FORT DAVIS — The McDonald Observatory hosted a modest crowd of visitors and locals for the viewing of the rare total solar eclipse on Monday.
A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and sun, completely covering the sun’s disk. The brief moment when the sun is 100% covered is called “totality.” To see it, you must be within the “path of totality,” a narrow band about 100 miles wide.
Though the tri-county region was not within the path of totality, the observatory offered many ways to view the partial eclipse. At the observatory, the partial eclipse began at 12:09 p.m., peaked around 1:27 p.m. and concluded at 2:47 p.m. At its maximum, the moon covered 90.9% of the sun.
“We were just the right amount of ‘busy’ today,” said McDonald Observatory Outreach Senior Program Coordinator Judy Meyer. “We had lots of different ways to look at the sun, with eclipse viewers, pinhole viewers, telescopes and remote telescopes.”
In addition to two telescopes set up on the patio, observatory staff manned an activities table that distributed stickers, temporary tattoos and eclipse viewers attached to paper plates for children.
For more information, visit mcdonaldobservatory.org/eclipse