Solar Eclipse chasers

http://www.kuci.org/~brianm/ile/120402eclipse.gif

REVIVE (AGAIN!)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Solar_eclipse_animate_(2008-Aug-01).gif

Some Britishes will see it if they're up bright (or not so bright) and early, it seems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_2008_August_1

Poor old eclipse thread.

well that was pretty far out huh

if you think about it, there's an eclipse every time the sun goes behind a cloud

except you don't get perfectly circular clouds that by astonishing coincidence appear exactly the same size as the sun in the sky, making their exact alignment so satisfyingly rare

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/clipse.jpg

rode my bike out on to the downs this morning to see this thing, but it was so cloudy here, i only got the briefest and dingiest of glimpses. i enjoyed the odd crepuscular atmosphere though. passed a bunch of black-clad witchy looking people all assembling to celebrate at this little hindu temple thing we have here in the middle of nowhere, that was a bit creepy. found a nice spot by a dew pond, had visions of getting a nice photo of the eclipse reflected on the surface of the water, but the combination of shitty ipod camera and the thick cloud cover put paid to that. also the wind really picked up as the temperature dropped so this pond was a mess of muddy ripples anyway. sat amongst the cow turds and listened to some bonged-out sinister hippy nonsense to try and really feel the vibe, but that was quite creepy too and it made me keep checking over my shoulder to make sure the witchy folk hadn't crept up through the gorse behind me. so i switched that off and listened to the wind and the birds instead. poor confused birds: a bunch of pied wagtails going off to roost again so shortly after waking, gulls and crow gathering in their little flocks and dithering about in the sky like bored teenagers in a mcdonalds carpark. watched the cars switching their lights on in the distance. was joined by two dog walkers yacking on about i dunno, schools and stuff, and their fucking black labrador jumped into the fucking pond and started flubbering about all over the place, so that roused me from my cosmic ruminations. got back on my bike, came in to work.

I remember I watched the '99 one on the tv screen in the Dublin Tower. Now I just saw the one today through a bunch of clouds and the moon got in the way.
Took a lot of photos but my camera battery ran out before i could get them transfered to my computer or see if anything came out. Phone was also running really low.

Will see what I got in a while but presumably only after having seen photos from everybody else.

the clouds parted just after maximum coverage here in glasgow - it was pretty amazing:

http://i1247.photobucket.com/albums/gg622/bizarrogazzara/Eclipse1_zpslb4mzqih.jpg

oh i like that. a glimpse of the moon's white undies as it bends towards the heavens

except you don't get perfectly circular clouds that by astonishing coincidence appear exactly the same size as the sun in the sky, making their exact alignment so satisfyingly rare

― Eyeball Kicks, Friday, March 20, 2015 11:10 AM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha, was more a comment on the weather, am very much down for ruminating upon the majesty of celestial bodies

http://www.davidicke.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Untitled-713-587x395.jpg

Could not find eclipse glasses anywhere (had been looking for the past week, by which time they'd already sold out from basically everywhere online), too lazy to build a pinhole camera affair, was in the office anyway: watched it online, only for my boss to come in late and go "WHHOOOAOOA did you ALL SEEEE" - uh no, we were here in the office <sadface>.

Still, saw the last one (though not from the path of totality), could go somewhere ridiculously hot and in the middle of an ocean or desert to see some more I guess.

i like how the sun's come out NOW

yeah it's a lovely day here now. come back moon!

I was asleep

Apparently the whole thing was hidden behind a wall of grey cloud here so I missed nothing. It's a lovely day now tho, sitting in the (warm!) sunshine drinking a beer by the river, perfect equinox vibes. Got grazed by a trio of gulls emerging from the river, but the impressive wingbeats were not enough to disturb my tranquility or hair (it was only minutes later it occurred to me to check that the dampness I'd felt was indeed river water rather than guano, which would have spoiled my mood a bit). Took a photograph of two German women drinking stout. Maybe the moon is super but I'm appreciating the sun rn

fuck that, i demand a reclipse

LOL at power surge from everybody heading inside

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11485604/Solar-eclipse-huge-power-surge-as-disappointed-Brits-headed-indoors-for-a-cup-of-tea.html

Haha

Bollocks it is, mate

i read that in the style of sleaford mods

icke is from leicester iirc, so not a million miles away from sleaford mod country

damn, i'm hoping for collab of some sort now

the smell of piss is so strong in 'ere it smells like anunnaki

He wrote his second book in 1989, It Doesn't Have To Be Like This, an outline of his views on the environment, and was involved with the Green Party from 1988 to 1991, soon becoming one of their four Principal Speakers, a position the party created in lieu of a leader. The Observer called him "the Greens' Tony Blair."[17] He was regularly present at high-profile events. He was invited in 1989 to debate animal rights during a televised debate at the Royal Institute of Great Britain, alongside Tom Regan, Mary Warnock and Germaine Greer, and in September 1990 his name appeared on advertisements for a children's charity along with Audrey Hepburn, Woody Allen and other celebrities.[18]

