There was a nearly total solar eclipse here this morning: it was total rather further north-west of here, but here it max’d out at about 97%. Most of the University staff came out to watch. We’d been promised quite thick cloud, but in the event, there was mix of light and heavy cloud, and that meant that one could sometimes see the crescent of the sun using a dark filter (I used some old photo slides from 1978 – others actually had the right glasses, while others looked at the reflection and one person used a plastic divider which worked rather well). But one way or another we all saw it. My colleague Peter Hancock had his camera properly set up, and took a rather nice image (which I’ll as him if I can put up here). Meanwhile here’s one of mine taken with an iPhone 4!
I have a friend who was up in Torshavn, and when he uploads his (total eclipse picture!), I’ll add a link to it.
The light at the eclipse had a strange ethereal feel to it; not darkness, that’s for sure, but a light that cast sharp shadows, and seemed very white. It also got rather cold!
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