My wife only went because I was hellbent on seeing the eclipse at totality (we saw the last October’s eclipse and 2017 both from around 90% coverage). Afterwards she said “the Grand canyon ain’t got shit on a solar eclipse” and we are both still in shock for how amazing of an experience it was.
The wonky colors as day slowly turned to night, the sudden whooshing shadow as totality began, the burning ring of fire in the sky then the light whooshing back as totality ended, the cacophony of yelps by folks too slow to put their eclipse glasses back on. It was a hell of an experience
I’m in a similar boat. Flew across the country because after “missing” 2017s I immediately felt regret. Now I’m debating Europe in 2026.
But the colors. Can someone who understands this stuff please explain to me why a simple reduction in light in the lead up to (and following) totality makes all the colors seem “wrong”?
I’ve got a few years of waiting on you, but never made an eclipse a priority to see. This one was close enough where I had no excuses. And I had the day off with the kids. We drove many hours to get to Plattsburgh, NY in the hopes that the event wouldn’t be obscured by clouds, we had a choice between that and Ohio. Looks like Ohio did pretty well, we had a high cirrus cloud layer but it wasn’t enough to disrupt the view. I wouldn’t call myself an astronomy buff, but Space has always held huge interest in my life, so dragging the family out for this event was kinda a big ask because they weren’t necessarily into it. I hoped the trip would be worth it, both weather-wise and stellar phenomena-wise.
Worth it. There’s no words to describe the ethereal, silvery ring that magically appears during totality. Bailey’s beads and more. Sure, there are photos and videos, but that doesn’t do justice to the play of light in the environment surrounding the viewer, the night-yet-still-day incongruity.
Everyone is taking home some joy from the experience.
We tried to capture a photo of total, but due to a comedy of errors, it didn’t happen, so the memories will just have to stay in our heads.
I hope anyone near an eclipse’s path of totality won’t write it off if they have a choice. Go see it. Truly a sight.
This is the kind of thing where even if kids don’t seem to really be interested in it, even if they don’t seem impressed, it’s such an incredibly rare and unique event (close enough to home) that they will always remember it. Maybe not to the point of thinking about it every week, but in the sense that every mention of solar eclipses, at the very least, will remind them of this one moment in totality with you. You can plant some seeds for interests without knowing what will take root while still knowing the seed stays there.
They did said “80 years or so” and “around 80 years”, maybe they did their calculation and predicted that this year is likely the time that it happen. They did give a huge margin of when it will happen though.
In March or April 2023, it dimmed to magnitude 12.3. A similar dimming occurred in the year before the 1946 outburst, indicating that it will likely erupt between April and September 2024.
You don’t need glasses during totality, if you happen to be in its path. If you’re not, actully looking at the sun is the least interesting part of a pretty eh event, anyway.
I was camping for the last eclipse. Didn’t make it north enough for totality, but fairly close. Seeing the little wedge of sun filtered and projected hundreds of times through the trees was pretty awesome- and in a way more interesting than looking at directly with the special glasses.
Even if you don’t look up , try to go out and enjoy it.
That’s how I viewed 2017! Went outside on my lunch break to watch the bananas on the sidewalk while everyone around me went about seemingly totally unaware of what was going on right above and below them
I happened to be able to see the 2017 one and it was so impactful I saved the date and made sure I’d make it happen. Cut forward 7 years and here I am with most of my immediate family (I have 6 siblings so having most is impressive).
It is an experience that can’t be captured by any form of digital or physical media and my only way to describe it is - it’s the closest thing to magic I’ve ever experienced.
I plan on saving up and going overseas for one as well.
“camped” out in Quebec, my son speaks better French than me and has corrected me all weekend, but we’ll see whose in charge when I poke him in the eyes two seconds before totality… Or squeal like a school girl as it approaches, we’ll see which happens!
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