Despite his success, he wrote that 1989 was a time of considerable personal despair for him, and it was during this period that he said he began to feel a presence around him.[19] In March 1990, while standing in a newsagent's, he felt that a magnetic force was pulling his feet to the ground, and said he heard a voice tell him to look at a particular section of books. One of the books was by Betty Shine, a psychic healer in Brighton. He decided to visit her to ask for help with his arthritis.[20] Shine told him during their third meeting that she had a message for him from the spirit world. She said that he had been sent to heal the Earth, and would become famous but would face opposition. The spirit world was going to pass ideas to him, which he would speak about to others, sometimes not understanding the words himself. She said he would write five books in three years; that in 20 years there would be a different kind of flying machine, where we could go wherever we wanted and time would have no meaning; and there would be earthquakes in unusual places, because the inner earth was being destabilised by having oil taken from the seabed.

Bollocks it is, mate.

I quite enjoyed the event. For a quarter of an hour I liked my colleagues more than usual.

I may come to regret buying eclipse viewing glasses from a bloke on Oxford's Cowley Road for two quid, though.

If I go blind tonight, it has been nice knowing you all (kind of).

In the scheme of solar system events nothing has topped Hale Bopp for me. Eclipses are very pretty but I don't get this shit where adults talk like they previously held pre-enlightenment beliefs until they saw a solar eclipse, like gravitational force doesn't quite convey to them that we are on a spinning rock! A couple of months ago I was reading about that rogue star (with a dimmer satellite companion) that grazed the oort cloud in a cosmic near miss incident 70000 years ago, that is what you call a solar event, although I guess it probably just looked like a very bright star from earth's vantage but at least there wasn't Brian Cox + BBC News 24 back then.

I live right next to an observatory and so there were a bunch of (mostly amateur) scientists and film crews and school groups out with equipment and it was cloudy but in a thin way so the sun poked through enough to see the eclipse steadily. It was only about a 70% eclipse down here but I got to see it through equipment at maximum.

schools weren't supposed to let kids out to watch it because they are dumbasses but they went out anyway, answering the kosmik imperative I guess. my son said one kid stared at it a really long time and then his vision was all yellow afterward, I dunno, maybe that's worth it.

now I have Coldplay in my head

nobody said it was easy

None to be had locally, so I ordered some eclipse glasses for next month. (we'll get 92% occultation)

not looking forward to the ONE MILLION extra people coming to Oregon

predictions are for 5 to 15 (!!) hour traffic delays

what the hell

also predicted: rural areas running out of weed and alcohol:

http://www.kgw.com/news/eclipse/eclipse-creating-record-demand-for-oregon-liquor-marijuana/459535936

Roadtripping to the Nebraska/Wyoming/Colorado border area for this. No way the eastern Oregon road infrastructure can take it

we're gonna be in eastern Oregon 1-2 weeks before and I'm hoping it isn't gonna be too much of a clusterfuck by the 13th when we get home to hunker down

My first trip back to Mid-Missouri in awhile. Of course this thing is flying right over Columbia.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:is93ZejjQmoJ:https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/6256316306.html+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Wanted woman who wants to conceive child during totality eclipse in OR
I am 40 years of age, caucasian male from Europe. My heritage is strong and pure.

My looks, instincts, knowledge and strength is 100% pure and 100% lethal.

I am looking for a worthy female with strong genes, beauty and smarts. To join me - to experience the totality eclipse in Oregon.

Exact place not set.

If we have chemistry, I would like for us to make love while the eclipse is happening.

When totality occurs, we will have simultaneous orgasms and we will conceive a child that will be on the next level of human evolution.

We will make love together, with me and my penis directed towards the sun.
Everything will be aligned in the local universe.
Both of our cosmic orgasmic energy will be aligned with the planets.

In a brief moment of ecstasy, we will understand everything, and together, create a new universe. Full of love...

You must like cats. Drugs are OK. Nitrous Oxide while we climax and experience totality and conception, is OK with me.

You must like cats.

This guy needs to stick it where the sun don't shine - o wait.

posted by a local on FB:

These are things I have either heard people say or seen posted re the eclipse:

"Will cell phones still work?" (at VD)

"There won't be another one for 830 years." (facebook)

"Are you guys worried about shortages? Everything will be closed for a while cause of the eclipse, so people are going to stock up on food and water." (Kiva checkout line)

"How many days will it be dark for?" (at VD)

"Make sure you charge your phone Sunday night, because the grid will go down." (at VD)

"They're going to charge $25 per person for everyone who is outside for it, and all those people from other states are coming here because there's no sales tax in Oregon." (in line at ATM near Saturday Market)

"I'm requesting to take Monday, 8/21 off because it will be way too dangerous to come to work." (VD)

"All the computers will stop working, so get your cash out of the bank before it starts." People I was eavesdropping on by river)

"It's going to be 100% dark! Nobody will be able to see unless they wear special glasses." (Friend's mom)

