

We weren’t the only nerds there – Jeff Bezos landed in his Gulfstream G5 at 5:00am the morning of the eclipse and woke up every one of us (400 airplanes) that was camping at the Madras airport.

One item that I bought on a whim that I thought would turn out to be a bit of a boondoggle was a cheap mount to attach my iPhone to the end of my spotting scope. It was less than $20 and while a little difficult to get working, turned out to take some pretty decent pictures. I’m looking forward to giving it a try on birds (granted, quite static birds – maybe a great blue heron waiting for a fish).

-John Newhoff