Chris Williams, an academic advisor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, watches as the moon casts its shadow over the lawn outside the Millennium Student Center in a rare solar eclipse on Monday.

More than 300 students, faculty, staff and friends gathered for a Solar Eclipse Watch Party hosted by UMSL’s Office of Student Involvement, Human Resources, Staff Association and Faculty Senate. Although the UMSL campus wasn’t quite in the path of totality, attendees were still able to watch as roughly 99% of the sun’s surface was blocked by the moon passing directly between the sun and Earth.

Bhavya Tummala, Vinusha Gorijala, Sabeha Sultana Syed, Priyanka Jashvanthi and Abhinaya Palavai take in the eclipse on the lawn outside of the MSC. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)

Although Bhavya Tummala had seen some photos of previous solar eclipses online and heard about the 2017 eclipse from friends, nothing could compare to seeing one in real life.

“When you experience it, it’s really cool,” she said. “I watched it for a continuous two minutes until the last edge and coming back. It was my first experience, and it was fabulous.”

UMSL students Lily Dayan, Xaria Jackson and Jasmine Keyes catch a glimpse of the eclipse. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

These photographs were taken by UMSL photographer Derik Holtmann and are the latest to be featured in Eye on UMSL. View more UMSL photos by visiting the UMSL Flickr and Instagram accounts.