By Dan Hicks

Vancouver and Kelowna were cloudy, and Calgary was foggy, but Cranbrook’s sky was sufficiently clear to allow our eye-protected sungazers to observe the great annular solar eclipse of October 14 (Saturday).

Along the moon’s 13,800-kilometre linear antumbral shadow through the New World – the path of annularity, Luna’s dark silhouette fit within Sol’s disc – barely, bounding itself with a ring of light which, when viewed telescopically, revealed light peeking out from behind lunar craters and solar prominences erupting up from the sun itself. Far to the north of the path of annularity, our lunar-solar show was reduced to being a partial solar eclipse, but a formidable sight nevertheless. At mid-eclipse (10:25 MDT), the sun – eclipsed along 75% of its diameter, appeared in our sky as a miniaturized crescent moon.

Lead image: A Samsung cellphone camera, its lenses covered by an RASC Solar Viewer, captures the ornate otherworldly celestial beauty of Cranbrook’s lunar-eclipsed crescentic sun. October 14, 2023 10:25 MDT. Dan Hicks photo

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