19 April 2024
I know, I know, the partial solar eclipse we had here in central New Jersey is so 11 days ago. I'm in a waiting room while my car gets a checkup. Now is a good time to get this post out.
Monday, April 8, was a glassblowing day, so I was not one of the horde chasing the eclipse up the east coast. Instead, I packed my little Canon PowerShot, a 5-pack of eclipse glasses, and two cutouts from said pack with masking tape on the sides so that I could put one in front of the camera lens. What I meant to pack and forgot was a tripod.
At 2:50, I left the lab by the back door. There were a few grad students or postdocs or whatever, whom I didn't know, peering through a cereal box. One of the animal caretakers I'm friendly with was milling about. I gave him a pair of glasses. Another stranger grad student or postdoc or whatever came running past, having left his glasses at home. I handed him a pair from my pack. I took a pair out for myself, leaving one intact pair should these be faulty, and looked up.
The moon was blocking about a quarter of the sun at the time. "Pretty cool," I said, to apparently nobody who was interested in my opinon.
I took out the camera. More people filtered out of the building. I tried to set the camera for the proper exposure time Tom had suggested and found myself unable to concentrate.
The running stranger grad student or postdoc or whatever came zipping back with his hand out. "Can I have a pair for my friend?"
I glanced up from my camera. "Share with your friend, okay?" He ran off. I packed up. I didn't want to be around all this chaos. I wanted to be able to concentrate.
With my head down, looking at the silvery light on the pavement as the moon moved more into the sun's path, I walked to my car in the staff parking lot on the other side of campus. The parking spaces are covered in rows of solar panels. I opened the back hatch and laid my camera and glasses on the top of my glassblowing tool case. There was nobody else around. The sun was bewteen rows of panels, which helped me orient the camera. The PowerShot has a flip-up view screen, which was perfect. I could look down while the camera looked up.
We were going to get something like 90% coverage. Clouds were moving in.
As the eclipse proceeded, the temperature dropped and the sky darkened.
I took a handful of photos, then stopped to look at them and upload some to my phone. I did this until 3:25, a minute after the 90% peak was supposed to happen. The clouds came in right after that. I packed up and drove home with my headlights on.
There was time to take the camera inside, delete the blurry pictures, and have a quick snack. Then I was off to glassblowing class, where I was the only one of the three of us who had any photos of the event at all.
Here is a sampling of the pictures I took. I haven't edited any of them.
3:05
3:08
3:09
3:15
3:17
3:18
3:22
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