McBroom travels to Texas to see eclipse

Dear editor,

I traveled 12 hours to Austin, Texas, for the solar eclipse. Crossing the border into Texas, I stopped at the state visitor center. They provided me with maps and two free eclipse glasses in a sack of information. The traffic through Fort Worth was dense and slow.

I brought three telescopes and five cameras for seven people and one dog.

There were white light solar filters for telescope and camera with 70-200 mm zoom lens. I also made white light filters for people to see a better image of the sun than through regular eclipse glasses.

It was cloudy, of course, but it could have been worse. Some partial holes in the clouds provided about a minute or so of totality viewing.

I took a video that shows the best view. It shows the clouds passing by, more eclipse details and exciting commentary from the people.

The brief view I saw through the telescope was awesome. The difference in a total and partial eclipse is like the difference between night and day.

I also used a dental mirror to reflect the partial eclipse image onto a house wall about 20 feet away. It worked great.

There were heavy rains for several hours upon leaving Austin the next day. Some areas in Austin had baseball size hail.

This was my second total solar eclipse. It was great to see it and to visit relatives.

Bob McBroom

Holton, Kan.