"Cats and dogs need to be kept indoors or they will go blind." (At VD)

also re: an "Eclipse Party" - "my kids are in school that day, can it be postponed?"

http://time.com/4902109/total-eclipse-of-the-heart-bonnie-tyler-cruise/

i'm thinking about a spur of the moment all-day drive to see eclipse in nebraska, a little near omaha. any denizens in the area know of traffic snarls or other concerns?

traffic already backed up for 14 miles in central Oregon

http://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/5523721-151/eclipse-traffic-already-backing-up-begin-in-central

i like that this dude in the 1st post was already cognizant of the upcoming 1

The next one in the States won't happen until 2017, I think.. and it's only going to brush the Northwest.
― Brian MacDonald, Sunday, October 28, 2001 8:00 PM (fifteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

keep chasing that darkness, brian

i'm thinking about a spur of the moment all-day drive to see eclipse in nebraska, a little near omaha. any denizens in the area know of traffic snarls or other concerns?

Keep an eye on @Nebraska511 on Twitter. It's the Nebraska Dept. of Transportation and they're updating. There's also phone apps.

(on my way to Alliance, Nebraska in the western part of the state)

things I have either heard people say or seen posted re the eclipse: "Will cell phones still work?"

This one has a sort of tangential relevance, at least here in Oregon. Near the path of totality there will be far more people than normal, no more cell towers than before, and much of this combination will occur in highly rural areas. The cell phone capacity is likely going to be totally overwhelmed.

"Are you guys worried about shortages? Everything will be closed for a while cause of the eclipse, so people are going to stock up on food and water." (Kiva checkout line)

people are totally stocking up on food and water. everybody has gone batshit crazy about this for the past week. at my workplace we've gotten special emails about how to prepare for the emergency, with stuff talking about the power grid going out, nobody being able to get anywhere, etc., etc. it's not like there are a whole hell of a lot of roads that will take you to salem.

I'm drunk in a Nebraska cattle pasture. AMA.

So, then, everything's just fine for the nonce.

my house is in 99.6% coverage area. path of totality is 15 miles north. but that 15 miles could take a couiple hours to travel thx to traffic.

def the "once in a lifetime" opportunity appeals to me, and everything you read says "if you can get to totality, you MUST!" but i'm also wondering if i should avoid the stress and just enjoy 99.6% from the roof of my house.

thoughts, ilx?

i vote totality.

99.6%, but I'm not that excited by the whole thing anyway.

If you could do the 15 miles by bike I'd say totality. Wrap up a picnic basket and find a quiet spot if possible.

If not: 99,6%. You won't even notice the difference, really. I went to France with some buddies to see one, 15 years ago or so. We made a camping trip out of it which turned out to be memorable, one for the ages. And worth way more than the eclipse itself. We found a spot by a small lake. Went there an hour early - it was in the afternoon - and it was p magical to see all the birds and swans in the lake going to sleep again, thinking it was night. Then after an hour waking up again as if nothing happened, as if it's completely normal to sometimes have an extra 'night' during the day.

If anything, the effect of a solar eclipse is best seen in nature, in animals. So I'd advise a spot like that. It doubles your value and is much preferred to standing in a loud crowd going ooh and ahhh with their spex on.

and taking photos with a flash...

I love you but I've chosen totality.

I also saw the France one (18 years ago, if we're being precise) - instead of driving to Cornwall like everyone else (idiots!) we got Le Shuttle and watched it from a field just outside Amiens. A+ would gawp again etc

Ha, we were near Amiens! 18 years ago already, sheesh.

this eclipse glasses shortage business is totally bogus tho fwiw

Finally, all those oversized Amazon boxes reveal a purpose

http://i.imgur.com/UYuFldx.jpg

huge recall of glasses that a coffee chain was giving out, this will end well

Have ye ever tried blinking, but for longer.

Also holy shit @ sleeves overheard quotes. Poll that shit.

I got a refund and a "we can't guarantee these" for the glasses I got, but I looked at the uneclipsed sun with them for a few seconds at a time the other day and I think they'll be ok for my purposes -- just a few seconds every few minutes.

from a friend - "It turns out there are all types of fake eclipse viewing glasses. My mother the scientist called me yesterday to give me the tip of how to test whether you have safe eclipse glasses. Put on your glasses and look directly at a bare light bulb. If you can see the light bulb filament, they're no good, if you see darkness, you are good to view the sun. Keep your eyes safe!"

my house is in 99.6% coverage area. path of totality is 15 miles north. but that 15 miles could take a couiple hours to travel thx to traffic.

def the "once in a lifetime" opportunity appeals to me, and everything you read says "if you can get to totality, you MUST!" but i'm also wondering if i should avoid the stress and just enjoy 99.6% from the roof of my house.

thoughts, ilx?

― alpine static, Monday, August 21, 2017 3:10 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

can't beat the roof of your house imo

i have to work today but at least the astronomy department is hosting the eclipse party right outside the library where i work

we're a few hours from totality, i think we will have 80% here

I think I have one incandescent bulb left in the house.

