Yesterdays lunar eclipse had me wondering just how I was going to view it.  I recalled many, many years ago, an hobby astrologist I worked with brought in a box one day and we were able to set it up in the parking lot at work and view an eclipse.  I went to work looking up how it was done on line.

The on line help said I needed to build a box a minimum of 6 feet long!  That seemed a bit much to me and I did not recall my astrologist friend having a box that long.  And so, I decided all I needed was a short box and an end with a pin hole in it.  I could cast the suns light on something far enough away to make it visible and hopefully we could see the shadow of the moon as it crossed in the suns path.

About 6:45 p.m. Brandon called and I told him what I was up to.  He wanted to come and see and so, it wasn’t but a couple of minutes and here were the kids to see.  I did not realize just how quickly the eclipse would take place.  I figured we had plenty of time.  We headed out to find a likely spot to set up our pin hole box.

Luckily for us there was an old metal door laying in the metal recycle pile we could use to project the sun against and when we set it up…wholey moley, the eclipse was already happening.

McKenzie and Conner had to get into the picture and I’m glad they did.  Proof that I was not alone in this adventure.

And so, with camera clicking away I was able to capture some of the images of the moon passing between the earth and the sun.  Remember, this image is reverse of what you would have seen if you could have looked directly at the sun.  It’s sure a lot easier on the eyes than looking directly into the sun and we did not have to use welders masks or plastic garbage bags to view the event.

This was the first picture and you can see we were late getting into the action.  So for next time I will be setting things up at least 45 minutes before the total eclipse happens, maybe sooner.

And so, even though the pictures aren’t that good, at least you can see what we saw by using just a pin hole in a piece of aluminum foil and rabbit ears over our head.

We did this in Northern Utah on May 20.  The total eclipse was seen about half way through the state to the South.  They got to witness the “ring of fire” as it’s called, but we were too far north to see that.  We still had fun and it did not cost us anything to go down there.  This sort of thing is not dangerous, it is informative, somewhat scientific and fun.

Bears Butt

May 21, 2012