Today there was a partial solar eclipse over the UK, so being the geeky astronomer I am I was outside hoping for no rain and clear skies... well we started off the day with cloud, cloud, cloud but as we approached totallity things improved. It was still cloudy but we could quite clearly (with appropriate filters) see the sun! :-) Yay. It was nice, the eclipse looked wonderful. The weather got even better as we went to final contact, shame that it was that way around but heck it was nice to see something. We are normally beaten by the weather but we were not entirely today. We even got a small scope onto it for some nice projection viewing.
The top one is a direct camera image, with a solar filter... obviously no direct viewing with optical aids. This is not far off the maximum eclipse for Birmingham this time
The bottom is a projection image approaching final contact. (images taken by Scott Porter, with the [University of Birmingham Astronomical Society]
