Clouds Cover Solar Eclipse in Most of O.C. : Astronomy: Some sky-watchers, although disappointed, manage to look on the bright side.

Heavy clouds filling the Tuesday morning sky dashed the hopes of most Orange County amateur skywatchers who dragged out special-filter telescopes and protective welder’s glasses to glimpse a rare partial solar eclipse.

The sky darkened for about 20 minutes just after 9 a.m., when, somewhere above the murky clouds, the moon was covering about 73% of the sun.

“This really bums me out,” said 21-year-old Lisa Rosas, a student in an introductory astronomy course at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana, who waited in vain for the clouds to part. “I’ve never seen an eclipse before.”

Her instructor, Steve Eastmond, had promised his students extra credit for rolling out of bed early to look at the eclipse through a telescope near the college’s Tessman Planetarium. The overcast skies forced him to cancel plans for the telescope, but the 20 or more depressed, budding astronomers who showed up still got a couple extra-credit points.

But astronomy students at Cal State Fullerton fared a bit better, getting a decent, though quick, look at the natural phenomenon.

“It was very nice here,” said Cal State Fullerton staff physicist Jeff Cady, who set up telescopes for about 40 students who caught glimpses of the moon’s slow slide in front of the sun. “The cloud cover was just enough to block out a lot of the bright light and yet still have it visible.”

At the nearby Southern California College of Optometry, Bob Gill, a past president of the Orange County Astronomers, attempted to videotape the eclipse to help teach students about the harmful effects the sun’s rays can have if someone looks directly at the sun during an eclipse.

“It didn’t tape very well because it kept coming in and out, but it was interesting,” Gill said.

Many of Orange County’s true astronomy buffs had headed out to New Mexico and Texas to be closer to the eclipse’s path of annularity.

In an annular eclipse, only part of the sun is covered by the moon. In a total eclipse, the moon blots out the entire sun.

Along the 150-mile-wide path of annularity, which stretched from southeastern Arizona to southeastern Maine, the moon covered the entire center of the sun, leaving visible only a breathtaking “ring of fire” but not completely blocking out the sun.

About 600 schoolchildren and 200 adults at the Griffith Observatory above Hollywood in Los Angeles had to be quick to see anything when drifting clouds made the eclipse suddenly appear--and then just as suddenly fade away.

“It popped through the clouds a few times,” said Bob Kline, 39, a graphic artist from Huntington Beach who had attached a camcorder to a telephoto lens, hoping to record the eclipse. “But I certainly didn’t run out of videotape--I guess that’s the bright side.”

Griffith Observatory astronomer Patrick So stood holding a pair of king-size binoculars attached to a cone-like device designed to project the eclipse on a small screen.

The sky was crystal-clear in Lancaster, where he lives, So explained. In fact, clouds didn’t appear until he drove into Los Angeles shortly after dawn. He was tempted to turn around.

“But duty called, and I came here,” he said.

“Eclipses can be a hit-or-miss thing.”

Costa Mesa eclipse buff Jeff Sloan had to settle for no eclipse at all. He stood in his driveway for about half an hour, wishing the weather was like it had been the day before. But it was not meant to be.

“I’m a little bit disappointed and I’m a little bit not,” Sloan said. “I didn’t put in a lot of plans like I have for other eclipses. It would have been nice to have 80% coverage right over home to get a better show. But I’ve seen better, and I’ll just wait for the next opportunity.”

Danielle Pate, the tutor for Eastmond’s astronomy classes at Rancho Santiago College, waxed sanguine about the eclipse flop. “But we have to be pragmatic about it. The weather can be a problem.”

While Eastmond sat inside the planetarium grading papers during the time he had expected to be “oohing” and “aahing” about the moon’s movement, Pate thought to get the best view of the eclipse around--the one from CNN cameras stationed in Texas.

And just hours after the morning’s disappointment, Eastmond was already making plans for viewing a partial lunar eclipse on May 24, and for the next partial solar eclipse to be visible in Southern California--in the year 2000.

Times staff reporter Bob Pool contributed to this report from Los Angeles.