Category: Grand Canyon National Park North Rim

My solar filter arrived in time to take photographs of the Annular Solar Eclipse May 20th, 2012 at Grand Canyon National Park.

Path of annularity by Jay Anderson

We were almost in the middle of the path at Grand Canyon with 88-94% of the disk covered.  This type of eclipse hasn’t been visible in the United States since May 10th, 18 years ago.  I was working at Mount St. Helens in Washington state and wouldn’t have seen it then. The next one to be seen in this country won’t occur until Oct. 14, 2023.  Maybe by then I’ll have figured out how to use the camera.

After work and a hasty dinner I made it to the rim of Transept Canyon near employee housing.  I shared the area with only four other people.

I took over 100 photos and it’s taken me days to process the best ones.  Plus I was determined to create a series of images.  And it worked!

A friend took some shots with his iphone through the solar glasses and this one through a welders filter.

As the quality of light and shadow changed I wondered how people from thousands of years ago reacted to eclipses.

Although I’d been in short sleeves all day sure glad I wore long sleeves that night and then wanted my fleece coat as the temperature noticeably dropped the closer it came to full annularity.

About two hours after the partial eclipse began, sunset arrived before the moon had entirely passed by the sun.  What a spectacular night!  And there’s still another solar display coming June 5th when Venus crosses in front of the sun.