Many people on the ship had seen 5, 7 or 9 eclipses. They brought powerful telescopes, binoculars and cameras to see and record the event. They pooled their images onto a CD.

On board were several well known astronomers and the editor of Sky and Telescope. They gave lectures on locating objects in deep space, meteors and eclipses in general.
David Levy explained that he would be announcing the different phases of the eclipse. He would alert us to 1) the first contact of the moon as it moved in front of the sun, 2)
totality, when the sun was completely covered by the moon, 3)when it started to move away, and then, 4)the last point, when the sun was fully visible again. This whole process would take over 2 hours with the total eclipse lasting 4 minutes and 53 seconds.

We were all provided with eclipse glasses because, as we all know, you should never look directly at the sun except when the eclipse is total. So, while the moon moved in front of the sun we used glasses. The sea around began to darken and the temperature dropped as the sun’s light was cut off. We could also see Venus and Mars; not normally visible in the day time when the sun’s light is strong.

Another way that one can view the eclipse is by putting a small hole in a piece of white paper and then placing another sheet below it. On the lower sheet a little sun will be projected. A few people did this. The other thing we were told to notice is that the shadows of objects would become sharper as the sun’s light was cut off. The reason this happens is that the light bouncing off objects is coming from a smaller area of the sun.
In the photographs, you can see this, also.

On the day of the eclipse the sky was a bit cloudy which raised the anxiety level of the crowd. Several people had traveled to view eclipses at other times and then it clouded up and they saw nothing. But as the temperature dropped, the clouds disappeared. Mr. Levy explained that this often happens because the clouds were being created by the heat from the sun combined with the water.

Gradually all around us the light dimmed. It did not become totally black because there was light reflected in from the area outside the path of the eclipse. At totality we took away our glasses and looked directly at the black orb that is our sun. They told us that no matter how long the eclipse was supposed to be (in this case nearly 5 minutes)—it would only seem to last 7 seconds. I took some pictures and talked to other first viewers, and then, suddenly a little spark of light that looked like a diamond ring appeared and we had to put up the glasses again.