I thought I had already taken photos for the Texture Tuesday LIGHT challenge, but I changed my mind after Sunday evening. Yesterday, May 20th, was the annular solar eclipse. From the S.F. Bay area, it was only a partial eclipse, but still very exciting.
My sister and I went up to Mt. Diablo to view it with the Mt. Diablo Astrological Society, but we were running late, and by the time we got there the campground was packed. The park rangers told us we would have to drive up to the summit to view the eclipse. We only had minutes to spare before the eclipse reached its peak, so we hurried up the mountain.
Well when we got to the summit it too was full, and the park rangers weren't allowing anyone else to park in the parking lot. My hopes of viewing the eclipse were dashed! Fortunately, I remembered a parking lot just a bit down from the summit, so we went there to park. Although it didn't appear to have much of a view, we got out to look around.
My sister is much more outgoing than I am, and she went up to the other photographers and asked them how they were photographing the eclipse. She called me over to let me in on their secret. The photographers didn't have any special solar lenses to photograph the solar eclipse, they were using mylar! Huh? Yes, mylar! One couple was simply using the silver lined wrapper of a breakfast bar. That mylar wrapper gave the sun a very yellow and orange appearance. Here is the wonderful couple that allowed me to use their breakfast bar wrapper to take the following moving picture.
