A line of bearded gentlemen, mothers and 6-year-olds tugging on their shirts fidgeted and waited for a chance to see a safe look at the black orb blotting out the sun.
Sunday’s solar eclipse brought out more than 100 to the Fossil Creek Regional Open Space just east of Windsor off Colo. 392, and all of them wanted at least one peek through the filtered telescopes large enough to see E.T.’s home set up by members of the Northern Colorado Astronomical Society.
After all, the cereal boxes, pieces of foil and squares of filtered glass were cool, but not quite as cool as seeing the real thing through one of those scopes. Members of the club, which includes residents from Loveland, Fort Collins and Greeley, seem to know this. They love the sky so much, many keep their telescopes in the trunks of their cars. You never know when you might run into a good viewing night in a sweet dark spot.
“We were going to be out here anyway,” said Dave Karp of Loveland, who works at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley and is a club member. “So why not share?”
They post their public viewings online and host them at least once a month. Many of the 100 came to Fossil Ridge because they read online that the club would be out there. The club might get more than a dozen on one of those viewings. But 100? No.
Then again, Sunday’s eclipse, which peaked at 7:29 p.m. at 84 percent in Colorado, was a special night. The last annular eclipse in the U.S., so called because a ring of the sun was still visible, was May 10, 1994. The next annular eclipse is on Oct. 14, 2023.
That’s why Michael Lucas of Fort Collins brought a piece of tin foil with a tiny hole poked in it, and that’s why he brought his kids out, too, even if one, Joshua, 6, told him at 7 p.m. to call him over to the scope from the fields where he was playing when the sun got darker.
“We remember doing this in elementary school,” said Michael’s wife, Lee Ann. “So we thought this would be something fun for the kids to see.”
Sarah McBride’s five children, aged 16, 14, 13, 11 and 9, brought cereal boxes lined with a square of pin-pricked foil. They learned that from the Internet, too.
“The kids were really excited about the eclipse,” McBride said. “We all were.”
In between peeks through the scope, people also brought smoky glasses, something that looked like you’d wear them in a 3-D movie, fancy cameras and even welder’s helmets. Greg Jackson, who lives with his wife, Nina, just north of the Wyoming border, came to Fort Collins for a little welding work Sunday, then he took Nina and his sister, Barbara Jackson-Long, and her husband, both of Denver, out to dinner before coming out to Fossil Ridge. He brought his helmet for a safe peek at the blotted suns.
“I haven’t done something like this for years,” Jackson-Long said. When you have a hobby you’re passionate about, there’s a natural inclination to want others to be enthusiastic about it. Maybe even as jazzed as you about it.
As more people lined up at the scopes while thanking Karp and other members of the club, Karp just had to smile a bit. For one night, most everyone was.
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