The LNER Encyclopedia

Was it just me, or was today's eclipse a total non-event?

There was supposed to be an 85% eclipse in the Midlands at 9:23am. Not where I was!

It was already grey, overcast and gloomy in north London from dawn this morning but it did actually get a bit more noticeably gloomier from about 9:00am onwards until about 9:45am even the Upper Holloway railway station lights went on for awhile during that time period but it didn't really get that dark that i had to put the signal box lights on.

Eclipse? What eclipse?? It was so dull here in East Anglia that I did not even notice any temporary blip in the greyness - and then, mid-morning, the sun comes out after all!!!

It depends when you look, as well! Those quoted percentages would be their maximum.

I've seen photos from southern England which were roughly 50% - so not quite at their maximum. And photos from further north in the 80-90% range.

We had one a few months back (they almost always come in pairs) which only reached about 30-40%. Interesting enough with back-projection, but the giant sunspot group that was then present was much more interesting!

Dull and grey down in Basingstoke, although beautiful and sunny now (well... as beautiful as Basingstoke can get, apart from being in the rear view mirror of my car). I remember the 1999 one clearly, and a poster for sale at NRM York my dad bought that summer, a reprint of an LNER one saying it's the last chance to see it before 1999

richard wrote:(they almost always come in pairs)

There are always two solar eclipses every year. As the Moon has a very erratic path the location of the eclipses on the Earth's surface is rather erratic. Plus not all are total eclipses when seen from the Earth's surface.

Lunar eclipses vary from zero to five a year. They tend to come in clumps.
One year you get zero, the next couple of years maybe one or two and then you get a run of years where there are three to five eclipses.
Then going back to one or zero again.

Alan

...and here is your eclipse planner for the next five years. More info than you really wanted to know on this page

Ay up!

It went dark here in Wolves but not that dark. Ho hum......

I took the advice given by the Tele prog and used a colander

Strained my eyes

Were any special trains run for this eclipse?

Whilst it was slightly cloudy and overcast here on Tyneside, that turned out in my opinnion to be an advantage. Those that were watching had a reasonable view. As with the thin cloud/overcast it allowed folk to see the sun's disc and it being partly "devoured" by the moon directly, without being blinded or with any gadgets. Overall quite interesting. One thing I really liked were the reports on the news especially those from a selection of Primary Schools who were using it as part of an educational project and the kids describing the event with excitment.