Solar Eclipse

The last time I went to see a solar eclipse it didn't end that well to be honest. Having carefully placed ourselves bang on the "line of totality" and enjoyed viewing a fantastic meteor shower through clear skies the night before, we woke up to two layers of cloud and a whole heap of nothing much.

So today my expectations were a bit low this morning. I viewed the gathering crowd on the campus as a being bit optimistic, to be honest. But when the time came it was great. I even suspended a tutorial so that we could go outside and get a look. There were telescopes and kids and a carnival atmosphere as it got gradually darker. There was a bit of cloud, but nothing that got too much in the way.

I was somewhat unprepared, I did have a camera but that was about it. However, by fiddling with the exposure I managed to get the picture above. Then someone suggested that floppy disks made a good light filter, so it was off up to my office to crack open a 3.5 inch disk.

I've no idea what the disk had on it, but I'm quite happy with the resulting photograph.