... While watching and photographing last Thursday's partial solar eclipse, a popular astronomy blogger suffered through long periods of clouds blocking the Sun. ... Retrograde Mars . ... Most of the time, the apparent motion of Mars in Earth's sky is in one direction, slow but steady in front of the far distant stars. ... Sunspots and Solar Eclipse . ... A New Moon joined giant sunspot group AR 2192 to dim the bright solar disk during Thursday's much anticipated partial solar eclipse. ...