In August of 2017, there was great anticipation in Oregon because a total eclipse of the sun was going to happen on the 21st and our house was in a prime viewing area. I was still working at HP in Corvallis, Oregon during that time.
One of the great things about working at HP was that we were all a bunch of nerds. I felt right at home there. In addition to that, it was a much more comfortable working environment for a female than I’d ever been in before. There were many brilliant women engineers, chemists and technicians at HP. Therefore, a woman walking around was not automatically thought of as a low-level assistant or as a cleaning woman.
People acted like women might actually have brains and were worthy of more than just servitude. When I was younger (with a pretty decent face and figure) it often seemed like a lot of people thought of me as just something decorative to have around. My opinion was not welcome and was usually ignored.
Another happy circumstance was that we had fun events and interesting things posted on the walls. There was detailed information and fun facts about the coming eclipse everywhere.
On August 21, 2017, the skies were clear, perfect weather to view what was happening in the heavens. Then, as promised, there was the eclipse for us to observe. When the time came, we went out on the patio to watch. There was an unobstructed view of the sky there. We could see one of the neighbors out in the street with a camera on a tripod. I took a few pictures with my phone’s camera.
As it started, I tried a picture. It didn’t show the eclipse well, but still made an interesting shot. It looked like there were some sort of special effects done to it, but it was just a trick of the lighting.
Trying to get an image of the totality didn’t work out well either. The camera app couldn’t show the black disc in the middle of the sun. Old Sol looked just like a ball of light. The intense brightness had been dimed though. Proof of that was the fact that you can see one of the stars that were showing up in the sky. Something that you’d not see normally during the day.
Taking pictures of the sunlight from the crescent (which appears before and after the total eclipse) worked much better. You could see several little crescent-shaped bits of light all over between the shadows of leaves. That effect works kind of like a pinhole camera.
A pinhole camera is a type of camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture (the “pinhole”) that allows light from a scene to project an inverted image on the inside of the box used for the “camera”. The simple image formed using a pinhole camera is always inverted. The way this natural “camera” works is that the little openings through the leaves create lots of “pinholes” where the rays from the sun shine through.
We knew that a few of our neighbors were out watching too. However, we were blown away by the sounds all around us when the totality of the eclipse happened. There was enough cheering and clapping to indicate that nearly everyone was outside with plenty of friends. And no wonder, a total eclipse of the sun is an amazing sight!