Today, our last patients were scheduled for 1:30 pm—giving the doctors and staff a chance to sneak up to the roof of the parking garage and observe the eclipse here in Lexington, KY. Though it was cloudy, we still managed to get some peeks at the eclipse through the clouds.
Here is a picture one of my co-workers managed to get early in the eclipse. I think she may have used the lens from a pair of eclipse glasses as a filter for her phone—another co-worker’s picture below had a similar effect using eclipse glasses.
Soon after she came back into the building, the cloud cover increased a great deal—I was sure we were going to miss out on being able to see anything at all.
So I continued finishing up my normal work for the day—responding to patient’s phone messages, placing orders for the providers, and submitting a few prior auths for some patient’s medications. I finished with those tasks and noticed that it was about 2:45 pm—just a short time before the eclipse would be at it’s maximum for our area. It was still cloudy outside, but I thought to myself—oh, what the hell? Maybe the weather will surprise us. The rest of my coworkers were already up on the parking garage roof. I had not taken a lunch yet, either—so it was not like I was breaking any rules by taking a little break at that time.
I managed to get a few images of the eclipse with my phone at when it was right about at maximum, including the crescent on the left. I used no filter on the phone—the clouds themselves created enough of a filter to make it possible to take a photo.
I think half the people who work in my building were on the roof of the garage, hoping to get a peek at the eclipse. A few of the patients were on the roof with us too—including a group of children and their parents, most likely seeing the doctors at the pediatric clinic in the building next door.
One thing I noticed was how calm and still everything seemed. The road running past the hospital campus is one of the busiest in Lexington, but the traffic was extremely light during the time I was on the roof. There were no birds flying around, and though there had been a bit of a breeze earlier, the wind was now still.
I loaned one of my co-workers my pair of eclipse glasses, and after we came back in, she shared this image with me. She had used the glasses to make a filter for her phone lens to get this result. It looks almost as if the clouds are on fire.
Once the main event was over, we all headed back to the elevator and made our way across the pedway to our office building. Since clinic ended early, we all got to leave at a decent hour today.
Of course, as soon as the eclipse was completely over, the skies cleared substantially, and the sun came back out.
I avoided the madness on I-75 and took the back way home, through the horse farms and vineyards of southern Fayette County.
Here is one more cool eclipse picture sent to me by a relative from Indiana. I almost wish I had played hooky from work today so I could take a little road trip!