(This photo showing the different stages of Sunday's eclipse was lifted off the internet.)
The solar event of the decade led us to Johnson Canyon. Our scoutmaster, James Holland, took us out to his folks' place where we were rewarded with this great view up the canyon.
Roger kept the scouts entertained while we were waiting for the big event.
James brought a super long shadow box he and the scouts* made out of a couple of sonotubes** taped together. On one end was a piece of tinfoil with a pinhole and the other end was closed with white cardboard. A viewing port was cut near the closed end.
*Sidetrail: More like, James made it, and the scouts watched. I wasn't there so I can't say, but I have worked with scouts before! Actually, I take that back. I saw the boat they made for the Lake Powell boat race and they did an awesome job.
**Another sidetrail: Sonotubes are the round tubes used for concrete forms when pouring piers, foundations and such.
Here you can see the eclipse starting. This is a reverse image on the white cardboard. A pinhole camera works the same way, except that film replaces the cardboard.
Another view a few minutes later. A solar eclipse occurs when the earth, moon, and sun line up such that the moon obscures the view of the sun from the earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the moon's elliptical orbit is at it's furthest point from the earth. As a result the moon doesn't quite hide all the sun and what you see is.....
....a 'ring of fire' around the moon. This picture (courtesy of James Holland) captures this perfectly. We were lucky to live so close to the path of the eclipse. There will not be another annular solar eclipse visible on U.S. soil until 2023.
In addition to the tube we had some special glasses and a couple of welder's masks we used to view the spectacle. At the height of the eclipse there was a noticeable darkening of the sky.
Sunlight filtering through the sagebrush cast hundreds of tiny images on the side of James' Land Rover.
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