{"id":31145,"date":"2023-10-14T18:45:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-15T00:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hundreds-gather-in-farmington-to-witness-solar-eclipse\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:35:15","slug":"hundreds-gather-in-farmington-to-witness-solar-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hundreds-gather-in-farmington-to-witness-solar-eclipse\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds gather in Farmington to witness solar eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Adam
Adam Clark and Rachel Zima, of Durango, watch the eclipse on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023 in the Connie Gotsch Courtyard at San Juan College. (James Preminger\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Andrew Zeiler, of Gem Village, Colorado, held a colander to the ground as little shadows mimicking the moon over the sun glowed on the concrete pavement during the annular solar eclipse Saturday in the Connie Gotsch Courtyard at San Juan College.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the pinhole cameras, but with hundreds of images of the sun,\u201d Zeiler said, adding that he came down to Farmington to watch the eclipse because the path of annularity was directly over the area.<\/p>\n

That is also why Durango residents Adam Clark and Rachel Zima came down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to experience more totality of the eclipse,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

\"People
People observe the ring of fire, during the annular solar eclipse on Saturday at San Juan College Planetarium. (Crystal Shelton\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>Crystal Shelton<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The moon passes between earth and the sun during a rare \"ring of fire\" eclipse of the sun Saturday, as seen in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. (Rick Bowmer\/The Associated Press)
The moon passes between earth and the sun during a rare \"ring of fire\" eclipse of the sun Saturday, as seen in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. (Rick Bowmer\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Rick Bowmer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Adeline
Adeline Hughes and Fiona Paquin observe the eclipse, during the annular solar eclipse on Saturday at San Juan College Planetarium. (Crystal Shelton\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>Crystal Shelton<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Nine-year-old
Nine-year-old Johnny of Farmington observes the ring of fire during the annular solar eclipse on Saturday at San Juan College Planetarium. (Crystal Shelton\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>Crystal Shelton<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Andrew
Andrew of Gem Village, Colorado uses a colander to view the effects of the solar eclipse on Saturday at San Juan College Planetarium. (Crystal Shelton\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>Crystal Shelton<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tim
Tim Westburg, of Colorado Springs, holds his granddaughter Lynn Westberg, as she looks in the telescope at Venus. San Juan College Planetarium Director David Mayeux looks on at the right, during the Oct. 14 annular eclipse viewing at San Juan College. (James Preminger\/Special to Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jennifer
Jennifer Sierra and Andrew Yapp both from Colorado observe the ring of fire, during the annular solar eclipse on Saturday at San Juan College Planetarium. (Crystal Shelton\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>Crystal Shelton<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"People
People gathered at the Farmington Public Library Saturday to view the solar eclipse. (Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

There were people from all over the nation, who came to the Four Corners region to participate in the eclipse. Even NASA sent students from South Dakota School of Mines to the San Juan College Campus to follow the eclipse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tracking a high-altitude balloon through a NASA program to video the shadow as it moves across the United States,\u201d said Cara Ronish, 18, a freshman at the school. \u201cThere\u2019s multiple teams of universities following the shadow to see the annularity. It\u2019s really cool to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 150 people of all ages lined the courtyard. Some were sitting in the outdoor amphitheater, while others walked around visiting and looking at the projected image through a telescope. There also were more than 30 groups of people logged into a Zoom feed of the image projected by San Juan College planetarium director David Mayeux.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have people viewing from Boston, San Diego, Phoenix, San Antonio, just from all over,\u201d Mayeux said.<\/p>\n

He planned for this event for months, developing the logistics of setting up multiple viewing stations in the courtyard and providing people an opportunity to experience the annular solar eclipse, which passed directly overhead.<\/p>\n

It was a new moon on Saturday when the eclipse began at 9:11 a.m. with the maximum eclipse just before 10:34 a.m. This was when the \u201cring of fire\u201d appeared, causing the courtyard to erupt in applause as onlookers gasped at the image.<\/p>\n

The ring of the sun\u2019s light was around the moon\u2019s silhouette because \u201ceven at maximum eclipse the moon can\u2019t quite cover the Sun completely,\u201d Mayeux said.<\/p>\n

This happens because with \u201cthe farthest point in the moon\u2019s orbit from Earth, called apagy, the moon\u2019s disc is a tiny bit smaller than the Sun,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Skyler Woods, 18, of Kirtland attempted to capture the image on his phone\u2019s camera, shooting it through his solar eclipse glasses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love space and seeing space events is so cool for me,\u201d Woods said, adding he was especially excited that the eclipse was directly over Farmington.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone gathering around here, coming together to witness an event like this is too cool,\u201d Woods said.<\/p>\n

Kyle Maddox, of Farmington, brought his whole family including his son Logan Maddox, who said the two were \u201cspace buddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Logan recently turned 9 and had a space-themed birthday party. \u201cWe\u2019ve just always been interested in space,\u201d Kyle said. \u201cI\u2019m stoked this is happening. It\u2019s awesome. I\u2019ve been looking forward to this for a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linda Korte, 80, of Farmington, was not planning to attend the event, but said her family made her come out for the eclipse. It was not what she expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was something spectacular,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was better than I expected, and I\u2019m glad we came.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the U.S. alone, more than 6.5 million people lived along the path of annularity, but Farmington was the prime location to witness the eclipse, which ended at 12:04 p.m.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University students track eclipse from Farmington<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81333,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31145\/revisions\/81333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31145"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}