I don't know how much you heard about tonight's eclipse of the sun because it was mostly a western thing. The Denver TV stations couldn't shut up about it, and there was a big free event at the University of Colorado football stadium for viewing it, plus additional scientific entertainment. The weather didn't cooperate, and the sky was overcast, but they were going to have it anyway.

In case you missed out on the hoopla, this was an annular eclipse, meaning the moon is further away from the earth, so appears slightly smaller, and it would not completely cover the disc of the sun, leaving a ring of light around the edges.



Here in Colorado, we weren't going to get the full 'ring of fire' effect, but Mr. Troutbend in Nevada at least had a better view.

Here is his description of his eclipse viewing experience. He went up onto the top of a casino parking garage to watch it:

"I had my pinhole viewing device checked out and ready to go before I got to the casino. It worked great. There must have been a hundred people who looked at it since they all came totally unprepared and were trying to catch quick glimpses with just plain sunglasses.

Some gal was viewing through some kind of food wrapper and claimed that worked fine!?

One of the guards had the real glasses and I got to try those, then some guy asked me if I thought a welding helmet would work and I said yes, so he went and got it out of his truck and everyone had to try that out as well.

It was fairly impressive here – at the peak there was a ring about 2/3 of the way around. It was very hot here today and during the event it was noticeably cooler and a little darker. The sun set while there was still a partial eclipse, about 50 minutes after the peak."

Mr. Troutbend is a retired aerospace engineer, so he must have felt like The Science Guy with all those people asking to look at his pinhole viewer.

From the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, this is of the partial eclipse over Manila Bay: