Cornwall’s biggest eclipse since 1999, in your photos

For a few minutes, half of Cornwall was standing in a garden, a car park or on a clifftop with its head tipped back at the same patch of sky. The sun had a bite taken out of it, then a bigger one, until what was left of it hung over the county like a thin orange fingernail.

We asked where you were watching from. You answered with hundreds of photos, and they are some of the best we have seen.

📷Credit: Justin Dytor

The biggest since 1999

This was Cornwall’s biggest eclipse since 1999. For a short spell in the evening the moon slid across most of the sun, dimming the light to a strange, coppery gold and leaving that unmistakable crescent burning low over the horizon.

People watched it from everywhere. Some drove out to the clifftops at Land’s End. Others stood in Newlyn and Penzance gardens and caught the crescent sun dipping behind Mount’s Bay. Plenty just wandered into the back garden and looked up.

📷Credit: Abi Rolfe

From clifftop to back garden

What comes through in your pictures is how many different Cornwalls saw the same thing at once. There are engine houses turned to black cut-outs against the glow, chimney pots with a crescent balanced beside them, a couple sat on the rocks watching the light trail across the water, and a gull that picked exactly the right moment to land on a roofline.

📷Credit: Sue Jamieson

The colander trick

Not everyone pointed a phone at the sun. The smarter move, and the safer one for your eyes, was to let the eclipse project itself. Hold up a colander, a slotted spoon or even a cheese grater and every little hole throws a tiny crescent onto the ground, so the patio ends up covered in dozens of miniature eclipses.

It gave the comments their best gag, too. “Careful if you used a colander that you haven’t strained your eyes,” wrote Sarah Myford, before promising to get her coat.

📷Credit: Sharline Hall

Cornwall, through your eyes

The gallery below is all yours. It was shared with the CornishStuff community in the space of a few hours, and it runs from crisp crescents shot through filters to hazy phone snaps, reflections on the sea, silhouettes and pinhole patterns. One reader skipped the sky altogether and replied with a meme, which we will let them keep to themselves.

📷Credit: Dean Dixon

Your photos

Here they all are. If yours is not among them, drop it on the original post and we will add it in.

📷Credit: Debbie Elson

📷Credit: Debbie Elson

📷Credit: Jon Winter

📷Credit: Sharon Johnson

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📷Credit: Anne Marston

📷Credit: Liz Delve

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📷Credit: Gem Buck

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📷Credit: Zoe Calderbank

📷Credit: Zoe Calderbank

📷Credit: Zoe Calderbank

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📷Credit: Ruth Jayne

📷Credit: Ruth Jayne

📷Credit: Ruth Jayne

📷Credit: Ruth Jayne

📷Credit: Ruth Jayne

📷Credit: William J Dovercourt III

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📷Credit: Teresa Parsons

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📷Credit: Jodie Debnam

📷Credit: Jodie Debnam

📷Credit: Jodie Debnam

📷Credit: Jodie Debnam

📷Credit: Lisa Ellis