"Nitrous Oxide while we climax and experience totality and conception, is OK with me."

the new Adam Ant single

http://i.imgur.com/cvTCQib.jpg

NASA Raw feeds https://www.nasa.gov/eclipselive/#NASA+TV+-+Eclipse+Views+(Raw+Feed)

i'm about to experience this the best possible way (i.e. w/ 30 excitable teenagers who don't know a whole lot about how the sky works)

Dying at sleeve's overheard quotes

Most popular guy at Homestead National Monument? Has to be @BillNye. He stopped by our NET table, but has been on the move! #Eclipse2017 pic.twitter.com/3kkt6KYO6X

— Dennis Kellogg (@Dennis_Kellogg) August 21, 2017

not in path of totality, don't care

we'll add that to not_good_enough.xls

92% or whatever in Seattle was reasonably cool, v satisfied with my eclipse, glad I didn't try to haul myself down to Salem

NASA feed couldn't even stay on the eclipse for the whole totality, kept breaking away to show us some random website. And went back to the presenters just as the sun was reappearing through the mountains. Pah.

92% here. Cloudless and dusky at 1:20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFVTWEVhxY8

I have decided that the funniest part of Trump going blind would be that he would NEVER admit that he went blind

— slackbot (@pareene) August 21, 2017

Here just south of Portland, we reached a maximum of about 99.5% occlusion, so we missed seeing the corona and having stars visible, as you get with totality. Still, it very cool. At the moment of max it was about as dusky as fifteen or twenty minutes after sunset, but only briefly. When the light came back, it seemed to do so very rapidly, because my brain had slowly adjusted to the light diminishing and was surprised by the sudden reversal.

Best observation of the day: the dappled sunshine that filtered through the trees and shone on the ground was all crescent-shaped as the moon occluded the sun, and when the moon had passed its max and began to move off, the crescent-shapes flipped over. Kind of like having a natural pin-hole viewer. Cool!

That's the bit I remember from the UK partial eclipse in 96, walking to the dentist with crescent shaped dapples.

it is incredible to me how bright the sun is, even at a distance of 93 million miles, even when it is more than 60% occluded as it was here

also keeping in mind that we only get about 0.00000005% of the sun's radiation

crescent shadow photo

here to report eclipses are really cool. it made a bunch of tiny half-moons (well ~actually~ half-suns) appear in this tree shadow! v neat pic.twitter.com/r2byoU4iaX

— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) August 21, 2017

somewhat underwhelming in the northern climes :(

"When is this gonna start?"
"I think that was it"
"I guess it's brighter now.."

i looked right at it

it was nice talking with you all

my house is in 99.6% coverage area. path of totality is 15 miles north. but that 15 miles could take a couiple hours to travel thx to traffic.

def the "once in a lifetime" opportunity appeals to me, and everything you read says "if you can get to totality, you MUST!" but i'm also wondering if i should avoid the stress and just enjoy 99.6% from the roof of my house.

thoughts, ilx?

― alpine static, Monday, 21 August 2017 07:10

well, we decided at the last second to go. hit no traffic (took a very rural route through Oregon), watched the whole thing and it was truly awesome. temperature dropped, it totally got dark, saw stars and holy shit ... the sun was weird lookin'!

Nuclear fusion in the sky!

whoa so jelly

We had a local contingent of School of Rock playing at our community gathering. They played not a single sun or moon related song. They ended with a Soundgarden song ... that was not Black Hole Sun. We just assumed they were trolling everyone.

I think we got like 80% here in Sacramento
we went out for a walk around 10am and saw all the crescent shadows
a lady in our building gave some of us some spare glasses so I got to see the dope cheese crescent in the sky

and then I kept going to the office window to look more as it got fatter

it was neat :D

Yeah the cool part (unless you were in the path of the totality of course, we were at like 65% here) is all the scalloped shadows when you're walking through trees and the momentary dip in temperature despite no breezes or approaching storm. A few moments on some other Earthlike world.

scalloped shadows sound delicious

an uncanny feast for the senses

All the news clips I've seen about the eclipse now contain crowds screaming and cheering and oh-my-god'ing. It's so odd, when I saw the France one you could hear a pin drop.

i told my coworker I had a weird memory of seeing the crescent shadows before

but the last eclipse visible near where I grew up was in October 1976 - 6 months after I was born O_O

xp sounds like american vs french restaurants

saw it this afternoon. i decided to go run some errands and walk to the grocery store down the street around 2pm. the sun was still bright af (in fact it never stopped) but you could look at it with the glasses and sea the cool black with the red eclipse peeling through. i tried taking a photo with my phone but of course it was a useless endeavor.

it got sort of dark, maybe on the level of an overcast or rainy day, but never pitch plack like i had kinda foolishly hoped. i watched through glasses with some neighbors and the front of the building and we saw it cross over and start uncovering again and there was no real sudden change. i must be too far out of the Path of Totality. which is a pretty cool, weird, concept! you have to be at a certain time and a certain place to see this in full. kinda like Twin Peaks.

