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Comment by planteen | Hacker News Reader

I've seen one total and one annular. Though an annular eclipse is not nearly as dramatic, I imagine a person outdoors a few thousand years ago would have noticed it. It looks as if it is sunset (golden hour type colors) and shadows look strange with a donut pattern.

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You'd think they'd have a way of describing the sun being slightly dimmer, like it being a sunset, that's different from 'it completely stopped', since the sun regularly sets.

The "color" of an eclipse, even a partial or annular one, is completely different from a sunset. Sunsets have a "reddish hue" to them.

During an eclipse, the world gets darker without getting redder. Its most dramatic on a total eclipse of course, but even at 80% to 90% it was a different feel than "sunset". Anyone who is outside regularly in a 80%+ eclipse on a clear and open day will notice the dramatic shift in color.

The key is that you'd have to be standing around and getting used to the colors outside to notice.

Yeah, but wouldn’t have made the history books or affected an army. A total eclipse on the other hand would have been a show stopper ... especially in ancient battle.

> Yeah, but wouldn’t have made the history books or affected an army.

I can't believe that nobody wouldn't at least jot down, "Dear diary, today a huge fucking chunk of the sun was missing for about an hour. I sure am glad I'm literate, and that the godkingpharaohboss decided that a chunk of the sun missing warranted a brief note on precious lambskin/temple wall/holy book margin."

You can't tell any part of the sun isn't visible by looking at it directly without some sort of shielding from the glare.

You can tell because every shadow will show the weird shape of the sun. Here is a photograph of the shadows during an annular eclipse:

https://imgur.com/gallery/8c7rdEU

Whether or not people >1000 years ago would notice this and record it... I refrain from pretending to know.

In addition to the shadows, a cloud passing over in about a 2 hour window would make it apparent.

It's not smart nor clever, but as a child I used to stare at the sun wide-eyed until my eyeballs teared up beyond my ability to keep them open any longer — easily thirty seconds and more.

My memory was of the sun itself distinctly resolving itself into a perfect circle with a sort of contrasting peripheral shadow that I recall describing as being 'like an aspirin pill'.

I blame some 80s TV show where an astronaut gained superhuman powers of some sort after staring directly at the sun.

I've always been curious to know what, if any, affect this has had on my vision (I don't have a terribly good capacity for resolving contrast during twilight).

I don't have a terribly good capacity for resolving contrast during twilight

Try vitamine A. The effect is very noticeable.

Turns out such a thing really did happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Eclipse

... in this case, the eclipse led to the battle being canceled in favor of a peace treaty, out of fear of divine rage.

Dan Carlin covers it in King of Kings (his history of ancient Persia), which is a great listen.

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