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RICHFIELD — The "ring of fire" eclipse was visible in many areas across central and southern Utah on Saturday, with Richfield being one of the best places to view the phenomenon.
Crowds in Richfield cheered as the moon centered itself on the sun creating the full ring of fire, as everyone stared at the sun through eclipse glasses or watched shadows. The temperature dropped, and the coloring in the sky was different around the time of the eclipse.
Other crowds gathered and cheered throughout Utah, as well as in Oregon, New Mexico and Texas as the rare eclipse began making its way across the Americas. Unlike during a total solar eclipse, the moon doesn't completely cover the sun during a ring of fire eclipse. When the moon lines up between Earth and the sun, it leaves a bright, blazing border.
Jonathan Pugmire, a physics professor at Snow College, said volunteers turned off the music and shut down the booths and everyone just watched the eclipse from the second contact to third contact — which is when the ring of fire became complete until it was broken again.
Pugmire said it was cloudy in many areas where the annular eclipse was visible previously, so Richfield, with very few clouds, was a good place to watch.
He put the event on his calendar a year ago, and began to plan for the unique event.
"We wanted to make a fun party and showcase Snow College's Richfield campus," he said.
The Richfield campus for Snow College had multiple activities available to teach children about science while they were waiting for the full annular eclipse. Pugmire said people from science classes came to help run the festival booths and teach about the solar system. They had a meteorite for people to hold and interact with and fun activities. The school partnered with the Civil Air Patrol to help run the festival.
Snow College also passed out solar eclipse glasses to anyone who was there. Pugmire said they wanted to provide a way for people to safely watch the ecliplse in a fun environment.
"It's a lot more exciting when all of this stuff is going on," he said.
It wasn't all fun. Multiple out-of-state researchers came to the Snow campus to complete experiments and sent weather balloons into the sky during and around the eclipse.
Credit: Jeffrey Moore
Pugmire said there were multiple science experiments being run at the campus, both by Snow College and other institutions. Snow College had a weather station tracking temperatures and the eclipse's shadow across the Earth, they also had an experiment tracking how the sun looked during the eclipse through a telescope. The civil air patrol ran an experiment about ham radios.