i was mostly impressed with the sun, its power to shine its light was so great, even in the face of a total eclipse the sky was still so blue, maybe a little darker, but still lit by the sun's rays, still so beautiful. not that the moon wasn't cool in its own right, passing by un-observable to the naked eye like a Tidal Ninja, using the sun's glare as distraction.

i wonder if there are tidal anomalies during eclipses.

the lunar shadow was sick af

Re tidal anomalies

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tide.html#stid

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4385/36333195010_42efe8d767_z.jpg

I didn't set out to take a picture of Mercury, but there it is to the left. Out of many unnatural seeming elements (the light, the big solar corona) seeing nearby clouds disappear into the shadow just before it hit me was the spookiest.

the last eclipse visible near where I grew up was in October 1976
i remember that one! i was 5. we were only allowed to watch it on tv for some dumb reason.
there was a partial one in the early 90s too? i recall the bizarre shadows. i didn't even know it was due!

istr lots of em but possibly I live in a weird twilight world

i was surprised at the number of the wikipedia page for uk eclipses - 7 in the 70s, 3 in the 80s, 4 in the 90s, 4 in the 00s...

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.3430096.1503346446!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/eclipsereax22f-1-web.jpg

NASA feed couldn't even stay on the eclipse for the whole totality, kept breaking away to show us some random website. And went back to the presenters just as the sun was reappearing through the mountains. Pah.

yeah, we were flicking between 3 or 4 live feeds, disappointed in all of them tbh

I liked the concept of the ABC feed because it had footage from about 10 different places along the path of totality, but every time the camera mainly focused on the crowd while the presenter babbled on about what an amazing sight it was etc etc - that's nice, too bad we can't see it! And as you say the NASA feed kept breaking away from the totality in Oregon for all sorts of recaps and artists' impressions etc, then after that was mainly some people in chairs talking rather than filming it from any other location even though they had people elsewhere along the path who would occasionally report on the weather and how many people had turned out.

oh well, there were some nice shots in there too. there's probably a good compilation out there on the internet somewhere. hope those of you who saw it in person got a good view

(love the shadow pics! also surprised at so many 90s and 00s UK eclipses listed, I only remember the one in '99 and the one a few years ago. think I may have got up early in time for sunrise in case of seeing the 2011 partial eclipse, only to realise that the eastern part of the horizon was basically not visible from anywhere in walking-in-pyjamas distance of my flat)

Barbara and Poppy Bush drawing another decade of life from the blazing corona

We were just south of Columbia, Missouri. Last April, I saw that the center path in the middle of the totality band went pretty much right through my college roommate's backyard.

Here's how that part of the world looked like during the two minutes:

http://i.imgur.com/Mhk3NJI.jpg

Our host shot off some fireworks, as you do in rural Missouri during a total eclipse:

http://i.imgur.com/M1TYsZB.jpg

And ok, here's my version of the same shot you've already seen 1000 times.

http://i.imgur.com/I6QVlVb.jpg

Didn't see any former presidents though, unless you count their dog, Truman.

a friend posted a link to that guardian gag story on her facebook and some guy who radiates "high school acquaintance" posted, apparently regarding the existence or viewing safety of eclipses, "Love how this propaganda has infiltrated all my lib friends. Divide and conquer. Proceed government." on further questioning it is clear he also believes the moon landings are faked but is evasive concerning trump support. "I'm more anti establishment. The wool has cloaked many people eyes. I'm just here to warn about the wolves."

Ring of Fire tomorrow... I think it'll be 80% coverage in the Bay Area around 9:20am tomorrow

I'll go check it out for a minute

I'll be in San Antonio for TOTAL ANNULARITY

Next year?

I'm just gonna get in the car and head for Austin in April. https://eclipse2024.org/

Might take you awhile to get back!

In my state, the traffic afterward may be so congested, they're planning on placing port-o-potties a mile apart from each other on some major highways.

https://i.imgur.com/OTOJRUE.png

2 useful links if anyone wants to go check it out:

Interactive eclipse map with timings from timeanddate.com - https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2024-april-8
@TheEclipseCompany map with cloud coverage and community events - https://theeclipse.company/map/2024-total-eclipse?lat=38.0331&lng=-84.2664&z=4.0

(found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luTU6VFWeYY )

*bump*

Seems like a lot people heading to the Path of Totality, stressing the various localities therein.

partner's family lives outside of austin directly in path of totality, were so tempted to go but airplane tickets were astronomically priced. now i'm seeing it'll likely be rainy there. was kicking myself for not saying money be damned and going for it anyway as this is a life dream but that forecast is making me feel a little at peace. i realize hoping for rain is remarkably selfish but it's more in thought than in deed of course

I am admittedly a bit excited about this. I should get around a minute of total eclipse where I live. I'm thinking of going to a small park nearby to have a more open view of the sky.

