On Sunday in Eugene, we were treated to a partial solar eclipse where 85% of the Sun's disk was covered by the Moon gliding in front of it. Of course this is Oregon, and our clouds decided they wanted a piece of the action too. In many parts of the state (e.g. Portland), the event was invisible except for a few glimpses of the Sun through thick clouds. Fortunately, the Eugene clouds were thin enough to reveal the Crescent Sun throughout much of the eclipse.
At 6:23pm, the coverage reached its peak of 85.4%. Here is what it looked like, exposed for the crescent through some non-picturesque clouds:
Unless you were hiding from news outlets in the days leading up to Sunday's eclipse, you know this was an annular type, which means the Moon is too far away to completely cover the Sun -- but still tries its best anyway. The result is a "ring of fire" during the few minutes that the Moon's disk appears completely inside the Sun's disk. Unfortunately for my photographic ambitions, I was not in the path of annularity this time -- but as you can see, it was fairly close.
On August 21, 2017, we will get a total solar eclipse, revealing the beautifully delicate solar corona. The west-to-east path of totality will include McMinnville in the north to Alsea in the south. I viewed the previous total eclipse that graced the contiguous United States in 1979, and I can assure you it will be worth your effort to see the next one in 2017 . :-)
