There was much dust on the scanner; I'll rescan these when I get around to it. North is up; photos were taken with a Nikon Nikkormat FTN through a Meade ETX-90 (f/13.8).

Time taken (UTC), exposure time

Shots not of the Sun

Shot with a little Kodak Funsaver.

So What Happened?

I arrived in Paris a scant 26 hours before first contact. After trying to convince my body that it wanted to sleep at night, I got up at 0730 UTC (the eclipse started at 0904 UTC) to find that I couldn't open my door. It was apparently due to a screw coming loose and getting jammed in the door jamb. After I gave it a lot of force (and let me say, pulling on a door to snap a metal screw isn't easy), the screw broke and I was free.

Great start to the day.

I took the Metro to Gare du Nord and after a few minutes of searching, found the RER ticket booth. I bought a ticket to Compiègne and wandered over to a platform. The conductor there told me that I needed to go to platform 12, so I ran over there. I asked another conductor if I was at the right train; he said my train would leave in an hour (which was after totality!). Confused, I ran back down to the ticket booth and confirmed that my train was indeed on platform 12. I ran back up to find the train blocked off by police as it was full.

Another conductor directed me to another train (which was across the station) which would being me to Creil, within the path of totality... but the train would arrive too late. But it didn't matter, I just wanted to travel north, so I got on. Ten minutes before totality I got off at Gonesse-Arnoville and set up.

And that's how it happened.

Oh well. The next eclipse will be on 21 June 2001 in the southern region of Africa. I plan to be there... maybe this time I'll catch it.

-geordan

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