Heather's First Day of Kindergarten

August 21, 2017 8:21 pm

Heather was very excited for school to start again.  She has some friends in her Kindergarten class from TK last year.  Stress levels have been high all weekend due to a malfunctioning smoke alarm on Saturday morning (Heather has been freaking out about the idea of the house burning down).  But despite her amped up anxiety levels we made it to school on time and she had a good first day.

She got to watch the eclipse at school.  They had the kids watch pinhole cameras and then took them one-at-a-time to use eclipse glasses.  I'm glad the Livermore schools actually made an event out of it and found something that would work for young kids.  The Lab donated enough eclipse glasses to the school system for every student and faculty member.

She finished the day with a smile (and Oreo crumbs all over her mouth).

Solar Eclipse 2017

8:10 pm

We had fun watching the eclipse today.  Livermore had ~75% occlusion at peak.  It was also Heather's first day of school (separate post coming).  They took the kids outside to watch pinhole cameras and then let them use eclipse glasses one-at-a-time so they could ensure they were being worn properly.

Heather helped me make eclipse cookies yesterday.

My sugar cookie skills could use some work...

Corinne got a kick out of the eclipse proclaiming, "Moon! I see the moon!" (by which she, of course, meant sun).

We used the colander to get pinhole-camera-style shadows.

And I had my camera set up with filters taking pictures.  I just kind of guessed at settings.  Some came out better than others.  Here's the picture from the peak eclipse:

And here's one I got as it was ending where you can see a line of spots.  I don't know if they're technically sunspots, but they weren't just dust on my lens--they stayed with the sun throughout the event.

My weather station noticed the eclipse too:

The variations in the readings are due to varying cloud cover that, thankfully, almost completely cleared out during the eclipse.

The temperature even dropped a hair: