Val stood at the bottom left
At 4.30am shortly after the alarm went off, it was looking like it was going be a really rotten day - overcast and raining. Fortunately things can only get better, or so they say.
It was a bus ride of around two hours to the observation site at the Chengshangou Scenic Spot, a little west of Houzou and well north of Hangzhou. The ground at the site was a bit wet but was very slowly drying in the sunless, humid, warm air. The main locations for observing were either on the dam wall, or somewhere in a park bit set up for fishing in the lake. We chose the dam wall.
Val stood at the bottom left
During the setting up period the sun didn't really show itself long enough to focus the camera and take a few test exposures - it was always going to be difficult as even at the set up stage the filter was on, then off, then on again as the sun peeped through thick cloud, thin cloud or no cloud. Even though we saw the sun briefly at first contact, it was around 20 minutes into the partial phases before the sun showed itself long enough to get a picture. It was a bit of a nightmare messing about.
Our first proper view of the eclipse - partials
well under way
As totality approached what we had no idea how best to take pictures - will we see anything, will it be clear, will it be thick cloud, will it be thin cloud. The answers were yes, sometimes, sometimes and sometimes. It was so difficult and the exposure times were quite long that nothing much came out the camera, but I had decided to generally abandon the still photography bit and try and see what we can see of totality with the binoculars. During the eclipse Venus showed itself bright and overhead in a cloudless bit of sky - a nice surprise. Here are the few picture salvageable from those taken.
 Baily's beads at 2nd Contact |
 Chromosphere just at 2nd Contact |
 Mid-Totality |
|
 Chromosphere announcing 3rd Contact |
 Diamond ring out of totality |
We also had a video running, too, which showed the wide variability of the sky during the whole of totality.
As is customary at Solar Eclipses the vast majority of observers only stick around for just over half of the even and pack up whilst the partial phases going out of totality runs its course. Today was no exception, and most drifted away as soon as possible after third contact. We hung around, as usual, partly because we take the temperature during the eclipse, but, on this occasion we wanted to see more partial phases. There were long periods without the sun but we were there for fourth contact. The temperature results are shown on a separate page. Here is fourth contact.
4th Contact
(Well, only minutes before, really)
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