In Olympia, eclipse fans view 95 percent totality with glasses, welder’s mask, pinhole cameras

OLYMPIA – Eclipse watchers started gathering on the Capitol Campus lawn around 8:30 a.m., while the full sun was rising over state office buildings to the east. Some came from a few blocks or a few miles away, while Danielle Vukovich and Corbin Cronic drove from Woodinville, Washington.

Coverage was only going to be about 91 percent of totality in Woodinville and they wanted to come down to where it was about 95 percent, Vukovich said as they settled down in a giant lime green inflatable lounger with their eclipse glasses, the domed Legislative Building behind them.

“Traffic was amazing,” she said. “Everyone stayed home because they said it was going to be so bad. But it wasn’t.”

Lloyd and Renée Tommila brought their two children, Pepper, 6, and Lincoln, 7, and a wide array of equipment for looking at the eclipse – glasses, filters and a welder’s mask with a special dark glass. Lincoln also brought a horn to blow at the peak of coverage.

There were some legends about eclipses that involve the sun being swallowed by a dragon, and people would blow horns to wake the sun up, Lloyd said.

State workers donned glasses and stepped out onto east-facing balconies surrounding the Legislative Building, or onto the steps of nearby office buildings.

Around the wide expanse of grass and open space was just about every device designed to allow some viewing of the eclipse without eye damage.

Evan Sanders and Stuart Mascair were late in trying to secure eclipse glasses so they went “old school.” Each had a piece of paper into which a hole had been cut and covered with aluminum foil, and a pinhole pricked in the foil. They placed other sheets of paper on the sidewalk and adjusted the length to get a clear image of the eclipse.

“Pinhole camera is the way to do it,” said Sanders, an Evergreen State College student. “It’s what NASA said to do.”