This was my first solar eclipse where I was in the area of totality and I can say assuredly that it won’t be my last!  I’m hooked!

I wasn’t prepared for the shear awe that happens as we got closer to the main event and next time I’ll be better prepared for better photographs and spend more time just soaking it all in.

Just before totality I noticed that my eyes were having trouble adjusting and focusing and it was very different than just a normal twilight background.  I made sure it wasn’t just me by asking the 12+ folks that were with me if they were experiencing the same thing and sure enough they were.

I also wasn’t prepared for the splendid site at totality where you could see the sun’s corona in blue/white light.  I’ve seen pics of this but thought this was just an artifact of the camera but sure enough it was even better than the photos I’ve seen.

My one regret was not taking a picture of the 2 solar flares that were visible in my telescope during totality but the roughly 2 minutes we had were not long enough for me to do that and let all the folks take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to see a total eclipse through a telescope.  We removed the solar filter at the moment totality started and we had a person timing from that point forward and we moved everyone away after 2 minutes.

For those interested, my telescope is a 10″ newtonian reflector and I used a Televue 27mm Panoptic eyepiece with a Thousand Oaks Optical solar filter over the objective end of the telescope.

Here are some of the pics.

My setup for the event.  Telescope and 15×60 binocs.

Here I am setting up my binoculars that I used to project the eclipse onto the ground.

Just starting, see the sun spots!

Little eclipses were seen on my sidewalk beneath my large oak trees.  Little gaps in the leaves provided perfect projection of the eclipse below. 

Almost!

Now going the other way.