Skygazers across New England looked up in awe Monday afternoon as the moon crept across the face of the sun, casting a heavy shadow across the northern part of the region.
The timing of Monday’s solar eclipse depended on where you were. At the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, the eclipse began at 2:16 p.m., hit its maximum about 1 hour, 13 minutes later, and ended about 4:38 p.m.
That’s a long time to be staring at the sky with your head craned back. Fortunately, the observatory has released a time-lapse video showing the moon as it passed by the sun, blotting out most of its light, before moving on, a sight that won’t be seen again in these parts for 55 years.
A timelapse (8x speed) of today's #SolarEclipse from Mount Washington Observatory, #NH. It was a partial eclipse for our location w/ 99.97% coverage. Winds were 35-50 mph at the time, so keeping our camera setup stable was a bit of a challenge, so we apologize for the wobble. pic.twitter.com/HKrz43XBrq
— Mount Washington Observatory (MWO) (@MWObs) April 9, 2024
The video taken from the summit of the highest peak in the northeast shows this awesome and elegant celestial display in nearly full effect. (Mount Washington was just outside the path of totality with 99.7 percent coverage).
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From that view, the moon took its first visible bite out of the lower right side of the sun at 2:18 p.m. and covered about 20 percent by 2:38 p.m. As the dark shadow advanced, the sun appeared to take the form of a crescent, before the moon reached its maximum coverage just before 3:30 p.m. At that point, the sun’s light appeared to swing down in a narrow, upside-down arc across the bottom of the moon.
As the moon continued on its path, the sun began to return to its full form, appearing like a wheel of cheese with a bite taken out, but the bite, counterintuitively, shrank smaller and smaller until the eclipse reached its end.
The observatory said it had a hard time keeping the camera steady amid 35- to 50-mile-per-hour winds.
See more Globe coverage of the 2024 total solar eclipse.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.