Eclipse Colander

In 2017, we drove to Idaho to see the total eclipse the day before school started.

Last October, we drove to Fillmore to see the annular eclipse on a Saturday.

There was another total eclipse Monday, April 8. But we would have had to travel to Texas or somewhere else like that along the path of totality (not a one day trip). I didn't want to take the kids out of school and Jeremy didn't want to miss work. Plus I was super busy with stuff. 

We did get part of the eclipse here but Jet destroyed all of our eclipse glasses from October so no way to look directly at the sun. While Jeremy and the kids were all gone, Jet and I did go outside for a little while.

It did get a little darker and my sister reminded me of the colander trick. Have the sun shine through a colander and you can see the crescent shadows. We saw those through the leaves last October. We don't have leaves yet on our trees here.

Anyway, I was able to get a few eclipse pictures because of the colander so that was fun. And we did have that neat experience in 2017 with the total eclipse and the ring of fire in 2023. We're good.

Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse

You know I like finding reasons to celebrate.  How about a solar eclipse?

We knew that the solar eclipse was coming and that Utah would be a good place to watch it (though not directly as that can damage your eyes).  While talking with some friends' about it, they invited us to dinner at their house.  When we got there we found out they were as excited about the eclipse as we.  Dinner was in the backyard anyway, so they poked a small hole in a big bucket/tub/crate so we could see the sunlight shine through and the moon's shadow covering part of the light.

Click on the pictures to see them larger.

Every few minutes we would go back to see how it was progressing. 

At the main part of the eclipse, the moon was supposed to be in front of the sun but small enough that you'd still see the sun behind it, kind of like this

to make a "ring of fire."  Isn't that cool (the ring of fire, not my illustration)?   

One of the neighbors brought over special glasses so we could look in the sun's direction with protection. 

It looked so cool.  Pictures didn't turn out through the glasses, though.  Too bad.  We didn't have time to keep adjusting the settings to get it just right.

Though blurry, this is a picture of the eclipse through a welding mask with adjusted shutter speed.

Unfortunately, it got too cloudy, so we missed the main part of the eclipse.  Sigh.  Oh, well.  The company more than made up for it.

The sun came out at the end, so we were able to see the moon's shadow on the other side of the light shining through the hole.

It was a good evening.  It was fun to see part of the eclipse, and thanks to the neighbor, we were able to see it more directly than we thought we would.  But the best part of the evening was being with friends.

And friendship is definitely a reason to celebrate.