We had to get up very early on the morning of the eclipse to drive to the region of totality. We arrived in the region of totality soon before the partial phases started. Antjes dad had picked out a field for us to view from which gave a good 360 degree view. Antje's dad got hold of some of these stylish eclipse viewing glassses for us to use.
It was most exciting when we could first see the moon taking bites out of the sun. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, with millions of people in the region of totality in Europe under total cloud cover. During the partial phases the clouds did drift in front of the sun from time to time, but it somehow added to the anticipation and excitement.
The light dimmed initially very slowly. It took about an hour from the time of the first partial phase until total.
We spent our time taking photos, and hoping hard that the weather would stay good to us.
We found another good way of getting an image of the sun was to reflect the sun's image using a mirror, which was mostly covered and reflecting the image onto some paper.
In the last minute before total it was like someone was using a dimmer switch on the sun, the light faded dramatically. It never went pitch black and we could see sunset colors on the horizon. The funniest part was seeing all the flashes of peoples cameras going off. The two minutes of totality went really fast.
On the drive home we learnt what a traffic jam really is. We heard about stationary traffic for 50 kilometres. This photo of the autobahn over the Mosel was taken during a break to stretch our legs.
