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Through the binoculars and the telescope, the sunspots were perfectly visible. Alas, the photographic results are too subtle to distinguish these details. It is possible to see them when their location is known, even if far less sharp than in the reality.
The successive phases were like appetizers. Similar images were observable on the whole territory. My wife, stayed in Saint-Nazaire for professional reasons, saw the partial phenomenon. She told me that the glasses have been used by more than one pair of eyes!
The light fading was, in the absence of measuring device, impossible to feel during the 4/5th of the partial eclipse. And about the temperature, it was already fresh and it was necessary to wait the very last moment before totality to appreciate a real difference.
A few minutes before the total eclipse, the countryside started to take a brownish color hard to describe. It was movie-like night, when the photographers are placing a dark filter in front of the lens while the scene is played by daylight.
I was busy to observe the very last crescent of Sun through the telescope when my mother shouted: « we got it, the shade arrives, look ». And before I had a chance to raise the head, the light was switched off.
I took all the filters away. I told the children to remove their glasses and we raised the nose to the sky. It was splendid. As our eyes were adapting to the half-light, the corona grew. Intense emotion. We knew that it would last two minutes and we didn't want to miss anything.
I although took 36 exposures with calm from 1/30s to 1/4000s.
Through the telescope, the prominences were remarkable and everyone had the chance, including our guests, to look at them. Through the lens of the camera, I saw also these deep red formidable explosions and tried to keep calm to bring back some exploitable exposures.
Even with the naked eye we saw these excroissances. Then some stars. Then Venus, in the bottom-right. Mercury was always masked by a cloud which had stopped there, as it didn't want to steal us the spectacle.
The Sun started to reappear behind the lunar disc.
I asked the children to fit again their glasses. I put the filter back to the telescope and I still took some photographs with the naked lens.
Someone turned on the light. Silence. It was finished. A strange feeling, a mixture of happiness, incredulity and already of nostalgia was in my head. Burst of joy. Whaoo.
A long time after the Moon had let its companion take its place back, Venus remained visible on a blue sky background.
The clouds which had had until there the courtesy to let us enjoy the sky came back and they were like natural filter, making it possible to observe the rest of the eclipse without instrument. We had a picnic while still raising the head from time to time. I finished another 36 exposures film while chattering with our guests.
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