[Journal entry for August 21, 2017] A solar eclipse occurred today in the mid-afternoon. The band of totality crosses North America well south of New York; I observed only a partial eclipse. The day was partially sunny, with some thin, high clouds. I set up my old Meade 2045 telescope (4-inch, 1000-mm focal length, Schmidt-Cassegrain design, with a solar filter) in my front yard at about 1 PM, before the eclipse started. The sun was perfectly round, of course, and had a line of three small sunspots crossing its disk. By 1:30 PM, I could see that the eclipse has begun, for a small circular indentation appeared on edge of the disk. My son Josh and I checked back every fifteen minutes as the eclipse progressed, as the indentation grew and covered some of the sunspots, until finally, at around 2:30 PM, it had reached its maximum of about 70%. By then, the sky was becoming increasingly cloudy. I went and did some errands, but checked back towards the end when the sky had cleared. I was able to take a photo with a 400-mm lens on my Cannon 7D camera, by stabilizing the camera against a telephone pole and holding the telescope’s solar filter over it.

It’s remarkable how perfectly round is the arc of the moon across the face of the sun, and how sharply pointed are the horns of the crescent sun.