by Greg Mayer

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the eclipse yesterday was at about the same time as in Chicago, 11:54 AM to 2:40 PM, with the peak at 1:18 PM, and slightly less complete (85%). The eclipse glasses worked fine, but drifting cloud cover obscured the view for much of the time. And, without specialized cameras, the brightness of even the partially obscured sun produced an essentially circular image.

Here’s the start of the eclipse at 11:57 AM. At this time, the moon, approaching from the upper right, had made a noticeable nick in the sun’s disk, but the camera did not reveal this.

At 12:03 PM, the nick was even more noticeable with eclipse glasses, but even using zoom, the camera could not capture it (it would be on the upper right).

I tried taking a selfie at 12:08 PM, without much success.

Here is the sun at the peak, 1:18 PM; you can see the substantial cloud cover moving through.

The sun was then obscured for some minutes. As the moon continued its traverse, moving down to the lower left, I tried taking several pictures through the eclipse glasses. They were consistent in showing an obscuration of the lower left of the sun, and I think this is actually an image of the eclipse.

I did try to note if there was any unusual animal behavior. Over the about two hours I was out watching the eclipse, I saw three birds (a swallow and two LBN’s), and a moth flew into my left arm, i.e. nothing of any significance. It did get darker and cooler, but the effects of the eclipse could not be readily distinguished from the effects of the increasing cloud cover. Here’s the rest of my eclipse party.

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Addendum by Jerry: Greg’s photos show pretty much what I got using my camera and eclipse glasses: not much. But you can see great photos on the Internet, and two readers sent in their own.

Reader Mark McCauley sent in an image of the eclipse from Texas:

This was taken eight miles west of Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. I used the binoculars-on-tripod method to project the image. We will have a total solar eclipse here in 2024!

The eclipse here in Kitchener, Canada (about 60 miles west of Toronto) was partial but still very exciting. I had to walk my sister’s dog about ten minutes before maximum eclipse. I hadn’t yet made the pinhole camera I was planning on for viewing the eclipse. (I’m a last-minute kind of guy.) We were walking over a stretch of grass and dirt. While I always pick up the dog’s poop, other people aren’t so considerate, so I was watching the ground to be sure I didn’t step in any. I suddenly noticed there were dozens of images of the partially eclipsed sun on the ground! Tiny gaps between the leaves on the tree I was standing under were acting as the lenses of pinhole cameras and projecting images of the eclipse.

I brought the dog inside and and went up to the rooftop patio of my sister’s condo, where a group had gathered. I borrowed someone’s eclipse glasses and used them, but while it was fun, I’d enjoyed the images made by the tree more. So I looked around the patio for something similar.

There were two tables whose tops were covered with tiny holes for rainfall to drain through. I looked under the tables and saw that every one of those thousands of holes was projecting an image of the eclipse!