Hundreds attend teenager's eclipse party

Cheers erupted through a housing estate as the solar eclipse began during a watch party put on by a teenage astronomer

Aston, 14, set up telescopes, helped with homemade viewers and gave away 400 pairs of eclipse glasses to neighbours on his estate in Overston, Northamptonshire, as part of his efforts to raise more than £400 for UK Astronomy.

Lyndsay Smith, Aston's mum, said she'd never seen the estate so busy, with neighbours treating her son like a "local celebrity" and asking for autographs.

Aston, who dreams of working for SpaceX, even led children in experiments to measure lux levels and temperature during the partial eclipse.

Aston said he set up two telescopes for his neighbours to view the eclipse through which had "queues of people lined up", who wanted to get photos of the phenomenon.

He said: "It made me feel absolutely incredible, I couldn't stop talking about it and I was constantly busy trying to make people have the best experience possible.

"I was running back and forth helping out doing telescopes and stuff, everyone was asking me questions, it was amazing."

Aston's parents said he started showing an interest in the night sky from the age of two, this continued until he was given his first telescope aged six.

The stargazer estimated that 93.5% of the sun was covered from his viewing position.

He said his telescopes allowed people to see the solar event in detail, including craters on the moon.

The teenager added: "There were hundreds of people, I couldn't believe it.

"I've never seen the estate that busy, everybody came out. It was unbelievable."

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