Comments and anecdotes about the event:
There was a presentation at the Texas Star Party about mathematical models predicting the Bailey's Beads down to two indavidual remaining beads just before totality for our location. Along with a predicted spikey corona. What wasn't predicted was the visible prominence that glowed like a brilliant red ruby towards the bottom of the Limb. A before totality, the event many left the camp site to find better weather. Our viewing area was clouded over and it was predicted to be cloudy to partly cloudy all day. Indeed, we had many moments of the eclipse where clouds completey blocked everything. But during the totality the clouds parted perfectly. A minute before totality, the boss of the TSP handed me his solar binoculars. I struggled to find the Sun at 10x power but he pointed me directly at it and I watched as the final two beads of light vanished, just as the model predicted. Then, we all witnessed an amazing, perfect and mesmerizing total eclipse during a solar maximum. During the eclipse we handed out solar glasses and NSN hole-punch cards to show the shadow effect.