eclipse day 🌕🌔🌓🌒
🌒 I'm doing Blaugust this year. This is 8/? posts in August.
Yesterday there was a partial solar eclipse in the UK! I went up to the Bristol Downs, a big grassy area up at the top of the city, after work to try and see it.
There ended up being about 3000 other people up there and the phone signal went down meaning it was quite tricky to find my friends. I did a lot of cycling around to old "live locations" in WhatsApp before managing join some of them. I took a couple of pictures while I wandered. Quite a few people had been caught out without eclipse glasses, so there were a lot of colanders and home-made pinhole cameras made out of cereal and other cardboard boxes, as well as some hobbyists with more professional telescopes and cameras. It was all pretty fun to see.
Scorched grass, cars parked, a woman watching with eclipse glasses
A man with his colander ready to use as a pinhole camera
General party atmosphere
These pictures might capture how dry it's been here and why we currently have a bonfire/BBQ ban. I'm not sure they capture how many people were here, or how many cars - I cycled up and I had to get off my bike and onto the pavement because the traffic was gridlocked. Crazy! It makes me sad because Bristol is a pretty walkable city. Sure, some people will have excuses for why they have to drive but I also know full well a lot of these people are a walkable distance away and fully capable of doing it. Deranged behaviour.
Some of these people included the friends I was meeting. I have to admit, initially I wasn't that fussed on the whole endeavour. I also was unsure about hanging out with this group, who I don't see that often anymore and I only tangentially have things in common with. However, they had eclipse glasses - and in my apathy had left it too late to buy any. So I met up with them and was genuinely taken back by how cool it looked through the glasses and how glad I was to see it.
At peak coverage, over 90% of the sun was covered leaving a small crescent sliver at the top. It got a little darker and colder - the light had the quality of twilight. Although it didn't get totally dark and you couldn't get the full effect without something to view the sun with, it's very rare in the UK not to have these kind of events effected by cloud coverage, so it was very special to be able to watch the whole thing with clear skies.
Something else also made me feel happy - the friend that organised was so enthusiastic, sharing the pack of glasses he'd bought with everyone nearby, shouting out about how cool it was, I was a mixture of hyped and slightly embarrassed - but as we were leaving a family who had borrowed some glasses came up and said they'd loved his cheerleading and they'd remember it whenever they thought about the eclipse. He said "This is the universe giving you something and you might only see it once in your lifetime". It's true! Sometimes it's worth making an effort. There was also something special about everyone gathered in one place, sharing with each other, that made me forget all the things we didn't have in common and have a good time.