Partial Eclipse of the Sun today

Just starting - the sun's image is partly overlapping the shadow of the telescope.

You can see the bite out of it on the right of the bright disc.

Dark mark below it is dirt inside my camera.

I used an old 30x straight Optolyth telescope. I got a good image of the transect of venus across the sun a few years back, which I marked on the paper with pencil rather than photographing.

Minutes later the clouds cleared again and the bite is bigger. 

It was even possible to view it directly through a veil of clouds.

It's possible to see sunspots with binoculars in these weather conditions.

(I've had a quote for cleaning my camera - £40! Don't think it's worth it.)

Camera on full digital zoom (Lumix TZ18 compact.)

Some of the best images were reflected in the tinted (and dirty) back window of my car,

but the camera didn't pick them up.  

The moon soon passes across.

Compared with the total eclipse, which I experienced under thick cloud in Cornwall in 1999, it didn't really go dark. Then the blackbirds all went to roost, making their "jink-jink" call, and some sheep stampeded in panic, but today just two blackbirds started their evening song. It wasn't too dark to carry on weeding the garden in between taking the pictures, though there was an eerie gloom like a storm coming, and it went cooler.

Anybody else enjoy trying to record it ?