Work day stops for a solar show
WOONSOCKET — Even if you weren’t in the path of totality for Monday’s full eclipse of the sun, it was still fun to be part of all celestial hoopla that went along with it.
Taking in the eclipse here at The Call with co-workers with a quick journey out to the sidewalk on Main Street around 2:40 p.m., I can’t actually report directly seeing the eclipse— or at least the 72 percent
occlusion that occurred through Rhode Island. But with the help of a little camera work and general observation, I can say that it did occur here in Woonsocket to a limited degree.
The sun flooding Main Street seemed to grow a little weaker for few minutes and there was a cooler breeze that came along with the change.
Our group of impromptu observers, which did not have the NASA certified glasses allowing safe direct observing, also tried a few of the safe alternatives to add to our experience and collect a memento or two.
One, a quickly improvised pin-hole camera did not yield the desired live view, and other attempts at gathering eclipse evidence, photographs of the shadow graphic artist Nick Philbin cast on the sidewalk, also did not work out. The idea was to compare a photo of Nick’s shadow before and after the event. Unfortunately what we ended up with did not show any significant change.
I was able to gather some in direct evidence while using an extremely closed down digital camera to snap a few images of the eclipse without using a viewfinder. A reflection off the lens glass caught the image of the sun with a little more than half moon cut out of it at the peak of our viewing bid.
Luckily for our readers, Ernie Brown and Russ Olivo had joined the eclipse gathering at Peep Toad Road in Scituate and you can see exactly what the eclipse looked like in the photograph Ernie took through a filtered telescope at the site.
I was also able to get a first hand report on what the full eclipse was like during a call to my sister, Diane Lynch, and brother, Paul, who were watching it in South Carolina, near Charlotte, N.C.
With an occlusion there of 98.9 percent, the eclipse was similar to what was seen by the watchers along the totality route from Madras on the coast of Oregon to Charlestown on the coast of South Carolina.
My brother Paul reported he and my sister’s family were able to make use of the recommended NASA eclipse glasses to watch the early stages of the shadow of the moon sliding across the sun.
As the sun faded away, my sister said the birds stopped chirping and then the evening bugs began to buzz. “It got cooler, a few degrees cooler,” she reported. The schools in the South Carolina suburbs near Charlotte were let out just after noon time for an “eclipse day,” and lots of information was put out by the local media on how to view the event safely.
Paul reported that the event overall “was really impressive” and it was marked by a weakening of the daylight gradually starting a little after 1 p.m. to peak dimness just before 3 p.m. “When you were inside the house, it was dark and out- side it was like the whole world was wearing sunglasses,” Paul said.
In all, the total eclipse lasted about 2 minutes and 30 seconds and then the sun started to grow in size until it was all over by 4 p.m. “It was awesome,” my brother reported.