Pretty Pictures for Sunday - Solar Eclipse

Taken at 9.30 in the morning on Friday from our attic window.  We were treated to an 85 percent solar eclipse, with just some hazy cloud serving as a natural filter.  And the house shook too while I was taking the pictures - the window fitters were bashing out the old window from the bathroom below me, and it took me a minute or two to work out that I should listen to the rhythm of their banging and wait until they stopped to avoid camera shake.

It was tricky getting pictures of the sun without looking directly at it, just looking at the screen on the camera.  Some shots came out dark and moody...

... some were thin and hazy.

Then I realised that the crescent shape was showing up beside the main glare of the sun...

... and I also managed to get pictures showing two crescents, which is slightly weird.  I wish it were reflections in the clouds, but the mundane explanation is that it is the effect of taking pictures through a double glazed window.  

Update 24th March

Bob, my brother's brother-in-law, emailed this diagram to me today.  Thank you Bob!

Bob is in the USA and so missed this eclipse, and was slightly jealous when he saw my pictures.

All I can say is hooray for hazy cloud and double glazing, which all combined to make a triple filter for the photos.

Because I am a bit of a doughnut with the computer I couldn't transfer the image through the computer to the blog, I just took a photo of the computer screen, which explains the rather interesting tweedy texture to the diagram.  Bob no doubt could whip up another diagram explaining how the effect comes about, and I could take a photo of that too and post it here. This post could end up like a hall of mirrors.