The Eclipse Adventure

Like so many other Americans Bob and I spent a good part of our afternoon on Monday (8/21) watching the eclipse. In our area it was about 80% which was pretty amazing in itself. It was a very hot afternoon and I was glad our setup allowed us to stay indoors. Thank goodness for south-facing windows.

While Bob had made a pinhole viewer with a shoe box, I opted to go the route of using the binoculars to project an image onto white poster board. It wasn't hard to set up. I took the lid of Sunday's pizza box and cut a hole just large enough to fit over one side of the binocular lenses. The instructions said the less light leaking in around the lens the better so we duct taped any gaps we found. I used my camera's tripod and taped the binoculars to it so it would be steady.

We had some foam board downstairs leftover from Christmas gingerbread houses and I used that for my projection screen. Once it was set up, it worked like a charm. We had to move it from the family room window to the kitchen window as the sun moved but we didn't have to go out in the heat (it was 90) and humidity.

I was amazed at how well the pictures came out that I took with my phone. And the video shows how the clouds passed over the sky as well. Thankfully at 2:31 PM, full peak time, the clouds parted and we could see the moon cover 80% of the sun.

We're ready now for 2024 when it is due to be a total eclipse in our area.