Bhavini Lad’s three children were so excited to experience their first solar eclipse on Monday that waiting in line to pick up goggles on the California Institute of Technology campus was almost too much to bear.
The 7-year-old twins and their 5-year-old brother buzzed and jumped, chatting with the people waiting in line around them. They spoke with great enthusiasm about their space-themed room, which featured a replica of the solar system hanging from the ceiling.
“They love learning about it because they have all this in their room,” said Lad, an aerospace engineer, adding that they explained how to observe the phenomenon without risk of eye injury.
“You don’t look without glasses, because what’s going to happen? » Lad asked his son.
He shouted his response: “You will go blind!” »
The sense of excitement was reflected in the rest of the crowd of around a thousand revelers, who donned protective glasses to witness the scientific marvel of a partial solar eclipse on the sports field near the Center of astronomy and astrophysics by Cahill. It was just one of several eclipse viewing events, formal and otherwise, held Monday morning across the Southland.
While more than a dozen states were able to experience a rare total solar eclipse, in which the Moon completely blocks the face of the Sun, viewers in Los Angeles saw the Moon take on about 50 percent of the bright mass.
Unlike the rest of the country, where cloudy skies might spoil eclipse chasers’ views, the day was sunny and clear in Los Angeles, with temperatures in the mid-70s. experience of totality, the sky did not darken and temperatures did not drop several degrees, as was the case for places in the total shadow of the moon.
In Los Angeles, the temperature cooled slightly at the height of the eclipse “because we were only getting about half the energy from the sun,” said Kenneth E. Phillips, curator of aerospace sciences at California Science Center.
Monday’s eclipse began over the South Pacific Ocean and moved diagonally across Mexico, the United States and Canada. More than 30 million Americans, from Texas to Maine, lived in the path of totality.
Monday’s celestial event was the last total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous United States until 2044. Los Angeles will experience another partial solar eclipse in 2029, according to NASA.
The buzz that led to the total eclipse was significant, both in terms of scientific possibility and rarity.
“This is an opportunity to see for ourselves our place in the universe,” said Paul Robertson, associate professor of physics and astronomy at UC Irvine. “We’re sitting on the surface of this rock that’s moving through space at 30 kilometers per second, and we’re doing this kind of gravitational dance with these other giant bodies.”
It’s not something people often stop to think about, Robertson said.
Nancy Castellanos and her 5-year-old daughter, Camilla, sat on a striped picnic blanket outside the California Science Center, staring at the sky.
Camilla smiled and pointed to the sun, prompting her mother to remind her not to look up without her goggles. It was Camilla’s first eclipse and she wasn’t sure what to expect. They waited and watched the moon move in and out of its partial solar shielding position.
“It’s such a memorable event, especially for the kids,” Castellanos, 39, said as Camilla snuggled into his lap. “She can remember it later and watch the next one too.”
At Caltech, some families brought chairs and laid out blankets to relax and munch on snacks while waiting for the show to begin.
Ryan Rudes, a freshman at Caltech, skipped his math class to take photos of the eclipse, using a makeshift eclipse filter for his Canon T6 camera, made from tape and lenses of his orange eclipse glasses. He had hoped to view the eclipse from Niagara Falls this year, but the predicted cloudy skies for that area thwarted his plans.
The crowd erupted in joy as the eclipse reached its peak around 11:12 a.m. Some quickly began packing their belongings to leave while others chose to wait in line to watch the eclipse begin its reverse journey through a large telescope set up on campus.
Across the region, people’s creativity and scientific prowess were on display.
Zak Graff, director of the Pasadena City College Arts Center, observed the eclipse using a makeshift pinhole camera that he made using a recycled Honey Nut Cheerios box and cardboard paper. aluminum.
A few times, kids ran up to Graff hoping to get a bite of cereal, but left disappointed. The box was intended for science, not snacks.
Graff also brought a spaghetti strainer that he used to filter sunlight. The light reflected off people’s clothes reflected the eclipse occurring in the sky in the form of dozens of small crescent-shaped shadows. “Very basic but very effective technology,” Graff said.
Dani Ortuño Gudiño, a photographer working on his master’s degree in media studies, lay on his back in front of the California Science Center to watch the eclipse reach its peak. He held a pair of paper glasses in front of the lens of his camera, a Sony Alpha 7 III. The result was a sharp, stunning photo of the moon riding the sun. The visible part of the sun formed a crescent above us.
Nearby, 16-year-old Dalton Cantor held his glasses to his face while staring at the sky.
“My family and I decided to come here for a unique experience,” he said. “It’s powerful. It pauses everything you’re experiencing.
Dalton lives near the Science Center and visited almost every weekend when he was younger. He was thrilled to be there Monday with his mother and grandmother.
“It’s a rare opportunity,” said his grandmother, Ana Rodriguez. “We couldn’t miss it.”
Edwin Lopez took advantage of the quiet moment after the peak of the eclipse to meditate.
He sat cross-legged and placed his hands over his heart while listening to a guided eclipse-themed meditation through his headphones. Lopez traveled to Oregon for the 2017 eclipse and was eager to witness the event again. He took slow, steady breaths, eyes closed, as the crowd around him began to thin.
“This meditation is about finding the light inside your heart and letting it radiate through you like fire,” he said. “The eclipse is a very special time and I wanted to feel connected to it.”
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