Luck and beginning of science
Today I was extremely lucky, because I forgot my phone at home. Let me explain. Being a typical millennial forgetting my phone feels a bit like losing a limb to me. Well, maybe not something so extreme, but it is close. So when I noticed I didn’t have a phone in my pocket today, I used my lunchbreak to rush back home to collect it. And since I also needed to grab a bite, I sat down for a moment and turned on the TV. Just in a moment when a news anchor reported on ongoing partial solar eclipse. I completely forget about it! For a second I hesitated, but than I decided I could not miss this opportunity. I had only about 20 minutes to get my telescope from storage room, assemble it and learn how to install the solar filter I bought several years back (but never used before)…
Needless to say, it was kind of helter-skelter operation, but it was worth it. I think I missed the maximum phase of the partial eclipse by couple of minutes, but I feel good about the result anyway. You can even see the rough edges of the Moon, as it really is not a perfect sphere. Several times I mentioned on this website the need of planning in photography and astrophotography in particular. Yet this time I was just struck by pure luck. Hadn’t I forget my phone today, I would miss the eclipse completely.
Partial solar eclipse over Czechia
I have seen three solar eclipses in my lifetime (one full eclipse in 1999, partial eclipse in 2015 and this one). And each time it felt extraordinary to observe it. It is not just an extremely interesting natural phenomenon, but it is also reminder of one of the greatest milestones in human history. If you have never heard of Thales of Miletus, please take some time to read about him. It is thanks to him and his successful solar eclipse prediction in 585 BC that humanity moved from merely mythical and divine explanation of the world around us to the scientific approach. And that never ceases to amaze me.
I processed the image in Lightroom. Pretty much the only significant edit I used (apart of some cropping) was shifting the temperature to get the warm orange color of the Sun (the picture taken through the solar filter comes almost completely black and white).
