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A few minutes before the eclipse... the sun is bright and getting hot in the sky. The animals are kind of far away, a few horses grazing nearby. One thing I saw that I was surprised at was a HUGE jackalope type thing running across the field! Never saw a rabbit that big before! The thing was like two feet tall, not counting his ears!

So we all keep looking at the sun with our eclipse glasses. It’s just a round brown space in the glasses.

But soon - around 9:07 or so, ECLIPSE ZERO arrives! The moon is clearly carving out a small piece of the Northeast corner of the sun.

There is no change in brightness without the glasses. Everything seems to be just a regular day.

But it keeps going on... around ten percent or so, then around a quarter or so, then it keeps getting more and more.

I would estimate that the apparent brightness without the glasses didn’t diminish until it was at least 75% gone, then it seemed only slightly less bright outside.

But it kept going. Soon it was 80%, then 90%, then it got dark! Not as dark as midnite. But very, very dark overhead except a circle around the sun which was fairly bright, but small.

The sun’s corona.

It was due to show for about two minutes, maybe a tiny bit more. We were located about two miles northeast of Sublimity, Oregon which is about 15 miles Southeast of Salem. Almost exactly on the center line of the eclipse.

Now I’ve heard all kinds of descriptions about how it was. The corona was in an almost black sky. All around on the horizon it looked like sunrise, but immediately above us, it was black.
The stars came out. Jupiter and Venus came out. I had thought about but didn’t look for the Big Dipper, oh well!

And it seems like a minute later, it happened. The diamond effect!

Now this makes me state about something people have been saying. They’ll say things like 90% is enough, or 60% is enough, or it will almost be totality so that’s good enough for me.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Totality is an entirely different animal from a partial. Completely!

We all hung out about ten minutes after totality, then began to leave. It was about 10:45 am Pacific time. I would not get home until after three o’clock this morning. If anyone wants the details, I will share it with them.

Overall I can say this. My neighbors asked me if it was worth it... all O can say is, YES!!! Absolutely!!!
If there is ever an eclipse near you and the weather is good, then go! By all means! It is truly a once in a lifetime event, and at 63, I have to admit it was astounding!

Anyways, I took many, many pictures but didn’t do anything to my cameras before the event, so the quality just isn’t there. You can easily search for them.

That’s my eclipse report!