OUT OF THIS WORLD! MOON GOBBLES UP SUN AS ANGELENOS WATCH.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

It was about as close to a front-row seat to a solar eclipse as you could get - in metropolitan Los Angeles.

Hundreds of residents flocked to the grassy area outside the Griffith Observatory on Monday as the moon moved in front of the sun, taking what looked like an alien-size bite out of our star.

The humans brought with them expensive telescopes, homemade telescopes, binoculars and cameras, with filters.

They brought their kids. They brought their dogs. They brought sunscreen. Some ordered pizza.

Sherman Oaks couple Tom Bacho and Lila Stone looked like something out of a 1950s sci-fi B movie, wearing black welding masks and staring into space while sitting on a blanket.

They could have been mistaken for visitors from another planet.

``These masks also filter out harmful sub-radio waves from aliens,'' said Stone. ``It's got a built-in universal translator.''

The moon moving in front of the sun made it look like a giant Pac-Man diving earthbound out of the sky.

Before science, primitive humans didn't know what to make of a partial eclipse. They thought it came out of nowhere. It wasn't expected. It looked like trouble.

``As a result, they did two things - one, they got upset. Second, they tried in fact to get rid of it,'' said Ed Krupp, the Griffith Observatory director. ``Rituals developed in order to chase whatever was threatening the sun or the moon in eclipse.

``Usually, they thought it was something eating it because it looks like a bite's been taken out.''

On Monday, the sky darkened. But it did not fall.

Precisely at 5:13 p.m., Troy McClure, a Vietnam War veteran, interrupted his group's chatter with this breaking news.

``Oh, you can see a nibble,'' said the tattooed McClure, looking through a $9 Griffith Observatory Solarama, a one-inch-by-three-inch solar filter. ``You can see the little dent. It's about at five o'clock and it's heading up to 11 o'clock right now.''

Terry Lilly geared up for something special. He couldn't wait to peek through Dan Dickerson's $3,000 refracting telescope, with four squeaky clean lenses, all eight surfaces polished and precise, and a beautiful solar filter.

Probably the best way to see the sun, flames, sunspots and all, Dickerson said.

Resident Bill Scott could have charged admission to look through his homemade telescope made out of several glass lenses, cardboard tubing and a plywood mount, with the eyepiece made of welder's glass to block out the harmful rays.

Looking through it, about one-third of the way up into the western sky, an orange sun filled up the lens, about two inches in diameter.

It looked like a black ball had begun to slowly roll over it. Out of this world.

At its peak at 6:22 p.m., 71 percent of the sun's surface was covered, creating a bright yellow crescent, and forming smiling faces on many of the residents who came to gaze.

At 7:23 p.m. the moon had completely moved across the path of the sun. It wasn't quite a fifth dimension, but it was known to man.

It will be another decade before we can see anything like it again in Southern California.

Or, put bluntly in the words of a mere mortal:

``This is much more important than anything you can experience at work,'' Lilly said.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) At the Griffith Observatory, scores of adults and children peered through special Solaramas to safely watch the eclipse.

(2 -- color) Eclipse at 6:22 p.m.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News