Solar Eclipse watching..

[Dorset Boy]

As far as the eclipse, total anti-climax. Went a little less bright but that was it.
Totally overhyped beforehand by the UK media.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

What's all that green stuff in your photos?

Grass, 'cos we are in Scotland.

You can just about make out bits of the Erskine Bridge in the background

 

[Accy cyclist]

It's happening here now as I post! Look how dark it's going!!😲

 

[ColinJ]

There were eclipse watchers on all of the local hills that I cycled over this evening!

The eclipse itself wasn't visible to me because I didn't have the proper glasses to look at the sun but I accidentally caught an image of it as an artefact when photographing though doubled-up sunglasses. The main view of the sun overpowered the camera, but you can see the artefact below, presumably put onto the rear pair of sunglasses by the front pair...

 

[gbb]

It seemed a bit of a letdown for us and I think we had over enthused the.kids with expectation, that didnt really come to be.
The sun had already dropped and was partially obscured by neighbours house and tree, the viewing box id made wasnt that exciting in its dot of.lighy...it seemed to me the partial eclipse we had In the mid 2000s, I was at work and seem to remember it was much earlier in the day, the darkness, the chill and the eerie quiet was far more noticeable, that one was far better even if it was less total (or more partial if you prefer) than todays.

Ah well, thats it till 2090 apparently, I shan't hold my breath

 

[geocycle]

Didn’t quite get the colander to work but enjoyed seeing it get dark. Birds went mad, big flocks of jackdaws and starlings headed to their roosts. Cows didn’t react at all.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Spain has another one next year aparently

 

[Toshiba Boy]

Our colander shot.

My wife had ordered some of the glasses a couple of months ago. Wearing these, coupled with a beautiful blue sky and our west facing back garden here on the West Somerset coast, meant myself and my wife found it a really fascinating "show".

Certainly puts us mere humans in our place.

 

[Speicher]

Well the eclipse has finally arrived 20-53 and it's going dark plus a lovely cool breeze.i am glad i persisted.

How many tunes can you play on your harp?

 

[G-Zero]

Not sure my wife quite grasped the ‘colander’ principle 🤣

 

[Reynard]

The early chunk of this afternoon was spent using the bits I'd dug out from my stash of crafting / modelling supplies to make a viewer to watch the eclipse, as I wasn't going to pay through the nose for, or waste my time trying to find some glasses. I extended the focal length of the box with a core tube from kitchen roll to get a bigger image, used a milk bottle top to cap it and make my pinhole, and also made an adapter so that I could put the viewer on my tripod.

Set up with tripod and chair just outside my hedge, with a view of the railway and right across the fen. Not a cloud in the sky here, so absolutely perfect.

It went really silent. The light quality was really weird, and the temperature dropped. And as the light faded, hundreds upon hundreds of emperor dragonflies came out and were zooming around above the water in the nearby drain. That was just as spectacular as the eclipse itself. And then, as the sunlight began to return, the first noise I heard was a partridge, shouting from underneath a nearby bush.

A much more relaxed experience from the one in 1999, where I was walking to Romford station after a two day interview at Ford.

And a goods train hauled by a Class 66 loco went past at the point of maximum occlusion...

 

[katiewlx]

As far as the eclipse, total anti-climax. Went a little less bright but that was it.
Totally overhyped beforehand by the UK media.

fwiw I dont believe the media overhyped it as such, I do believe the UK public based on all the feedback Ive been seeing expected something akin to all those cute animations weve been seeing the past week, where the sun has a big chunk taken out of it and they expected to see that.

but you know we had the RAC warning motorists to turn on their headlights, the RNLI warning people not to swim when it happened, in fact apparently some pool/lake in London were going to ban people from swimming during the eclipse because they thought it was that dangerous to them as prolonged looking at the eclipse in the water would expose them to UV, even though every day of the week people swim in the same pool/lake and stare at the sun in the water whilst swimming. We even had "science correspondents" in the media, saying stuff like dont take photos with cameras as youll destroy them.

the real thing people should take away from it, but they wont of course, is that the sun can be over 90% covered by our near celestial neighbour for a couple of minutes, and actually its not that much different (unless you are paying attention), because the sun is putting out that much light and that much heat, it only disappears from view in totality eclipses. And its 93million miles away.

 

[katiewlx]

Spain has another one next year aparently

Southern Spain has, but its like literally Gibraltar & Malaga at best then passes through North Africa and the Middle East.

 

[katiewlx]

I'm just waiting for Betelgeuse to go off.

that will be so cool to see as it should last for months, but they keep changing their minds on the dimming theyve recorded. so who knows

 

[johnnyb47]

It quite impressive over Harlech.
The sun was hanging over the sea when it all happened.
When the light started dropping a huge flock of crows did there usual thing and took roost on the Castle ( they soon got confused when it started getting lighter again)