Star Date 233: 21 August, 2017

When I was a little kid, I had a long, narrow poster of our solar system taped to the wall above my bed. Space intrigued me then and it still does.

Image courtesy of Google.

Monday’s Solar Eclipse was so in my wheelhouse. 

So much so that at 11:15 a.m. that day Tim asked me to run an errand with him. I said I couldn’t because of the eclipse. He reminded me that it was a cloudy day. I still declined and said it might get sunny enough to see the eclipse and I didn’t want to be in a store if it happened. I'm glad I stayed home!

Here’s how it went down in my little corner of the world.

11:48 A.M. Clouds. Yoda and I are not happy.

12:02 P.M. Then I see it. My shadow. I look over my shoulder. The sun!! Yippee!

12:04 Still doused in clouds, but getting clearer! To get these pictures, I put my eclipse glasses over the lens of my iphone. You can see the outline of the frames at the top of the pictures.

      

The clouds thinned even more and I had awe inspiring view of the moon moving in front of the sun. The sun glowed so brightly to my left (east) while the other side faded out into complete blackness. It was hard to comprehend that the sun was behind that blackness (the moon), yet its rays could not be seen. 

Just awesome. I wish I had better words to describe the power and majesty of it all.

I made a pinhole viewer from a Pringles can. The clouds kept the image from being crisp and clear, but I was able to get this one picture of the crescent sun!

     

No words are needed here? Right? 

I stayed outside for the full event. Over and back. 

We didn't have full solar coverage here. About 91 percent, but that was enough for me. At the eclipse midpoint, the sun looked like the top edge of a golden fingernail. 

The moon covered all but the top left edge of the sun. When the moon moved, the top right edge of the sun appeared first. Then grew larger on my right hand side. 

Daylight turned from bright-white to yellowish-golden. The birds were quiet, but the Cicadas sang like crazy. 

A light breeze passed over us for about a half hour, and the temperature dropped four degrees.

This was the best picture I got though my improvised lens screen (aka eclipse glasses.)

It was a great day to revel in the glory of God's mighty creations! (After the eclipse, it got really cloudy here again.)

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself!

~Nadine