Astronomy magazine Columnist and Contributing Editor
Stephen James O’Meara sent us this account of the
July 22 eclipse from his home in Hawaii:
My wife Donna and I had a beautiful eclipse as seen from the Big Island of Hawaii –– even though the Sun was only about 10 percent covered at maximum. We were at the far end of the eclipse track, so not many other populated islands would have seen this event.
The sky was perfectly clear, and the eclipse occurred over Kilauea Volcano’s smoking summit caldera. The funniest thing was that the orientation of the Sun and Moon during the eclipse made them look like a giant eyeball in the sky (with the tiny eclipsed portion being the iris) that was staring directly at the erupting volcano! It was a riot.
We showed several visitors to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park the eclipse through #14 welder’s glasses and special Mylar filters attached to the front of 10x50 binoculars. It was a small but happy group.
Donna and I were amazed that the eclipse took almost an hour to complete. I was expecting the Moon to kiss the Sun, and then move off. Instead, the two battled for nearly an hour. It was a really special partial eclipse. I’ve never witnessed one like it. The Sun and Moon simply seemed to advance and recede repeatedly, as the Moon slipped from the Sun’s 7:00 position angle to its 8:30 position angle.