The 95% eclipse: how Plymouth caught it

The biggest solar eclipse the UK has seen since 1999 happened last Wednesday, and Plymouth had a front-row seat. On 12 August, the Moon bit into the Sun for a partial eclipse that obscured up to 95% of the disc at its peak, the most dramatic coverage the country has experienced in 27 years. It was a late-afternoon affair, starting around 18:17 BST, reaching maximum coverage at 19:12, and finally ending at 20:06, which meant a clear view of the western horizon was the one thing that really mattered.

For anyone who had a spot picked out, the weather played along. Temperatures stayed in the high 20s to low 30s with little cloud cover, so the conditions were about as good as you could hope for. The best places to catch it were the ones with an open western sky, and Plymouth has plenty of them.

The Plymouth Astronomical Society (PAS) set up at Lowery Cross Car Park in Yelverton, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, from 17:00 onwards. It was a smart choice of site, away from the city's light pollution, and the society handed out free ISO-certified eclipse glasses and set up specialist equipment for people to look through. The event had actually been moved there from Jennycliff, which was hosting the National Fireworks Competition that same night, so the PAS found a quieter, darker alternative.

Closer to the centre, the Hoe was the obvious pick, with its wide-open views over Plymouth Sound and a clear line of sight towards the west-northwest horizon. For anyone willing to head a bit further out, the Dartmoor tors offered a more dramatic backdrop. Hound Tor, with its large car park and a short walk up to the rocks, was a popular choice, though facilities there are limited; Haytor was the easier option, with toilets at the National Park visitor centre nearby.

Safety was the one thing that couldn't be skipped. The golden rule was never to look at the Sun with the naked eye, and ordinary sunglasses don't count. The only safe way to look directly was through ISO 12312-2 or ISO 12312-2:2015 certified eclipse glasses, and the PAS were handing those out for free at Yelverton. If you didn't have a pair, the safe alternative was indirect viewing, like a pinhole projector made from a card with a hole in it, or even a colander projecting the Sun's image onto a flat surface. Looking directly at the Sun without protection can cause permanent eye damage, known as solar retinopathy, with symptoms like blurred central vision or a dark spot that can appear hours after exposure.

For the photographers, the late-afternoon light made it a bit tricky. The advice was to shoot in RAW with an aperture between f/4 and f/8, a low ISO of 100 to 400, and a stable tripod with a remote shutter release. A dedicated solar filter on the front of the lens was essential, and a focal length of 400mm to 800mm was recommended for close-ups of the Sun, while a 50mm lens sufficed for wider shots of the sky. It wasn't a total eclipse anywhere in the UK, but at 95% coverage, it was close enough to be something worth planning a day around.