‘Move that cloud!’ For a few magical seconds, Fort Worth gets glimpse of diamond ring

As a shroud of midday dusk fell over Fort Worth, the city grew serenely still.

The roads were mostly empty. Birds took to their trees in silence. From the streets of downtown to the roofs of apartment buildings, and in neighborhood yards across North Texas, everyone seemed to be outside, staring with their glasses toward the sky and praying for that cloud to get out of the way.

When the darkness finally arrived, it fell quickly — an eerie shadow across the sky while the distant horizon in every direction seemed to glow like an early dawn.

Then came the cheering.

For 2 minutes and 24 seconds, if the scattered clouds cooperated, North Texas witnessed a brilliant ring of light crowning an ink-black moon — a rare total solar eclipse that hasn’t happened here in 146 years.

In the Fort Worth Stockyards, crowds whooped, cheered and gasped as the sky dimmed and the temperature cooled. A few people booed when clouds temporarily blocked out the spectacle. The longhorns along East Exchange Avenue appeared less interested.

Hundreds of TCU students and faculty gathered on green spaces on campus to witness the event, while schoolchildren across the Metroplex took field trips to viewing spots or got special lessons on how the universe works.

Workers in downtown, illuminated by streetlights, left their offices and stood on sidewalks to snap photos. Roughly 2,000 people packed into Sundance Square plaza for a fleeting glimpse of totality.

One person shouted, “Move that cloud!” in a reference to the reality show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

Garrett Minnie was one of thousands of people who traveled to Texas for the eclipse. The 31-year-old tech worker from Millbrea, California, set up his special photography equipment in Sundance Square plaza.

His love of stargazing came from spending summers on Lake Powell in Arizona photographing the night sky with his grandfather, Jim Paul. He traveled to Fort Worth with his grandfather Monday to photograph the eclipse with the same 1968 Pentax film camera.

Across Texas and beyond, many had worried for days about what the weather do Monday afternoon. Indeed, some destinations in Texas where people had traveled from hundreds or thousands of miles away were cloaked by heavy clouds. In Burnet, near Austin, the Texas Eclipse Festival was canceled just hours before the eclipse because of the threat of storms.

Fort Worth appeared to be lucky. Cloud cover early in the day broke apart and offered on-again, off-again glimpses of the moon’s slow trek across the sun.

Michelle Acoba fortunately chose to spend her 42nd birthday in Fort Worth to watch the eclipse, rather than a more overcast San Antonio where she had considered going. Acoba flew from her small fishing city of Cordova, Alaska, and arrived in Cowtown at 5 a.m. She was one of the first people in line at a viewing party inside the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.

She began her journey home right after the sun reappeared.

Giuseppe Marzullo, an Italy native, visited Fort Worth with his family from New Jersey. They gathered on the Botanic Garden lawn with specialized cameras.

“There’s supposed to be a diamond ring effect as the moon leaves the sun just at the very beginning,” Marzullo said. “There’s mountains on the moon — as the sun shines through that mountain, it just shines on one side and you still see a ring on the other side.”

“It’s called the diamond,” he added. “I hope to see it.”

He got his wish.

Star-Telegram journalists Noah Alcala-Bach, Harrison Mantas and Jaime Moore-Carrillo contributed reporting for this story.

This story was originally published April 8, 2024 at 4:28 PM.

Matt Leclercq

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Matt Leclercq is senior managing editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He previously was an editor at USA Today in Washington, national news editor at Gatehouse Media in Austin, and executive editor of The Fayetteville (NC) Observer. He’s a New Orleans native.