It was a day to remember, as nearly 98% of the Sun was blocked by the Moon in a partial solar eclipse visible from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. The Department of Astronomy quickly distributed its remaining supply of about 800 eclipse glasses and a long queue of eclipse-watchers waited for a view of the Sun through a telescope. The partial eclipse ran for about two and a half hours with maximum eclipse around 2:05pm. Big thanks to graduate student Akshat Tripathi and undergraduate Ruixin Li for organizing the viewing! Additional thanks to Daniel and Rebecca Reck of SoundCuriosity.org for photographing the event; their online album is linked below. The next significant partial eclipse in Champaign-Urbana occurs on Jan 14, 2029, but only 66% of the Sun will be covered. A total solar eclipse will not be seen here until Oct 17, 2153!
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