Hiya Chris,
the sun seemed to take an age to hit the circle, it was a good hour after dawn before the sun rose over the south east of the Skiddaw Massif. Hardly suprising for a circle that may be aligned to Samain.
I would guestimate that the first rays appeared as the sun cleared Souther Fell on the margins of the Penrith to Keswick corridor. I'll post a photo that shows the profile of the hills as the sun rises. I didn't both posting it because being shot into the sun, the rest of the shot is very dark.
As for the amount of folk, yeh a couple of hundred seems about right. I was amazed at the amount of cyclists that were there, there were loads! You only noticed them when they left on-mass.
Big up the cyclists!