Eclipse!

While most folks decided not to brave the traffic, Dave, Phil and Laura headed out early to get into the 1-minute-plus area of totality. They made it to Strete, near Dartmouth, and picked this spot for its westerly view. 
Soon, some thin spots in the clouds blew by, allowing us to take some unfiltered shots of the eclipse in progress.

Here, in a zoom (but otherwise unretouched!) view, is a shot about halfway through the eclipse. Due to the vast number of pictures we took, a shot with bird was inevitable!
About 3/4 obscured. We could see this better than the camera, thanks to the filtered clouds.

At this point, we could feel a real chill, and things were starting to look dim. Unfortunately this  was our last break in the clouds.
The remaining pictures all have a fixed exposure time to give a feel for the light changing.

This shot was taken one minute before totality.

The shadow can be seen arriving in the distance.

Notice most of the sheep are now lying down, and the light house on the distant point has now activated.

Here's the start of totality, which was about 1 minute, 30 seconds in this location.

Notice the clouds at the top of the picture are still somewhat lit.
Ok, so long exposures require a tripod or a steady hand. (The former is on order!) Anyhow, now the shadow is overhead. Folks down on the beach below starting taking flash pictures at an amazing rate.

Here, you can see more of the dawn on the horizon as the edge of the shadow approaches.
The sky and the West have lightened considerably now, and the eclipse is almost past.

The 40-mile drive home took almost 4 hours, but it was worth the effort.

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Last updated 10 September, 1999.