Watching the eclipse

A lot of people may have experienced the eclipse today. The zone of totality skimmed across the western edge of Europe taking in Iceland and Spain, but it only got to about 90% where I am in the UK. The last time we got that close was in 1999 and I remember everyone at work going outside to see it. This time it was around 7pm, but due to train issues I did not have a lot of time to prepare when I got home.

Observatory

I have done this before so I knew pretty much what I needed. I have had this little telescope for many years. Of course you should not stare at the sun at all and looking through a telescope without special filters can blind you, but it is safe to project an image. The card blocks some light to make the image clearer. You can line it up by the shadow of the telescope. I saw some articles saying that the telescope can get really hot, but it seemed to be okay even though it was not really made for this.

Half way

I had to keep adjusting as the sun went down. If I get the focus right then it is fairly clear. I thought I could see sun spots at times.

Maximum

This was about as far as it went. The light definitely changes even though it is still light. My neighbour had a welding mask to watch it. The sun does look fairly small through that.

I checked my solar panels and energy production went right down as you would expect. The energy companies were prepared for this as they get a lot of their power from solar these days. My supplier Octopus asked people to use less appliances for a couple of hours. If you did cut your consumption you can get a free hour at the weekend.

Axle email

I also have an account with Axle who will pay me a nice amount for exporting from my battery in the same period. I allow them to control the system so I do not have to do anything.

Tomorrow we are expecting highs of 35C and we have no A/C at home. It is only due to stay hot for a couple of days, so it is not too bad really. I know other places have it much worse. We may actually get some rain next week and we could really do with it.

Stay well and take care of your eyes!