Washington, DC residents meserized by partial solar eclipse Sky-gazers at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. cheer and applaud as the Sun partially vanishes behind the Moon. Although Washington, D.C. was not on the solar eclipse's path of totality, many people across the continental US experienced a rare total solar eclipse that stretched across North America for the first time in nearly a century. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES