22 May 2012

Report from Mt. Shasta: Ring of Fire Annular Eclipse

I led a Road Trip to Mt. Shasta for viewing of last Sunday's Ring of Fire Annular Eclipse. The event was well attended and we had a nice array of telescopes and a lot of very enthusiastic participants taking in this special event, each in their own way.

I observed the January 1992 annular eclipse from San Diego, CA, and had a very different experience, finding the eclipse at that time to be interesting but not inspiring. However, Sunday at Mt. Shasta, the Ring of Fire was very inspiring. I enjoyed the view through a number of telescopes, including some Hydrogen-Alpha, and the usual white light filters. I enjoyed the collective shout of excitement as the eclipse reached annularity. And I was pleased to simply have clear skies, with some light high cloud but nothing that disrupted the view of the magical display in the sky.

I'll be posting photos and links of pictures and videos from the event. If you were at Mt. Shasta, send me a link and I'll add it here: 


Video of the actual solar disk from Anju Saksena. Note the sounds of the crowd from 7:00 to 7:30.

Annular Eclipse image (above) taken at Mt. Shasta Resort, courtesy John Belew.

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