The eclipse from space
I’ve seen a few eclipses, even a total one as a kid. But I have never seen what I saw last night. I leave my office after a long, long day — which is why this site has been unattended the last few days — and totally forgot about the eclipse. Got into the parking lot and the light looked damn weird. The sun was just starting to think about setting. It was bright, cars and buildings were lit up all orange on one side, and yet it was dim. Hard to explain. Light twinkled oddly through the tree tops.
A few minutes later I was driving west, straight into it, and through the tinted top part of my windshield I could see it plain as day: something was taking a big black bite out of the sun! This is about what it looked like:
It gave me chills. I can see why superstitious people in ancient times might get hysterical, especially if someone was fanning the hysteria for all they’re worth, and decide heads have to roll if there’s even a chance it could keep the big light in the sky from being eaten (Although why some still cling to the sky-wizard idea is harder to grasp). I’ll be adding more throughout the morning.
Alas it was cloudy here and I’m a couple hours or so east of you. The sun was mostly lost in the sunset haze.
My husband made a makeshift observatory by attaching his binoculars to a tripod and projecting the image of the sun onto a cardboard. We were able to watch a double image of the eclipse. I noticed that there was a projection of a number of crescents on the wall of our neighbor’s home. My husband explained that the leaves of the trees were blowing in the wind and acting as pinhole projectors to make the design on the wall.
Our neighbor came home while we we watching this, so my husband explained it all to his little daughter and the neighbor took a picture of her in front of the wall of crescents. It was very cool!
Nice shots!
LOL. Put a spacecraft in the right place, and you can have one any time you want.
I got to see it annular near St. George, Utah. Terrific geology to look at as a bonus. Near-perfect ring seen through welder’s goggles.
Didn’t get any pictures like those, though (the top one’s an “artist’s conception,” of course.)
the picture of the eclipse is not real. it is a painting by a Japanese artist. Phil and badastronomy wrote about it.
pretty picture though!
i assume the the one with the kids in front of the sun is fake too. the sun/moon subtend only about 1/2° in the sky. in the picture they are waaaaay too big.