I've been cheated!

[davewitley]

Cheated Catlady wrote:
> I went out to the front lawn of my apartment building and sat under 
> a tree for an hour and a half, waiting to see the light show of 
> myriad little eclipse-images amongst the shadows, like I read 
> about in a Stephen Jay Gould (!) article: this apparation on a 
> Manhattan sidewalk attracted a crowd of people who hadn't even 
known 
> that an eclipse was scheduled for that day. 
> 
> No light show under the tree. Oh, well, it was a pleasant afternoon 
> with a nice breeze.
> 
> And Tim couldn't make the eclipse image come through a little hole 
in 
> one paper onto another paper (or wall, or floor....). He claimed 
that 
> technique had worked for him in the past.
> 
> So I looked at the sun with my eyes, and saw the big bite taken out 
> of it.

How big was the bite?  I *have* seen the eclipse-images under trees 
before (1999), but the disk was 90%+ covered so the images were 
narrow crescents.  It would be harder to spot for a more partial 
eclipse.

As for viewing, what worked quite well was to fill a bucket with 
water and look at the reflection.  Don't know if it's any safer 
though.

The weirdest thing (given that I have never experienced totality) was 
the feeling it was heavily overcast despite a clear sky - an effect 
of the greatly reduced light levels.  Also the sunlight was 
completely cold: the eye adapts and is deceived but the skin knows it 
is getting negligible warmth

David