Key Points
- Exmouth in Western Australia was the only town in the country to experience total solar eclipse.
- Other places in Australia experienced partial eclipse.
- People have taken to social media to share their experiences.
Space watchers across the nation have taken to social media to share their perspectives on the 2023 solar eclipse.
People in the Ningaloo region of Western Australia, including the town of Exmouth, were in prime position to experience the moment the sun and moon aligned.
Exmouth was the only town in Australia to experience the total eclipse, with the moon blocking the sun for 58 seconds at around 11:29:48am (AWST) on Thursday.
Aerospace engineer James Garth posted a timelapse video of the darkness that fell across Ningaloo at the moment of ‘totality’, when the moon completely blocked the sun.
Filmmaker Chris Lewis was also in the box seat, sharing stunning footage of the eclipse’s shadow shot in real time at a beach Exmouth Gulf.
Others found creative ways to photograph the eclipse while avoiding the dangers of looking directly at the sun.
Perth-based Deepti Azariah captured the shadow of the partial eclipse through a colander.
Twitter user @scientistsmags crafted a “makeshift pinhole projection with a leaf”.
The Geological Society of London’s Dr Natasha Stephen found that photographing the eclipse from the Nullarbor desert required “a bit more ingenuity than normal”.
Another Twitter user in Canberra got “Pac-Man” vibes as the moon attempted to "consume" the sun:
Psychedelic rock legends Pink Floyd treated lucky fans in Ningaloo to a stream of their classic album ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, with the album’s final track ‘Eclipse’ timed to coincide with the event.
NASA shared live telescope images of the eclipse, and answered burning questions from social media users.
Not everyone was blown away by their view of the eclipse, though.
“Wow this is truly a once in approximately 5 years experience,” wrote Twitter user @GeorginaRCarson, with a heavy dose of sarcasm accompanying an image of an overcast sky.
