Solar Eclipse watching..

[PeteXXX]

I'm told that this was Dunsabubble Downs yesterday evening..

Holme Moss in the Peak District was similar I believe.
I'm glad I left Derbyshire before the hiardes descended! 😋

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Bunch of muppets.

 

[Dogtrousers]

And I jibbed at the idea of walking 10 minutes to the park!

 

[Aravis]

I have particular memories of three solar eclipses prior to the 1999 event.

Firstly, September 22nd 1968. My dad (a keen amateur photographer) gave me a strip of fully exposed and developed black and white film to take to school, with instructions to tell my teacher what I was doing. Big mistake! "You must NEVER look at the sun" was the reaction, and my film was confiscated.

Understandable I suppose, but my experience of the next event (February 25th 1971) doesn't say much for the consistency of standards at the time. In preparation for the day's spectacle my class spent part of the morning creating eye-shields with candles and pieces of glass. I do remember that it was quite a big eclipse and I don't think anyone suffered any harm.

On October 12th 1996 I was out driving with my eldest daughter, aged 1½, as I frequently did at that time to give my long-suffering wife a bit of a break. I didn't know it was an eclipse day but driving south from Tewkesbury under clear skies I definitely noticed that the light seemed strange.

I know a lot of people were disappointed by the cloudy skies in August 1999. But everyone knows what the thing in the sky looks like; what you can't get from books or other media is the experience of being totally eclipsed, and that was incredible.

We enjoyed yesterday's event, with the help of two pairs of glasses saved from 1999. When we accepted that a patch of cloud was determined to spoil the show at our home we jumped in the car and drove to a spot with a clear view; it would have been better if we'd done that a bit earlier.

And then the meteor shower. I watched the Perseids about 20 years ago and last night was quite similar - about 20 sighted in a couple of hours. A few were very bright with green and red colouration and at least one smoky trail. What was very noticeable was the vast increase in the number of orbiting satellites since the last time I watched for that long. I'll be having another look tonight.

 

[G-Zero]

I think my favourite bit of last night’s eclipse, was that the darkening of the surrounding sky made a high altitude ice crystal halo much clearer. We occasionally see ‘Sun Dogs’ at 9 o’clock, 12 o’clock and 3 o’clock positions, but last night’s arc was quite special.

From the front balcony at 1850hrs….

 

[katiewlx]

No surprise there, we are 60 miles north of LSA and the 'big event' was pitiful.

The sky simply went a flat mid-grey in colour. Even the birds just carried on tweeting & flying.

Nothing like 1999.

Massively over-hyped by the media, as is common with so many News items these days.

I dont think it was massively overhyped fwiw, but then Im just in awe of the whole, or even partial, eclipse thing. Actually just watching other people on a livestream in Spain (the wonders of the internet which worked remarkably well given I was stood in a field in the middle of nowhere) watching them have their totality experience, whilst Im (safely) observing our partial experience of the same celestial event at the same time, that was amazing, that felt very connected planet Earth stuff.

I think where the media werent as informative about the thing, as might have been more the case back in educate,inform and not just entertain days, theyd have told you actually what to expect, which was unless youve got your eclipse glasses you wont see the moon pass the sun at all, and all youll notice is a brief dimming of light, some weird effects with shadows & colour and lots of cool effects under trees, or by blinds or anything thats behaving like a pinhole camera.

and that was compounded because they always show those filtered shots during an eclipse because they look cooler,so people expect thats what theyll see, and then you had those so called experts claiming it was going to be dangerous to go swimming, cars would have to turn their lights on to see where they were going etc etc etc, which was all nonsense and should have been called out as such.

But Ive seen alot of people cite the 99 experience, was different, well yes it was, it was totality in parts of the UK, yesterday wasnt at all. But we still only had about 94% in Suffolk in 99, so it was very comparable in percentage terms to yesterday. But the biggest difference, 99's peak happened around mid morning ish, getting towards max sunlight lumens time, yesterday it happened about 1hr before sunset, very much on the low sunlight lumen scale.

So yes the dimming effect might have looked alot different, but only because of the time it happened, same with the birds, most of them had already gone to roost yesterday anyway around us, in 99 it was still getting upto lunchtime for them so the change surprised them, but if you were watching from first contact through to last contact, youd have absolutely seen the dimming effect happen and it brighten again afterwards even though the sun was still heading towards sunset and actually getting dimmer.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

It’s been overcast here too for the last few hours so won’t see anything.

The sun was visible just before, then it disappeared for the eclipse... Then it came back again straight afterwards. 🤦‍♂️

I think someone had a remote controlled cloud!

And I jibbed at the idea of walking 10 minutes to the park!

Oh, DID you now?? Well fork you, at least I made an effort and besides...

It was a pleasant half hour or so in the park though and it was quite warm too.

AND I went to the pub afterwards too, where I won some money on one of the games they have every week (quite a useful amount actually - It accumulates every week if the game is not won) as part of the fun/quiz night, so, THERE!

The outing was profitable after all! 😝

There were even people with a barbeque.

At least I didn't have a Barbecue though... At the park I mean, not the pub. That said, I could have gone something from it!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I do need to stop drinking though, so after winning that money on 'Eclipse Night', I feel like I shouldn't drink again until the Eclipse next year in Spain! 😆

 

[katiewlx]

the good people at Jodrell Bank did some science during the eclipse so you can see the solar power output drop, and then start to rise again, and then go crazy because the sun went behind the lovell telescope for a bit, before the eclipse ending and then sunset

https://www.instagram.com/jodrellbank/p/DcB9gTtGkGA/?img_index=2

 

[C R]

Late to the party here. We timed a visit to my mum to coincide with the eclipse. It was almost total in there. The few seconds of maximum occultation were quite eerie.

 

[MontyVeda]

Late to the party here. We timed a visit to my mum to coincide with the eclipse. I was almost total in there. The few seconds of maximum occultation were quite eerie.

View attachment 819230

where abouts were you?

 

[C R]

where abouts were you?

Galicia, near Santiago. 99.94% occultation according to the Nasa eclipse tracker.