Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024

WARNING: When observing the Sun, be sure to do so safely! Use only equipment that is designed specifically for that purpose and is produced by reputable manufacturers. Follow their directions closely. Do not improvise your own filter material for solar observing. If you are careless, you risk instant and permanent vision loss or injury.

For months, I had been thinking to myself, “I really need to begin making eclipse plans.” With memories of the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, strong in my mind, I was keen to experience one of the most spectacular natural phenomena again. The time of year worried me, though, and I never made any firm plans.

When the big day came, I was happy to see that the weather mostly cooperated. Even though I knew I missed out on totality, I still saw what turned out to be a satisfying partial solar eclipse from my backyard. Hazy cloud cover did roll in, but it wasn’t thick enough to prevent me from visually observing and photographing the event.

On the Way to Maximum Eclipse

For me, the eclipse began at 10:20 AM. As the Moon began to move in front of the Sun, I saw our lunar neighbor notch a little bite out of the Sun.

10:29 AM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

10:35 AM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

10:45 AM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

11:04 AM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

Maximum Eclipse

For my location, maximum eclipse set in at 11:20 AM. But I confess that it was rather anticlimactic.

11:20 AM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

Before the eclipse began, my wife thought to grab our colander from the kitchen. One neat thing about solar eclipses during their partial phases is that, when hold up anything with small holes, it becomes a solar eclipse viewer.

Not long after maximum eclipse, I held the colander up and saw lots of tiny projections of the solar eclipse in progress.

Kitchen colander as a solar eclipse viewer. Canon EOS R8 with Canon RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 IS STM zoom lens, ISO 100, 1/200 sec., f/9.

Moving Away from Maximum Eclipse

After the peak of the eclipse, the reverse of what I had just seen unfolded.

11:35 AM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

11:55 AM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

12:05 PM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

12:15 PM. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 100, 1/160 sec., f/16.

At 12:18 PM, the eclipse ended for me, and I began to pack up my gear.

The View in H-alpha

With my equatorial mount still set up in the backyard and with the hazy cloud cover largely having moved off, I thought to wrap up my eclipse observing session with my 60mm Lunt H-alpha solar scope.

Canon EOS M200 with Lunt Solar Systems 60mm H-alpha telescope, ISO 1600, 1/25 sec., f/8.

The Sun has been a little anemic in recent days, but there was a nice prominence that had appeared. I wondered if any sharp-eyed naked eye observers in the path of totality caught that prominence when the the Moon fully obscured the Sun.