It's not uncommon to see crowds of people donned in sunglasses walking the Ocean City boardwalk, but it is a little strange when almost every. person. there. has shades on. But Monday was an event and an occasion that no one wanted to miss, and that meant wearing protective eye gear, or else staring down into a cardboard box. The solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 was the first to span the lower United States in decades, and everyone in Ocean City was pretty psyched.

Our pictures

A friendly reminder from the Town of Ocean City.

Not everyone came equipped with special filtered glasses... Those who didn't used unconventional methods, like several pairs of sunglasses stacked together, to look at the sun.

Or cereal boxes-turned-pinhole-projectors. This one was shared among strangers, which was a common theme on Monday: people coming together to share glasses or projectors, ooh-ing and aw-ing at the sky, united in a shared interest of the spectacular natural phenomenon.

And the creativity of the pinhole projectors really knew no bounds.

The sky was a pale blue-gray on Monday, but the filter placed over the lens of the camera turned the sky pitch black and colored the moon a glowing orange.

Your pictures

We asked readers to share their photos from the solar eclipse, and they didn't let us down. Here's just a few of the pictures that were submitted.

By Gina Ruminski

By Leesa Walker in Wallops, Virginia

By Kristyn Rinaldi-Rodriguez at the 74th street beach

By Jenna Lynn Cottet in Seaford, Delaware

By Shelly Shirk, taken on a Canon with a solar filter

By Jessica-Angel Jones (In Frederick, Maryland, but still very cool!)

Jeanna Homick looking at the eclipse from the deck of the Dunes Manor Hotel.

Our pictures

A friendly reminder from the Town of Ocean City.

Not everyone came equipped with special filtered glasses... Those who didn't used unconventional methods, like several pairs of sunglasses stacked together, to look at the sun.

And the creativity of the pinhole projectors really knew no bounds.

The sky was a pale blue-gray on Monday, but the filter placed over the lens of the camera turned the sky pitch black and colored the moon a glowing orange.