‘Ring of fire’ eclipse thrills Bay Area observers
Bay Area residents cast their gaze skyward Saturday morning as a “ring of fire” solar eclipse obscured a portion of the sun.
The partial eclipse started shortly after 8 a.m., with maximum coverage of the sun between 9:15 and 9:25 a.m. and the sun emerging from the eclipse around 10:45 a.m.
The event was called an annular eclipse because the moon blocked out all but the sun’s annulus, its fiery outer edge. Under the Bay Area’s partial eclipse, the moon made the sun appear as a crescent.
Several Bay Area observatories, planetariums and libraries hosted eclipse observation events Saturday morning, and many residents headed to roof decks for a view through mostly cloudy skies.
“The moon isn’t the only thing blocking out the sun this morning,” the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Mid- to high-level clouds have formed across the region.”
The thick canopy of clouds blocking the view in Berkeley didn’t didn’t stop hundreds of viewers from flocking to the hilltop Saturday morning at the Lawrence Hall of Science. A mix of students, families, children and older observers watched the eclipse through special glasses or the hall’s telescope.
“These are the worst possible conditions,” said Alan Gould, Lawrence’s former planetarium director, who said he had seen at least 10 total eclipses. “If a patch opens up, I’m going to try to find it on the telescope, but by then I might miss it. But we have a nice party.”
The weather didn’t thwart the excitement for first-time viewer Sophia Brunet, 18, a freshman majoring in English at UC Berkeley. “Eclipses are really cool, they’re a oncein-a-lifetime event. … We’re witnessing how nature and space works.”
Residents were warned never to look directly at the sun without proper eye protection. Regular sunglasses and safety goggles are insufficient for viewing eclipses. Instead, viewers were advised to wear eclipse glasses that meet the ISO 12312-2 international safety standard, available from many public libraries.
Other ways to observe the eclipse include creating a pinhole camera or pinhole projector to view the crescent images projected on the ground.
The U.S. path of the annular eclipse was a narrow band arcing from the central Oregon coast through Nevada, Utah, the Four Corners area, New Mexico and Texas. A small sliver of Northern California — Modoc County, in the far northeastern corner of the state — also saw the entire eclipse.
The eclipse then covered Mexico and Central and South America, crossing over northern Brazil, and ending at sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA, which livestreamed the event on its YouTube channel.
Eclipses are a special treat for astronomy and photography buffs, who stake out special spots to view and record the celestial events.
The “ring of fire” event differs from next year’s total solar eclipse, on April 8, when the face of the sun will be completely blocked as the moon passes between the sun and Earth.
This is a “magic period” for civilization, Gould said. “As time goes on, the moon is getting farther away because of the tides, so we won’t see eclipses eventually.”
The eclipse was expected to take a brief but impactful bite out of the state’s solar industry, diminishing power generation from millions of rooftop panels and big solar farms by as much as 75%. Home solar production was expected to decline as the eclipse advanced but return fully by the time the eclipse ended at 10:45 a.m.
“Eclipses are really cool, they’re a once-in-a-lifetime event. … We’re witnessing how nature and space works.” Sophia Brunet, UC Berkeley freshman