LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — For the first time since 2017, the sun, moon, and earth aligned, creating a solar eclipse on Monday.
Students at Seton Catholic School in Lexington gathered Monday to grab their eclipse glasses and watch the event. The eclipse reached peak totality at 3:08 p.m., with a 96% totality. Despite the cloudy skies, the eclipse was still visible occasionally.
"It looked like a chip that got a bite taken out of it," describes Austin Weaver, a seventh-grader at Seton.
"It looked like a worm had kind of eaten part of the sun," says Abby Jennings, a fourth-grader at Seton.
Patty Dawson, the principal of Seton, says she spent the last four months planning the solar party so that the students could safely view the eclipse.
"It's an educational experience," Dawson explains, "I mean, it's something that we don't want our students to miss and we're here anyway, so we thought why not take advantage of that opportunity."
Special glasses are worn when viewing the eclipse, as the rays can cause harm if seen without protection. Students also created protective gear by gluing their glasses to a paper plate to help prevent sunlight from reaching their eyes.
"We've done a lot of discussions and conversations with the kids about safety and keeping them on and we're counting on our parents to make sure that they enforce that with them," says Dawson.
Dawson hopes the students were able to learn a lot from today's event.
"The Earth gets covered by the sun, by the moon's shadow, and that covers the sun, and that's exactly when a solar eclipse is happening," explains fifth-grader Lashomi Love, "Once-in-a-lifetime experience that I'm actually going to see and I might not actually see it again. It's very fun, and I think it's a very nice gift from God."
"It's just a fun experience cause we're at the school field, so you also get to wait for it to happen with your friends," says Weaver.
The next solar eclipse in the U.S. won't be for another 20 years, in August 2045.
