The eclipse chaser: We saw it!

8.05 am: We have an eclipse! It is four minutes past first contact,and we can all clearly see a bite out of the top of the Sun,at about 11 Oclock orientation. The sky is hazy,but we can see the shape of the Sun very clearly through the haze.

9.07 am: In half an hour,well be in the midst of totality. The sun has come and gone a bit,through clouds and behind clouds,but we mostly have sun8230; When we have lost view of the sun,it has been for a couple of minutes,and this is8230; a five-and-a-half minute eclipse.

9.49 am: We saw it! The clouds kept getting thinner,and we even had a pretty good-sized hole in the clouds for the five minutes of totality8230;The diamond rings were spectacular. Just before totality,the clouds were just the right thickness that allowed us to see partial phases without filters. All our equipment and those collaborating on our terrace here in Tianhuangping seems to have worked,so now we still have an hour or so of partial eclipse to image,and then we will download photos and start looking at them. It was wonderful.