Friends have an extra hotel room, so we're headed to Cleveland this weekend.

wondering if i should take the day off. the path of totality is probably an 8 hour or so drive from where i am, but wondering if traffic on that day is just going to be insane.

I live in the path of totality but I'm going to Scotland on Friday oops

but wondering if traffic on that day is just going to be insane.

Yes.

I could drive 40 minutes to the center of totality on a normal day, but I'm going to sit tight right here with only about 90-120 seconds of darkness.

These things are really cool to witness, but that 40-minute drive is likely going to be six hours on the way back.

the path of totality will be almost perfectly centered above my house, its looking like itll be pretty cloudy that day but tbh i'm less interested in seeing the eclipse itself than i am in just seeing day turn to night and back again. local officials are saying they expect up to a million people but idk, i'll believe it when i see it

My daughter is really interested in this and booked a hotel room months ago near Little Rock for the night after it happens. She's going with my wife, wife's cousin and cousin's daughter. I have zero interest so I'll stay at home and hear about the meltdowns in real time as they try to get around. I'll make sure they take a cooler full of food with them, because meals are going to be an adventure.

It's going to be like this across a dozen states.

https://i.imgur.com/oTb3kMb.png

This map kills me:

https://i.imgur.com/lkrBUgF.png

A total solar eclipse happening at sunset. Oooh, it got so dark!

Australia is where the sun lands at the end of each day, didn't you know that

I knew that

Picturing a poster for this eclipse like in that one thread I cannot recall the name of

Lennon, Elvis, Hendrix etc, jamming with the eclipse

Hahaha!

I meant the busy film one of course

post movie posters done in a busy/claustrophobic caricature style from the 70s and 80s

This thing is shaping up to be Woodstock '99 on steroids

There was a scientist nerding out about it on NPR who was so excited. It was kind of cute and kind of crazy. He described it as one of the most life-changing events anyone could experience, and the closest we can come to space travel on Earth, or something like that. I suppose maybe, if it makes you pursue a career in astrophysics.

I totally forgot that the eclipse in 2017 was total so…

I have an ex in Little Rock and she reports that people are panic buying survival supplies like it's Y2K

Ha they definitely think Jesus is coming

This state is expecting up to a million visitors.

We only have three million residents already.

And they're all going to Russellville.

I went a 30 miles out of town to see totality get blocked by clouds in 2017, won’t be clogging any rural roads this time

I drove out to rural Nebraska and camped on a rural cattle ranch for the 2017 eclipse. Minimal traffic. Someone local made BBQ and overall I had a really great time.

not looking good for tx

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/29/cloud-cover-eclipse-forecast-maps-cities/

My boss is taking his family to Dallas

itll be pretty cloudy that day but tbh i'm less interested in seeing the eclipse itself than i am in just seeing day turn to night and back again.

There was a total eclipse here in Portland back in February 1979. Of course it was a day of thick clouds. I decided to go for a walk down toward the Willamette river as totality approached, so as to have a bit more sky overhead. Given the weather I didn't expect much.

I remember it as gradually growing dim, then dimmer, but the moment of totality was still breathtaking, like when a fast moving cloud shadow passes over you in summer, but magnified by many orders of magnitude. Very memorable despite the clouds!

good luck everyone

Excited for this.

I woke from a brief bad dream about some kind of mass shooting during the eclipse. Never have these, and hoping/assuming it’s not prophetic.

I have wondered what you could get away with in two and a half minutes while everyone's outside.

The library branches were giving away free glasses but ran out, apparently. People gathering at my house for the viewing, guess I better make a pinhole box viewer!

Visiting relatives in Ohio to see it. Experienced one in Nashville some years back and despite it being cloudy, it was just great as others said to experience the day to night to day shift and hear the confused crickets .

I was around for the one in NYC in 2017 and it was pretty cool! People were out walking around on the street. I have some good pics of my pinhole viewer and also how weird shadows looked on the ground. I don't think it got fully dark for that one though.

I wish I planned better - I have a friend who's out by Dallas now and I could've gone to see his family (and driven out with them to see the eclipse in the path of totality). Hell, I could've just gone up to Rochester or Buffalo. Kind of kicking myself because any of those would've been a much easier trip to make than whatever I'd need to do to a catch the next 40+ years of total solar eclipses.

rochester and buffalo are under nearly 100% cloud coverage iiuc. dallas is not great either.

"the path of totality" is such a bitchin' parody of new age twaddle

montreal's all totalitying so everyone's pretty psyched, exchanging various eclipse plans, panic over glasses etc. I'm going to keep it simple and just take it in with a bunch of 8-year-olds, why not?

Sky is mostly clear right now, around 3 I'm going to take a short walk to a nearby park with my kids and we will hopefully still have a clear sky then. I should have 1 minute 4 seconds of totality, looking forward to it.

NASA broadcast here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJY_ptQW1o

without commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5j95RUSLd8

I'm using a janky pinhole camera made from a Ritz crackers box.. pretty underwhelming here in California

Took me a second to realize that ambient new age jam was coming from the NASA video in the background.

