One of the News Review’s favorite astronomers, Jerry Bonnell, was in the line of totality in Vienna, Illinois. Bonnell tells us it is pronounced VI-enna, (VI emphasized and rhyming with “Hi”) and speculates that this may be to avoid confusion with a city of the same name in Austria. He took the photo above of the sun with the corona glowing around the disc from “a beautiful city park with an eclipse party going on, food trucks, live music and bathrooms.”
Bonnell works in high energy astrophysics at Goddard Space Flight Center for the University of Maryland, and is one of the two professional astronomers who created and remain responsible for Astronomy Picture of the Day (apod.nasa.gov). He also volunteers as one of our two regular photo editors at the News Review.
The lower photo was taken by Jeff Jones in Akron, Ohio, his hometown. Jones is Bonnell’s colleague and co-photo editor. His photo shows Baily’s beads ‒ in the first moments at the end of totality, these small beads of light at the bottom left of the moon’s shadow are made by the mountains on the edge of the moon’s disc and the sunlight leaking through the valleys like light through lace.
Only the best for our readers. See more eclipse photos on page 16.