KZBlog

Here in Astana, the eclipse was only a partial one and not very impressive. My pinhole showed about 60% of the sun covered up at the time of maximum effect (around 5:06pm local time). It was definitely noticeably darker at that point too. But as this photo taken furtively over my shoulder demonstrates, the sun looked completely uneclipsed.

Some boys walking by got curious about my pinhole viewer–a box with a pinhole on one end, a piece of white paper pasted to the inside of the other end and half the top cut off so I could see inside. When I told them I was watching the eclipse, they said they had heard that in Almaty it was going to be a big deal, with lots of people watching. In Astana, we concluded, people work. No time for celestial omens. People did come outside and take a look but everyone seemed disappointed and quickly went about their business.

I’m not sure who told people that it was safe to look at an eclipse through the hole of a computer disk but some people had ripped the casings off of disks and were staring through the center hole. I guess it’s a pinhole effect, but you’re supposed to look at the shadow of the pinhole! One guy–who caught me trying to photograph him and threatened to hit me–had one disk on each eye like New Wave sunglasses. Very funny. No doubt very ineffectual.

Would have been better to have flown to Nadym, Russia where I’m told they got a full 2 minutes of total eclipse. Of course knowing my luck, while I’m typing this there’s a total eclipse outside in the shape of Donald Duck’s head or something really cool!

Did anyone else have better eclipse experiences than I did?