Annular Solar Eclipse - 5.20.12

We recently were able to see a pretty cool eclipse in our area of the world.  It wasn't a total solar eclipse (where the moon completely blocks out the sun), but an annular eclipse where the moon's shadow is just slightly smaller than the sun so when the moon is directly in front of the sun you get a "ring of fire".  It was really neat, and I'm glad we took the opportunity and adventure to go see it!

We only found out about the eclipse the day before (thanks, Mom!) but we made arrangements with Dar's parents and decided to take a short road trip after church so we could see the complete "ring of fire," even though we could have seen a pretty good eclipse from where we live too.  The closest place we could get to to see the whole ring was a place called Cove Fort, about a two hour drive south of where we live.  It was fun to see so many other people there to watch the eclipse as well.

We weren't able to plan ahead to get ourselves some nifty eclipse glasses because of the short notice we got, but we had a welding helmet we could look through and Dar's dad brought his binoculars to reflect the image of the eclipse onto paper, and that's actually the best way we were able to see it.  It really was pretty cool!

The eclipse well underway

 Reflected onto paper.  Way to be a good easel, Dar!

 Getting closer!

 Even closer!!

 THE RING OF FIRE!

 If we had traveled even further south we could have seen the ring of fire centered, but at least we got to see a full ring!

 The moon already leaving the sun

 It was really cool too that the sunlight really did get dimmer from being blocked by the moon.  It made it feel like it was later in the day than it really was.

 Silly Dar

 The bottom edge of the sunlight on his tooth makes it look gold :)

 An image of the eclipse just beginning that Dar took through the welding helmet

 Getting closer to the full eclipse

 Full eclipse!

 The adventurers :)

 Silly Grandpa.

 Cove Fort

 See?  There really were other people there to watch the eclipse too! :)

 I was getting ready to change Aurora into her jammies for the ride home and her feet were DIRTY from walking around in the grass in her sandals.  She thought it was pretty funny :)

 Our sleepy baby on the drive home

Thanks again, Mom and Dad Deming for taking us on a fun adventure on a Sunday afternoon.  Let's do it again sometime ;)

To read about other eclipses we've posted about that we're looking forward to click here and here.