The dark side of the moon found a ready reception on Bainbridge Island Monday, as the Earth’s little brother upstaged our galaxy’s No. 1 sun — if only for a little while.

The “Eclipse of the Century,” as Monday’s phenomenon was called, was visible on Bainbridge for several minutes, beginning just after 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 21. Though outside the so-called “path of totality” — areas in which the sun would be completely blotted out — Bainbridge was nonetheless close enough to be treated to an impressive show.

According to NASA, the chance to experience a total solar eclipse where you live happens about once in 375 years. The last time anyone in the United States witnessed a total solar eclipse was on Feb. 26, 1979. It’s been even longer — just shy of a century — since a total solar eclipse last crossed the country from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

During a total solar eclipse, the moon and the sun both appear to be about the same size from the ground. According to NASA, this is a “celestial coincidence,” as the sun is actually about 400 times wider than the moon and about 400 times farther away. When the Earth, moon and sun line up just right, though, the moon blocks the sun’s entire surface, creating the total eclipse.

Beneath the vast, eternal machinations of the cosmos on display Monday, Bainbridge Island took a collective timeout and looked heavenward. People held watch parties across the island, while others gathered at Battle Point Park or in small groups along the shoreline.

Manitou Beach proved to be a popular viewing location too, as drivers parked along the narrow roadway and in the street to watch the moon throw some shade.

The most dense crowd at Battle Point lined the crest of the hill on which rests the iconic Battle Point sundial (naturally), though blankets were spread, chairs put out and tables occupied all over the park.

Bainbridge parents Andy and Magda Pratt were at Battle Point with their sons Charlie, 5, and Sawyer, 2, to catch the big show, though it had not, Andy said, gotten as dark as they’d expected.

“If you went from what it was like at 9:30 straight to 10:30, it would probably be noticeably different,” he said.

“But if you sat there the whole time you were kind of like, ‘Oh, OK,” Magda agreed. “It got colder.”

A chill in the air and the resounding call of confused nearby roosters was hard to miss.

Andy said he felt it important, historically speaking, to bring his sons — especially Charlie, who, clad in his NASA shirt, espoused a desire to be an astronaut someday — to witness the eclipse.

“I thought [it was],” he said. “The last one that was here was like 1979, right? That was when I was just born, so hopefully he’ll remember it.

“Normally,” he added, “I work today, but I stayed home to bring him up here.”

Both parents said they were surprised to see how many people had packed the park to view the event.

Jessica Avila stepped outside the Rolling Bay Cafe repeatedly Monday morning to look skyward with a pair of freebie cardboard eclipse glasses from the Kitsap Regional Library.

Avila, a barista at the popular hangout, said there had been a crush of customers before the shady spectacle, but the cafe soon emptied.

“It’s like dead; everybody left to go watch the eclipse.”

Her review of the eclipse?

“It’s awesome,” Avila said, looking up.

Chris Larsen caught the star show outside the Bainbridge Grange Hall Monday, where she stood with a homemade pinhole eclipse viewer that she had constructed out of a big cardboard box that once held 4 pounds of instant non-fat dry milk. One end was covered with aluminum foil, in which she had poked a small hole to capture an image of the sun on the inside of the box; a small orange arc about the size of a baby’s fingernail.

“I saw it on the internet and made it yesterday,” she explained.

She was thrilled to see the eclipse, even if it was through the cardboard contraption.

“I missed the one in ’79,” she said.

She was living in West Seattle at the time, and had planned to leave to go see the eclipse with her friend and her “impatient boyfriend.”

“They left 15 minutes before we were supposed to go,” Larsen recalled.

Like many others across the island, Brandi Hunt had set up a spot on the beach to watch the eclipse.

Manitou Beach proved to be a popular place for watching the sun’s disappearing act, and Hunt had set up a choice viewing spot with folding camping chairs and a big bowl of watermelon slices.

Hunt and her three children — Riley, Rowan and Shaylan — got to the beach just after the eclipse started.

“We thought it would be nice and open,” she said of the beach.

Hunt said what she had seen so far had left her wanting more.

“I kinda wish I went to do the totality,” she said, noting those who had made road trips down to Oregon to see the eclipse in its entirety.

It wasn’t her first eclipse, however, Hunt said, recalling one several years back they’d seen while in Scotland, and another from her grade-school days.

This one, however, looked a little doubtful on Monday morning, as Mother Nature hung a cloudy curtain in the sky before pulling them back for the big reveal shortly before the start of the eclipse.

“I was really worried this morning when the clouds were out,” she said.

Low clouds still clung to the shoreline along Manitou Beach during the eclipse, but of them most retreated into the tall trees at the west end of Murden Cove by 9:30 a.m. and didn’t obscure the view.

Just up the beach, Tamra Hauge, a teacher at Captain Charles Wilkes Elementary School, sat on a huge rock with her sons Magnus and Alden to watch.

They all had on eclipse glasses, a gift from grandma a few weeks back.

“It’s super cool, I like it,” Magnus said.

“It’s weird how it orbits around like it’s the size of the sun,” he said of the moon, even though it was actually quite tiny.

Billed by some as the “Great American Eclipse,” the total solar eclipse was the first one in the United States that was seen coast-to-coast since June 1918. The last time a total eclipse was seen anywhere in the country — with the exception of one seen from Hawaii in 1991 — was in February 1979.

The eclipse started on the West Coast just a few minutes after 9 a.m. Monday, and by 10:16 a.m., people in Oregon in the “path of totality” were treated to a total solar blackout.

It will be a while before islanders get a chance to see anything like it again. The next total eclipse is forecast for April 2024.