It started here, btw.

actually the pasta colander works better than the cracker box camera

I got my glasses. I guess I have to remember to go outside and look.

For a minute I thought the NASA cam was playing Tangerine Dream's "Risky Business" score.

I was around for the one in NYC in 2017 and it was pretty cool!

I went out of my office and walked around during that one. I didn't have proper gear so I just tried to glance at it quickly. It still caused a twinge of pain in my eyes, so probably shouldn't have done that. A lot of people were holding up their phone cameras and watching it on the phone screen. Not sure if that's good for the phone but I guess it's safe for your eyes.

Atlas Obscura is hosting a big 3 day festival in Arkansas, I'll bet they're all tripping balls right now

looking pretty neat up there now

so it's not the end of the world after all? god dammit.

to tell the truth, I was just thinking that standing outside with all the neighbors, everybody staring into the sky, is exactly how I imagine our final moments to be before the asteroid hits.

definitely hard to capture, I bet we will get much more impressive images later this summer when the trillions of cicadas hatch.

Yep the biblical plagues are piling up.

Apparently the street lights popped on downtown.

It was pretty cool here in Wisconsin. Beautiful clear day, it felt like I was wearing sunglasses and when I actually looked at it through the proper glasses it was pretty crazy. 10/10 natural phenomenon, especially because I didn't think we'd get much of an effect here.

This was pretty cool! We had glasses and special screens for our phone cameras. We just went outside our house, expecting tons of people would be out in the street - but there was no one. I’ve never seen any kind of eclipse so this was a bucket list event for me.

https://i.imgur.com/pJP9IQc.png

Glad to have had a clear view of it today, was pretty cool.

On an overcast day, it didn't look so different from an imminent rain or snow storm.

God, that was so cool :)

I watched it from Morrisburg, Ontario on the St. Lawrence waterfront, in the path of totality. The full eclipse was incredible. The folks next to us got some amazing photos with visible solar flares.

Besides a dramatic drop in our solar power, it was pretty incredible to feel the temperature drop, too.

Oops I did it again 🤭 #TotalSolarEclipse pic.twitter.com/JXPe26qq3Q

— NASA Moon (@NASAMoon) April 8, 2024

those cheeky astronomers

we saw about 85% or 90% coverage at the holy rapture point around 3:28 PM. just a tiny sliver of sun left. it was cool but i really wanted it to be pitch black and vampires falling on us from the trees.

it was totally clear too. no clouds.

Great view at Chicago O'Hare airport. Big temperature drop.

we sat in the front of the bookstore next door to our house with a few people/neighbors but for most people walking by on the sidewalk it was totally not a thing. we did give glasses to the mailman when he came up with mail.

Total bust here in Boston. They screwed up with that snowstorm forecast earlier this year as well.

This was really cool. Sky was perfectly clear, got gradually darker, saw a couple of stars. A fun couple of minutes spent right on our front lawn.

You know what really impressed me? They outright nailed the timing here, down to the minute.

Total bust here in Boston. They screwed up with that snowstorm forecast earlier this year as well.

ok so here in ne Knoxville the eclipse lacked luster. we were 89% totality here. I guess that 11% matters

the sublime majesty of the totality was slightly tainted by everyone in our neighborhood blasting off fireworks for the entire time but still a good show overall. absentmindedly glanced at it unprotected for a moment like a moron but dont appear to have gone blind yet as far as i can tell

it was already overcast and then at peak time -3:08 - it was p indistinguishable ( i never know how to spell that wd) from moments prior.
the 2017 eclipse was something to behold

I feel like it was only in the couple of minutes leading up to the totality that I really noticed any difference really (other than by looking at the sun with my glasses), so I guess you really need >95% to really start having noticeable changes to darkness and temperature.

xp

^^^^ Yes, here as well; peaked just over an hour ago, as foretold. Sky was full of grim cloud cover since morning, but cleared to blue skies after noon.

(86% here, no perceptual darkness)

It was definitely a lot darker here. As if someone attached a dimmer switch to the sun

97% eclipse in Washington I think, it got pretty dim. I saw a sliver of sunlight hit a power line, and for that moment, the powerline was just...so...beautiful (tearing up because I gave myself cataracts looking at the sun).

it definitely got dim and shadowy here. like me.

Will the real dim shady please stand up ..

95% in Boston, apparently, but really the darkness was barely noticeable (I didn't use special glasses, was just sitting in the yard waiting for the gloom to envelope me.) If you hadn't known about the eclipse you'd have just assumed some random cloud cover passed over.

you guys, it looked really cool. 90% or whatever. and i hate everything.

Clear skies but only 50% coverage in SoCal, though I still noticed a change in the light (not so much darker, but oddly "different," like approaching dusk but without any of the golden-ness of dusk). I work next to an animal shelter and the dogs were barking more than usual.

i think i got too much sun though. i should know better than to go outside. i feel woozy.

