The sky dimmed, shadows sharpened, temperatures dropped and the crowd hushed as the moon totally eclipsed the sun in Exmouth, Western Australia, on Thursday.
As the sun’s outer corona of light wrapped around the moon with flares of red and white, photographer Trent Mitchell felt like he was in “this path of alignment”.
“Looking up at the sun and the moon combined … it was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced,” he said. “It was otherworldly.”
A man taking in the atmosphere ahead of the total eclipse.
Beneath the sky, 20,000 other eclipse-chasers joined Mitchell on red dirt ground in Exmouth.
A lone tent in the middle of the campsite in Exmouth.
The regional town – with a usual population of 2,800 people – was the only place in the world to see the totality of the earth, moon and sun lining up perfectly at 11:29am, causing the moon to cover the sun’s disc. This occurs just a handful of times every 100 years and lasted just a minute.
An aerial image of the campsite in Exmouth ahead of the eclipse
“There were families, dogs, people from Japan with 40 telescopes lined up,” said Mitchell. “And all in this remote area. It is quite the contrast.”
Half an hour before the total eclipse, David Jeremy Claxton sat in his car at City Beach, near Exmouth, watching the partial eclipse move across the sky.
Around him were people from all over the world with telescopes and cameras – some with cardboard and tin foil cut outs taped over lenses as filters, others holding up colanders to the sky.
David Jeremy Claxton waits for the eclipse at City Beach.
One group of eclipse-watchers built their own telescope at the site. “I looked through it, and it is amazing,” Claxton said. He came prepared with eclipse glasses he bought on Amazon.
The campsite had a “mismatched feel”, he said.
“There are a lot of Mad Max-type cars with huge bull bars and solar panels taped all over them. Then there are people with 10 or 20 telescopes all set up on tripods.”
Mitchell observed something similar: “Like Burning Man, but for eclipse geeks.”
People setting up telescopes and camera equipment.
He was advised not to photograph the eclipse, and “just to enjoy it”.
With the event expected to last just one minute, Mitchell set up a 30-second stopwatch. First he viewed the eclipse, then he operated the camera for the last 30 seconds.
“It is a bit of a rush. It feels intense.”
Dr Sabine Bellstedt from the University of Western Australia visited Exmouth, too. She described the moment of totality to me as beyond surreal.
Eclipse hunter Hsin Chien.
“It was amazing to feel everything calm down around us,” she said.
As the minute ticked down to 30 seconds and then to 10 seconds, eclipse-watchers were overcome with bewilderment.
“I saw tears in eyes, goosebumps on arms.”
“With only 58 seconds of totality, it felt like there was too much that one wanted to see,” said Bellstedt.
“From the eclipse itself, to the corona of light around it, then the whole sky where stars suddenly popped through, and the people on the ground gazing up in awe.”
People travelled from across Australia and the world to watch the event.
“It was too much to see in that short time,” Bellstedt said. “It was definitely overwhelming.”
As totality receded, everybody cheered.
Wearing protective eye wear prevents peoples eyes from being damaged while watching the eclipse.
“It was a unifying experience,” added. “There were people with incredibly expensive video equipment, all the way through to people who arrived with nothing but solar glasses to look up at the sky. There were so many languages floating around.”
Visitors arriving for the eclipse.
“Linguistically, we couldn’t all communicate. But young, old, Australian, not Australia, we all came together, and were so excited to see little crescent shaped shadows on the ground,” Bellstedt said.
“We are still marvelling at our own shadows. If we just hold up our hands against the light, we get weird extra fingers protruding between them.”
