closing up

One of the most impressive things about these is the accuracy with which they can be predicted, though it's easier to give times for something happening well clear of the horizon whereas a sunrise or sunset can be off by a minute or two due to variations in viewing-entities' eye-heights and the assumption of uniform horizons. When I was small all the solar eclipses on information-programmes were generally on fancy islands near the equator so it's pleasing to have been able to view two decent partials from where I happened to be at the time.

I'd made a few pinhole-camera viewer-things for Edgar to take to nursery but hadn't had time to construct anything more elaborate for myself, so had a quick go with a Milky Bar wrapper and some welding glass before settling for looking at it through the camera's electronic viewfinder when the cloud cover was insufficient for safe naked-eye viewing. My camera's sensor has some severe unshakeable dust on it at the moment which shows up extremely clearly at f/32, so tried to get some shots during moments of relatively high occlusion in order for wider apertures to produce usable results at the minimal 1/8000".