Monday’s solar eclipse charted a 115-mile-wide path of totality across parts of North America. Kansas was outside of the totality path, but a large percentage of the sun was blocked out here Monday afternoon.

For the Great Bend area, people saw a partial eclipse for 2 hours 32 minutes. At its peak, 82.4% of the sun was obscured by the moon.

The Kansas Wetlands Education Center hosted an Eclipse Viewing Party with activities and educational demonstrations, along with special glasses for safely viewing the sun. The parking lot was filled but there was plenty of space to spread out at the center, located northeast of Great Bend in Cheyenne Bottoms.

The Great Bend Public Library also had free glasses and invited people to view the eclipse. By the time it had peaked around 1:40 p.m., the library had given away all of its glasses. 

People were invited to bring lawn chairs and get comfortable for a few hours of eclipse viewing. By 12:30 p.m., looking through the safety lenses, the sun was a yellow disc but it appeared as if someone had taken a bite out of it. That “bite” gradually grew larger until the peak, when the sun appeared as a slender crescent.

KWEC also had an educational program in its auditorium, demonstrations, activities and lawn games. People could also learn how to make a pinhole viewer.

According to NASA, Monday’s solar eclipse was the first in the U.S. since 2017 and the last until 2044.

A total eclipse occurs when the moon appears to be the same size as the sun and blocks the entire view of the sun from Earth, bringing a temporary period of darkness and enabling observers to see the outmost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. The darkness can confuse animals, causing nocturnal creatures to become active. In Great Bend, birds stopped singing during the darkest portion of the event.