Eclipsed:(

All here:

Well I think if the sun was visible it might have looked much better too much diffusion thru the overcast cloud, just got a bit darker here and that was that. However the clouds vanished an hour later and the olde Sun was smiling down on us as if to say,

"Did yer like that then";?.

As old Fred Dibnah might have muttered once or twice, thrice even!..

How hard is it to get out the welding mask?

:o)

Even under a cloudy sky, the total eclipse I saw in 1999 was awesome.

Everybody with me in that field in Truro, were visibly moved with the experience.

Well worth the 12 hour round-trip from Manchester.

Drivel. I predicted it would be a non-event. Good visibilty here in the W. Midlands. Watched with electric welding visor Tried to take pix through the visor but camera wouldn't focus. It didn't get that dark. If it had been cloudy or no means of viewing, the eclipse would not have been at all noticable. PV panels did not shut down, lost maybe a Kwh of electricity production. If it have been midday I'd maybe have lost 2Kwh. (Assuming "good" day).

If it had been a total eleclise, the panels would have shut down, it takes about ten minutes for them to restart. So maybe would have lost maybe 3Kwh.

I noticed that on gridwatch

It's to account for people having a cuppa while/after watching the eclipse, apparently there was a 3GW spike in 1999 and there wouldn't have been any PV needing 'cover' back then.

I looked but the moon was in the way.

You get the same many times a year, it turns night. A total eclipse has to be seen its not just the sky going dark.

It was very cloudy here and I gave up all hope of taking a picture, but the clouds cleared just in time and I took this:

It was taken on auto focus, auto exposure minus two stops. Metering was centre weighted. I cropped it a bit to get rid of a phone wire, and tweaked the gamma a bit.

I took a few close-up ones, and they showed the irregular surface of the moon. Well I think they did anyway.

I experimented taking a pic through welding glass but the exposures were too long.

Thing is, I wonder if the temperature change causes the clouds to clear. It was funny how the hole appeared in the cloud just at the right moment.

Bill

I'd have thought a temperature drop would have caused cloud formation. Cold air can't hold as much water vapour so it condenses into cloud, at least at low levels (up to few thousand feet), the atmosphere may behave differently at higher levels, 10,000'.

Having watched the time lapse here, the half hour ish before maximum sees things get very murky and the cloud decend almost down to us and a heavy mist forming. The half hour after sees the same in reverse, the mist disappears and the cloud base rises. Rest of the day is fairly stable, with occasional small breaks in the cloud, that remained well above us. Very much like the couple of hours from dawn to eclipse.

Did the eclipse bring on the murk?

Depends how you define spike.

The wonkypedia

Which has figures giving a 2.35 GW drop in demand over about 45 mins then a very rapid rise of 3 GW but only 650 MW of "new" demand. I wonder which the grid finds the hardest to handle, this drop and rise with relatively little extra generation being required or a rise post a football match or wedding that needs nearly 3 GW of "new" generation to prevent the lights going out.

As anyone who had ever sat through a partial eclipse before could have told them

It's not like partials are rare, there was one every 3-4 years when I were a lad

The current group of journos were spoilt. They were just starting out in 99 and there's been nothing since to "learn em" that anything less than total is, comparatively, a non event

tim

What a superb picture the sun in that gap like that framed by the trees.

You should have sent that to Aunty BBC.. Oh!, hand on perhaps best not;!...

In message , tony sayer writes

That's definitely a real prize-winner.

Excellent picture Bill Well done.