Partial Solar Eclipse Watch Parties Everywhere
Watch parties and gatherings were held all over our area. Glasses to safely view the special event were sold out at most locations but were available, as they were happily being shared by those who had them and by places like libraries. Levitt Pavilion had a large crowd and people around town could be seen gazing skyward around the time of maximum coverage of the Sun by the Moon.
Photos and Story By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com (except eclipse, contributed photo) Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
Watch parties and gatherings were held all over our area. One such watch party was held in nearby Redding, hosted by The New Pond Farm Education Center, a bucolic institution with it’s own observatory where stargazing events are held monthly in the summer season, the photos from which are included here. The black marks o the sun were sunspots as seen through the New Pond Farm telescope. (eclipse photo contributed) Above, excited visitors to New Pond Farm Education Center line up for a close-up glimpse of yesterday’s eclipse as others watch through protective glasses.
Excitement was building all week in Fairfield County for yesterday’s solar eclipse. The much heralded event was an anular, not total eclipse. An anular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between the Earth and Sun, but does not completely cover the Sun's disk. Instead, it covers most of the Sun, leaving its outer edge visible as a bright ring or “annulus” around the darkened Moon according to the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, part of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The event was attended by nearly one hundred visitors who are pictured here. Clouds threatened to obscure visibility prior to the event, but they fortunately they cleared. Scientist for decades have recognized that cumulus clouds can disappear rapidly when the solar eclipse begins. According to he website Nature.com, “Our corrected data reveal that, over cooling land surfaces, shallow cumulus clouds start to disappear at very small solar obscurations (~15%).
Photos and Story By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.