COLUMNS

Backyard Universe: A look at Thursday's sunset eclipse

Johnny Horne

This view showing the moon taking a small "bite" out of the right side of the sun was made about 6:15 p.m. Thursday from the parking lot of the Airborne & Special Operations Museum in downtown Fayetteville just minutes after Thursday's partial solar eclipse started. A 500mm telephoto lens fitted with a special solar filter was used. A large sunspot group is also visible on the face of the sun. A power line crosses in front of the sun.

We can certainly call it a solar eclipse...but not by much.

Thursday evening's partial eclipse of the sun barely started when sunset ended our view of the event. About 20% of the sun was covered by the moon at sunset Thursday.

That's not enough to even tell the casual observer that an eclipse is going on.

I watched and shot the first few minutes of the eclipse from the parking lot of the Airborne & Special Operations Museum in downtown Fayetteville, but all too soon the eclipsed sun dipped below the trees to the west.

August 21, 2017