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The weather prospects looked extremely bleak the morning of the eclipse from Barembach in the Vosges mountain in eastern France just south of the path of totality -- completely overcast, drizzly with periods of heavy downpours. We knew from the start the odds of viewing the eclipse here were not the best, but this was really a two-week vacation in France for our family with the bonus of a chance of standing in the moon's shadow.
Feeling somewhat depressed by the conditions, we nevertheless tried to be upbeat as we headed up towards the center line with no specific destination in mind. All of a sudden the road started clogging up with cars and it seemed like we were going to come to a grinding halt on the highway near Strausberg sitting under the clouds. Finally, we crawled into Haugenau just before first contact and I noticed that there was a clear break forming in the clouds overhead. Our daughter, Andrea, shouted "We're going to see it!"
We parked at a little square near the center of town and set up my 80mm scope and mini-tripod right on the hood of our rental car. The partial phase was barely under way but the question was whether the hole would stay intact for the next hour or more. A number of people were gathering nearby in anticipation and the police blocked off the main street through town to traffic. The excitement was clearly rising as we reached 30 minutes before totality. The shrinking sun was in a mostly clear spot though at least 85% of the sky was thick with clouds.
With 15 minutes to go the temperature starting dropping noticeably and there was an eerie silence in the air. The sky was also rapidly darkening and with 10 minutes to go to totality the automatic street lights in the city turned on. At this point, some clouds were detaching from the main cloud mass lurking nearby and drifting past the sun. I was nervously trying to figure out if the sun would get caught within one of these detached clouds. The kids were so excited by the experience and anticipation they couldn't stand still and started dancing around.
With just two minutes to totality it was an odd dusky dark but I was more nervous that the overhead hole was ominously closing up. All of a sudden I shouted "There's Venus!" - shining brilliantly to the east of the sun. The crescent sun was now extremely thin and the last few seconds seemed interminable as the clouds were rapidly closing in. Then the sun seemed to disappear for a second and we saw a beautiful "diamond ring" with one last display of sunlight at the edge.
For a few brief exciting seconds the corona burst on and the periphery of the darkened disc was spotted with glowing ruby prominences. But thick clouds were clearly encroaching as I quickly pulled off the solar filter. We had just enough time for everyone to get a brief unfiltered view of the prominences (one detached) and the corona. Then the sun completely disappeared under the cloud bank and we knew our chance to view the remainder of totality was gone.
We were all a little let down that we missed the opportunity to see more of the 2+ minutes of totality but considering how much we were able to view and experience under these unlikely conditions we were still pretty lucky with many more adventures in Burgundy, Loire Valley and Normandy to come ...