Solar Eclipse

This afternoon Katie's friend had a birthday party at a local park. She is getting better at pumping on the swing.  This evening there was a solar eclipse, which we and others watched from a mall parking lot.  In the western US, and even as close as Lubbock, TX (seven hour drive away), it was an annular eclipse.  The last annular eclipse in the U.S. was May 10, 1994 - I'm pretty sure that was the one I watched in grad school at Northwestern University. This time, here in Austin, we got a pretty good view for 45 minutes before the sun set. The last close-up image shows the sun 3/8 covered. We used items like stacked sunglass lenses with a digital camera and a sliced-open Cheez-It bag (metallized polyester) to help us observe the event.