My school is great and got really into it, helmed by the Physics teacher who's big into astronomy. We had shifts of students rotating in to see it during first two classes, though I came to help set up so I was there the whole time. We had tables with retort stands, pinhole binoculars made by sticking binoculars to card with a hole in it, mirrors, lenses and white card as screens and buckets of water to reflect the sun.
Everyone was ready.
Then we got a great surprise when we realised that the eclipse was easily visible in the school windows. We still had to be careful though, because it was still pretty bright from there.
I think the eclipse was set to peak around half nine, but yeah I waited and watched, and it was very cool watching the crescent sun. Sometimes it went behind a thin layer of clouds which was great, because then we could look at it pretty clearly without hurting our eyes (okay, I got a headache afterwards but still).
The peak of the eclipse was a little disappointing as it didn't really go dark (I watched a video where Brian Cox is there recording from the Faroe Islands, where it went completely dark), but it seemed to get colder and the sun was almost completely blocked.
A while after that, we went back in to Maths, which I wasn't going to miss. I had a headache but was very glad I went out to watch because the atmosphere was brilliant - everyone was so excited, and the principal and physics teacher were there narrating. It was a pretty awesome community science moment.
Tomorrow, you get a post about the Musathon.
Also, during Irish, the teacher told us we already know the word for eclipse because it's used in grammar - urú.
The more you know.
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