Big day

Yesterday, Wednesday, was the day of the near full eclipse of the sun. We both vaguely remember a minor eclipse of the sun during our primary school days, and BH went down to Teignmouth for the full eclipse of 1999, which was quite an experience for her. On top of a sea wall, as she recalls, with all the birds getting into a muddle about bedtime. Very much the sort of thing which appeared in the FT yesterday, included above. 

I don't remember much about the minor eclipse, but I do remember a chunk being cut out of the edge of the sun and I associate to talk of smoked glass. Which suggests that I did actually see something, although I cannot now remember how we did it. Nor did I bother to look anything up for yesterday evening's event.

The hot weather has meant that we only get out, if at all, first thing and last thing. First thing yesterday meant a quick trip to Epsom, in the car, to pick up a few bits and pieces. I was also treated to the sight of this rather noisy pop-up in the Ashley Centre, noisy despite its not being open.

Reference 3 tells me a lot about it, but not who is putting it on. A clutch of resting actors dressed up for the day or what? Maybe I will get to find out.

I then fast forward to last thing, that is to say around 17:30, for the big event. For me, having remembered something about pinhole cameras, a Heath Robinson day. Not enough remembered, as it turned out.

So, a large flower pot with a hole in the bottom. A piece of paper with a rather small hole, perhaps 5mm in diameter - standard hole punch size. A piece of Chinese Elastoplast to hold it in place. I was getting quite excited about the spot on the wall, sitting across the crack in the snap above, until I remembered that the image plane needed to be orthogonal to the line of sight to the object in question, in this case the sun.

BH, who thought I had got the time wrong, was busying herself with the colander, visible bottom right, but was not doing that well either. I think she had got the idea from her telephone.

My next attempt deployed what had once been an aluminium jam pan - this from before my parents moved to a much more serious copper affair - both metals now having been outlawed - as the image plane. Holding it in the right place was a bit awkward, but a spot is visible in the image above, snapped at about 18:10.

Getting towards the final configuration, complete with litter picker above and walking stick below.

But was it an image of the hole or an image of the sun, or something in between? This from around 18:20.

A couple of minutes later, the pan was properly aligned and the spot duly vanished. But it did not get dark and nothing much happened at all. I was not completely sure that the sun had not just moved behind a chunk of one of the trees out back.

But the spot did reappear. So who knows? Maybe I will take the time to look up how pinhole cameras really work.

The day closed with the last knockings of the weekend's roast beef, of which more on another occasion. Not the mince, rather what was left of the fine gravy, added to the mince after it was more or less cooked in its own juices.

There was also the matter of the missing haricot beans, of which more on another occasion.

PS 1: the upstairs thermometer reads 81°F as I type this at 06:55, going down, with a cool draught coming in from the open window behind me. Odd how it does not feel hot - until one tries running about, which does not work very well at all.

The jam thermometer adjacent reads much the same. Surely they are not both wrong? One of them at least is brand new.

My telephone says that it is 17°C outside, set to rise to 36°C, I think a record for us. Roughly 63°F to 96°F old money - which sounds rather a lot to me. My theory, probably derived from the Guardian, is that older brick buildings act rather like the storage heaters of old, soaking up the heat when the sun is out, slowly warming up, then staying warm for a long time, sun or no sun.

I certainly remember the rather bigger GOGGS, in Westminster, being rather like that. Cool at the beginning of the hot weather, then slowly heating up. I associate this morning to the shiny white brickwork of the internal light wells, intended to bring a bit of light into the interior of the building. No doubt heat too. From where I further associate to the tricky light wells of an important art gallery in Ottawa. Turned up, on my second search, at reference 4.

BH tells me that today should be the worst of it, after which there may be some respite.

PS 2: Google Images (GI) seems to be more interested in the sun in the middle of the snap at the top of this post, than in the image as a whole. But he does tell me that the image, widely syndicated, was:

'The photo was captured by photographer Borja Suarez for Reuters during yesterday's event in Arija, Spain. It features the silhouettes of spectators watching the moon completely cover the sun along the path of totality'.

Suarez is on Reuters' books, but they are being a bit coy about this image, perhaps because they were making a lot of money out of it - and I have been unable to verify the GI story otherwise, plausible though. it is. The reference to 'Japan Today' was not helpful.

Unlike the people at timeanddate, important during my moon watching phase. Maybe AI good on science, not so good on soggy stuff like provenance! Noting that, for the avoidance of doubt, timeanddate are not obviously into AI: you don't even get one of those irritating AI assistants popping up.

References

Reference 1: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/1999.

Reference 2: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/2026.

Reference 3: https://ashleycentre.com/ashley-airport-vip-lounge/.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/10/two-arts-and-building.html.

Reference 5: 'Phenomenal' sight as millions wowed by once-in-a-generation solar eclipse - BBC News - 12 August 2026.