It wasn't the spectacle we'd hoped for, but Southern Manitobans managed to get a quick 20-minute view of yesterday's solar eclipse.
Kenton Dyck heads up the Pembina Valley's only Astronomy Club, and he provided the telescope for the viewing party at Winkler's Bethel Heritage Park. The telescope is a high-end amateur piece of equipment, a 12 inch Orion Dobsonian.
"I'm actually very happy with the amount of interest. When I got the telescope initially it was, it was one of these things, I was like, 'Man, I hope I didn't buy this and then no one's gonna show.' But the level of interest and the level of support that the community has shown has been just astounding. I was not expecting this much support."
Alongside the Winkler branch of the South Central Regional Library, Dyck hosted a viewing event at the Park Monday afternoon, providing his own telescope to anyone who dropped by and wanted to take a look at the celestial event safely. He leads the local Astro Club, the Pembina Valley's only astronomy club.
Dyck moved to the Winkler area about ten years ago, and got into amateur astronomy through his passion for long range riflery.
"Eventually shooting got really, really expensive, and so I figured, 'You know what? I should maybe switch into doing something else," he explained. "I always had an interest in science and astronomy. I grew up in Belize, and we really didn't have an opportunity to buy a telescope, or anything like that there. Last year, around September or October, I was sitting there thinking I should probably pick up a new hobby. I figured, why keep it all to myself. I wanted to give other people the opportunity that I didn't have, so I started looking online, and I found a very nice gentleman over in Minneapolis, and I explained my situation and what I wanted to do. I would like to buy a telescope, and I want to use it specifically for public outreach, and he gave me a deal on one."
Darcy Lemieux remembered the last one in 2017. He joined the viewing party in the park, where people were using boxes with welding glass fastened to the bottom for safe viewing and some were, despite the warnings, using their phones to capture images of the moon partially covering the sun to make the sky darker.
"(The eclipse) is supposed to make things a little darker, but the clouds already did that for us. The lenses that we got were all too strong, so we had to find other ways. There were some brief moments where it was really bright, and you could see the beginning of it through the lenses."
Dyck noted there's a follow up event we should also keep our eyes to the skies for another phenomenon.
"We also have the Comet 12/P Pons-Brooks which is if we had a complete eclipse here, we would actually be able to see it right next to the sun, so it is a Comet that is slinging around the sun right. Now if it survives, it will come out the other side and we should be able to see it again. And if we're really lucky, it'll have a beautiful tail."
He is also excited for Saturn, which he calls the "Jewel of the Sky" to reappear in the sky in the coming months. You can follow Astro Club PV on Instagram or the Winkler South Central Regional Library on Facebook for more information about future events and meetings.
