ANNULAR ECLIPSE

Sunday, May 20 - Were you able to see the Annular Eclipse? An annular eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly in front of the sun, but the lunar disk is not quite wide enough to cover the entire star. At maximum, the moon forms a "black hole" in the center of the sun.

Being in Northern California, we were in a prime viewing area. Of course, Marsha wanted Paul to make a viewing screen so she could see the different stages of the eclipse. She explained how it was the first annular solar eclipse in the United States since 1994. We just can't miss this opportunity.

So we poked a hole in a piece of cardboard and used it to reflect an image of the sun on a second piece of cardboard.

Paul wanted to experiment with different size holes. This one didn't work.

Now we have it.

It worked pretty well and we were able to view the moon crossing in front of the sun.

This is what our sky looked like before the Ellipse.

Please remember, we don't have any of the special glasses (which are pretty cool by the way) like our friends, Sandie and Jim, so we couldn't look directly at the sun. All the photos are original, not touched up.

Getting started. We made two pin holes. The bigger one was much better.

5:15…the adventure begins. Look at about the 1-2:00 o'clock area and you can see the moon starting to creep in.

5:27

5:52…looks like a crescent moon.

6:04…a little sliver left.

6:10That is all she wrote…or at least all we could get.

Finally at the very end, 6:18, the sun's intensity was blocked by the moon (you could really feel the lack of normal heat from the sun on your skin). We were unable to get a good imagine of the “ring of fire” or the total eclipse. We experienced a “twilight” type of lighting from the sun. It was a pretty neat science experiment!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!