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"The moon shuts off the beams of the sun as it passes across it, and darkens so much of the earth as the breadth of the blue-eyed moon amounts to." -Empedocles, ~450 B.C. Less than two weeks ago, I saw my first annular eclipse, with some spectacular results at the moment of maximum eclipse. From my first eclipse expedition, to False Klamath Cove, on the coast in northern California. This happens, of course, because -- from our point of view -- the Moon appears to pass in front of the Sun, blocking a fraction of the light coming from it. Image credit: NASA / Solar Dynamics Observatory. And…