I saw the eclipse. Three minutes plus totality.
Saw Venus to the lower right (west and a little south of the eclipse).
The horizon glows with a twilight light, and beyond that some dark and then light blue is visible out beyond the moon's shadow.
Above, the sky is very dark. There was a very thin layer of mist/cloud layer, so the corona was not visible to me.
The moon looks like a black hole surrounded by a bright silvery ring. At approx. 7:00 o'clock in this ring I saw a small red spot--sunlight shining through some VERY small valley or depression in the moon's surface. Not overly bright--not as bright as the silver ring.
After totality, the exposed bit of sun is SUDDENLY very very bright.
Two impressions I had that other people who saw the totality I talked to also had:
1) What was it like for "primitive" people to look at an eclipse and find it terrifying--like the world is coming to an end? It is hard to get your head around that. To me--to people I talked too--it's simply beautiful, pure lovely... and a bit weird but not in a bad way.
2)
It is a VERY enjoyable experience, and even during the eclipse there is a
strong feeling to want to experience another one.
It was hard even to think about it scientifically, though looking around at the
horizon gets you back into science mode. You can almost "feel" the
Moon's shadow coming down out of space.
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