It's very cloudy in Austin, and the clouds peaked right for me right at the point of total eclipse. Still, I was able to catch a few seconds of it, and quite a lot of partial eclipse before and after. Got a whole bunch of cool videos on my phone.

the dimness did have an ominous feel to it. but maybe i was imagining that.

It felt sort of like how you feel before you faint or pass out.

91% occlusion here. It was too cloudy to see the disc, but it got dark enough for the streetlights to come on. My wife and daughter were at a park in Conway AR with mostly clear skies and said it was amazing.

The peak here (NYC) was 90%, which was enough to give the light outside a kind of eerie quality. I think it's because the light was dimmer than usual, but the spectrum of light was whiter, like when the sun is directly overhead, rather than the redder light typical of sunsets and sunrises (when its light passes through more of the earth's atmosphere).

Yeah that's a good point, it was stilly fully and recognizably daylight out but it wasn't any yellower. But yeah that 10% that we weren't occluded made it almost unnoticeable. It's remarkable that we normally get 90% more sun exposure than that and it feels almost the same (to a person) but makes a huge difference to the natural world and the available energy.

Even with the cloud cover, it was pretty cool in Rochester. From the George Eastman House: https://www.facebook.com/reel/410729598372567

ok so here in ne Knoxville the eclipse lacked luster. we were 89% totality here. I guess that 11% matters

It definitely does - I found this video from 2017 just to get an idea what totality would be like and at the end the guy mentions how even the smallest sliver of sun makes a huge difference (and you see it by how fast everything darkens and lights up - it’s not very gradual, it's surprisingly fast).

yeah, they said the shadow travels around 1,500 miles per hour on the ground

It's really cool how some of the accounts I found from lifelong chasers talk about how various animals react differently. Like bees will suddenly swarm back to their hive, cows will start walking back to the barn, some marine mammals will pop up to the surface and kind of look around, and of course the crickets start chirping...next total eclipse passes through Spain (between Madrid and Barcelona) and Iceland in 2026 and I think a year after that it'll pass through Spain again. I've been meaning to go to Iceland someday and have been hoping to go back to Spain soon so who knows, would be great to make that work.

I was surprised to learn that total eclipses happen 2-5 times every year, but rarely over such a populated path as today

IM me if UR a fellow millennial who read Edward Bloor's Tangerine in eight grade and were left wondering (after the big reveal) if it might actually be okay to look directly at the sun without protection during an eclipse

I spent this eclipse (Southern New Hampshire, 97% obscuration) sitting alone in the middle of a town hall green and looking at the sun every few minutes through a cardboard pinhole camera. I got a barebones view of the progression and noted a slight dimness/chill, but overall it was kind of a bummer, and I was mostly just disappointed that I didn't have the foresight to get the special glasses. I looked directly at the sun for a second during peak coverage, but the only impression I got was "IT BRIGHT". oh well

Already scheming on getting out to Spain for that 2026 one.

at the end the guy mentions how even the smallest sliver of sun makes a huge difference (and you see it by how fast everything darkens and lights up - it’s not very gradual, it's surprisingly fast).

Yes, that's what I found in the moment of totality. Just the shift from 99.5% to 100% coverage seemed incredibly dramatic. The light on the horizons was amazing too, like simultaneous sunsets in both directions.

I didn't even realize until getting there that when the sun is fully covered, it's safe to take off your glasses and look at the eclipse.

It definitely does - I found this video from 2017 just to get an idea what totality would be like and at the end the guy mentions how even the smallest sliver of sun makes a huge difference (and you see it by how fast everything darkens and lights up - it’s not very gradual, it's surprisingly fast).

― birdistheword, Monday, April 8, 2024 6:05 PM (forty-two minutes ago)

if you've ever tried to blackout curtain your bedroom because you're very sensitive to light...

Made it to just SE of Llano, Texas and watched it from the side of the road. That wall of dark that comes at you is something - birds were restless, the wind kicked up

Little late posting this, but this is pretty cool: weirdest things that happen during a total solar eclipse.

This is hilarious:

“It turns out that Galapagos tortoises had a remarkable reaction,” Hartstone-Rose says. “Right at the moment of totality, they started mating behaviour. As in, they literally started breeding in front of everybody, before our eyes.”

it's from the Daily Mail so you know it's been well-researched

Americans suffering from 'eclipse sickness', including insomnia, headaches and changes to women's periods

* Eclipse sickness has been used to explain weird side effects of the event
* People have also reported feeling more anxious and emotional

(strangely, I had a bout of insomnia last night which is not all that common for me)

I think i have it. I changed into a locust.

My wife and daughter have a hotel room in Little Rock tonight, but my wife's cousin had to get back to Birmingham for a work meeting. It took her four hours to get from LR to Memphis.

It doesn't look like fun over there.

https://i.imgur.com/RYelXVI.png

https://i.imgur.com/8mid9GK.png

My shot of the day.

https://i.imgur.com/AJNi0Bq.png

Memphis didn't get 100% totality, but Chip Somodevilla did get this:

https://i.imgur.com/WfMlcag.jpeg