Striking eclipse photos across the continent

The total solar eclipse that delighted spectators across Mexico, the United States and Canada on Monday was a celestial experience not to be missed.

Millions were in the path of totality to watch as the moon moved between Earth and the sun. Readers shared their images of the eerie sight and stories that illustrate the excitement of the once-in-a-lifetime event, such as Daniel McCartney, who captured an image of the eclipse over Big Moose Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York.

“Such an incredible experience,” said McCartney of Syracuse, New York.

Mariel Williams took a series of images of the eclipse after traveling to her family’s hometown in Dayton, Ohio, “to see the whole show.”

“If it weren’t for my parents hassling me to take these photos, I probably would have been too amazed to move!” said Williams, who now resides in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Juan M. Soto Peña watched the eclipse with his wife, Fabiola, and their daughter, Luciana, from their home in Tucson, Arizona. He and his wife observed a partial solar eclipse together in December 2000 in the Mexican state of Sonora, but Monday’s event was the first time they could share the cosmic experience with their daughter.

“After 20 years (of) not seeing an eclipse we got to experience it again,” he said via email. “And a first timer thrilled to see the Sun and Moon together. Great experience!

Young citizen scientists

And in Toronto, 12-year-old Michael Goldstein and his friends made the perfect plan to watch the eclipse and also launch a weather balloon 100,000 feet (30,480 meters) into the air.

Goldstein and Ilan Kagedan hatched the idea for the science project, as they had done it before. Together with Brady Sonshine and Michael “Misha” Vishnever, the boys have a space group called Star Galactic, and they designed an experiment they called Project Eclipse.

After launching the balloon, the quartet traveled to Burlington, Ontario, to be in the path of totality, where Goldstein snapped images of the eclipse with a Lumix FZ80 camera.

“The eclipse was amazing,” Kagedan said via email. “Ever since I was 1 years old I was very interested in space and space events. The solar eclipse was one of my favorites and in 2017 I got to witness it on my birthday and I was so happy when I saw it again on April 8th.”

The team released the weather balloon, carrying a payload with two cameras and two trackers, from Concord in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, just slightly north of Toronto. The balloon traveled 552 miles (888 kilometers) before landing in Green Hills Preserve in North Conway, New Hampshire, according to Goldstein.

Vishnever’s mother and father reached out to local businesses in New Hampshire for help retrieving the balloon, and Cynthia Gilmore of Center Conway, New Hampshire, and her son, Joshua, helped track it down.

When Goldstein gets the payload back from the Gilmores, he’s hoping to learn the altitude the balloon was ultimately able to reach and assess how the space group can improve future launches, he told.

“Project eclipse has been an enjoyable and memorable experience where we all worked together and accomplished something that I never dreamed of,” Vishnever said.