‘Twas A Heavenly Christmas Gift Joy Wasn’T Partial Over Monday’S Solar Eclipse

Dan Croskrey was dancing in his driveway on Christmas morning.

The Navy veteran with a buzz cut and camouflage coat hadn’t even opened his Christmas presents. Those would have to wait. A much bigger present was hanging in the sky before him: a partial solar eclipse.

“It’s the first I’ve ever seen,” Croskrey said.

He had almost missed the celestial show, one which won’t come on Christmas Day again until 2307 and which hadn’t happened since 1954.

Clouds covered the horizon when Croskrey woke at 6:30 a.m. Monday. They were still there at 7:15. But half an hour later, the murk lifted and a band of blue lay over the east.

Then the sun rose, already missing a bite out of its side. Croskrey danced. His high school daughter, Rachel, laughed at him.

“You’re too cool for school,” she told her dad.

With a pair of 16x binoculars mounted on a tripod, Croskrey could clearly see the sun vanish. Also visible were a number of sun spots, small irregular black shapes on the sun’s surface.

His binoculars were equipped with a solar-safe filter. To look at the sun without such filters could cause serious injury - and possibly blindness - to a person’s eyes.

Through the filters, the sun looked white - almost like an X-ray. An eclipse is caused by the moon passing between the Earth and the sun.

The Christmas eclipse stretched from the Arctic Circle in Canada, south across the 48 contiguous states into Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Sea. How much of the sun observers would see covered, depended on their location.

Eclipse watchers on Baffin Island, west of Greenland, saw about 70 percent of the sun covered. In Spokane, it was about half covered. In Los Angeles, only 15 percent of the sun was covered.

“Photographs are great, but to actually see something like this is amazing,” he said.

Croskrey grew up fascinated by the sky. His parents had bought him a telescope and he was glued to developments in America’s emerging space program as a kid.

As an adult, he left the night sky behind until his children reached junior high. Then they started bringing home astronomy homework and he got hooked again. He’s since become treasurer of the Spokane Astronomical Society and is building his second telescope.

Rachel, a senior at East Valley High School, caught her father’s sky-watching enthusiasm. She watched the eclipse with her dad on the cold morning, standing in her letter jacket and pajamas. The pair hope to travel in three or four years to catch a total solar eclipse somewhere in the world.

Even Croskrey’s mother, Merry Lee, was taken by the silent show in the Christmas sky.

“This is my time of year,” she said. “And to see this is just amazing.”

The Spokane Astronomical Society meets on the first Friday of each month at 7:30 p.m. in Building 14 at Spokane Falls Community College. The public is invited to attend. For more information, see the club’s Web site at www.spokaneastronomical.org.

Graphic: Tracking the moon’s shadow