Thanks
to a broken computer and a lost flash drive, I thought this was lost
forever. Fortunately, I found that I had uploaded everything to my
old computer. Now, almost a year later, here it is: my account of the
2017 total solar eclipse.
This
week marked a very special event, one that had not hit the United
States in almost 100 years. What was it? A total solar eclipse that
was visible from coast to coast. If that weren't enough, this was the
first total solar eclipse to hit the mainland United States since
1979. The last coast to coast eclipse? That was back in 1918. The
next total solar eclipse that will hit some of the mainland will come
on Monday, April 8, 2024. The next coast to coast event? That will
not take place until 2099, which means that,. Barring considerable
advances in medical technology, very few people reading this article
in 2017 will be alive when the next coast to coast eclipse takes
place.
Feel
privileged yet?
From
here on is my personal account of the August 21, 2017 total solar
eclipse, dubbed the Great American Eclipse, by the media.
Members
of the astronomical society that I have belonged to since the start
of my senior year in high school, the Black River Astronomical Society, had been planning a trip to witness the total solar eclipse
of 2017 roughly a year in advance. Realizing the rarity of such an
event (the last total eclipse had not touched the mainland U.S. since
well before I was born), I was quick to get on the list for would-be
travelers, work be damned.
Fast
forward almost a year.
My
old place of employment (for 9+ years) had just shut down, but I was
fortunate to land with another company that was very generous with
the vacation, to the tune of 3 work weeks of 40 hours, for first
year employees. Not that it would have mattered (I would have called
off if my vacation had not gotten approved) anyway, but, since my
vacation got approved, I knew that I would be getting paid to watch
the astronomical event of my lifetime, save the 2012 transit of Venus.
Free
from work for the week (my vacation was approved way back in the
spring), I knew that the weather was going to be the only question
mark.
Leaving
for Elizabethtown, Kentucky, which was meant to be the club's base
camp, if you will, things were worrying as there was lots of cloud
cover as we traveled down through Ohio on US Interstate 71, which
took us through Columbus and Cincinnati. The good news came in
Kentucky as the cloud cover melted away as if my magic.
Unfortunately, traffic replaced the clouds. Fortunately, we all made
it to Elizabethtown about 6pm, everyone close enough to make an
impromptu club meeting to discuss viewing plans.
Two
camps quickly emerged. On one side was the opinion of getting
breakfast at 6am (when the hotel dining room opened), and leaving
about 7am. On the other side: getting on the road ASAP, namely before
6am, for the sole purpose of beating the traffic. I was of the latter
opinion and my travel group was on the road by 5:40am with a
predicted arrival at our viewing site around 7:15am.. On the way,
there was a time change around the Kentucky-Tennessee border, which
took us from Eastern to Central time, and booted us back an hour.. No
matter, it's better to twiddle one's thumbs for a few hours than it
is to be caught in traffic and/or be scrambling to find an emergency
observing site at the last minute. End result: our hour and a half
drive took a half hour thanks to the time change, which meant that we
arrived at our 'Plan B' observing site, a Walmart parking lot in
White House, TN, around 6:15am.
Walmart at arrival, the crowd will grow considerably!
There
were a lot of people already at the White House Walmart when we
arrived at around 6:15am (we lost an hour thanks to the time change).
Still, though, there were a lot of empty parking spaces for early
morning arrivals toward the back of the parking lot.
Thus
the waiting game began.
Going
in to get something to drink, I was surprised to find eclipse-themed
merchandise. I bought a shirt, hat, glass, and shot glass but passed
on the eclipse-themed cakes. I noticed that I wasn't the only one
taking pictures of the cakes, either. Exiting the store, there was a
huge variety in where everyone was from, as the license plates
indicated. There were even people from Canada.
Eclipse merchandise was a hit with the eager crowd.
The
atmosphere during the wait was one akin to a giant tail gate party.
There were even some people cooking on small charcoal grills behind
their vehicles. Walmart was expecting a crowd as I heard the
conversation between the cashier and a guy in front of me in the
line. She said that the store had been getting calls from people
asking if it was okay if they parked overnight in the lot for the eve
of the eclipse. The store had also brought out old merchandise dump
bins on pallets in order to act as improvised trash cans. Needless to
say with its own lot and all the surrounding lots (mostly restaraunts
and specialty stores) full, Walmart did a lot of business that day.
And
so it went, talking with the other eclipse chasers and making an
occasional run into the store. On my last trip in at about 11:30am,
an announcement came over the speaker announcing that the store would
be closed from 12:50pm to 1:50pm, half an hour on either side of
totality (1:28pm local time). For a company that has such a bad
reputation in regards to how it treats its workers, a hats off to
management at the White House store for closing so that the employees
could watch totality.
As
noon and first contact, set for 11:58am local time, approached, I
started experimenting with camera settings as I had brought my Nikon
D700 with me along with my 200mm f4 micro manual focus lens. The best
part about this lens was the fact that, unlike a lot of newer lenses
where infinity is not quite infinity, infinity focus is truly
infinity on this lens, which makes it ideal for astrophotography.
Eventually, I got my settings down on the un-eclipsed Sun, which
meant t hat the only thing to do for the final 15 minutes or so was
wait.
As
11:58am neared, I was looking through the club's solar filtered scope
a lot. I first noticed a tiny bite out of the Sun about noon, at
which point I snapped my first picture. The plan was to take pictures
every 10 minutes from there on until about 10 before totality, at
which point I would start snapping in more rapid succession.
As
the time ticked away, I kept to my 10 minute intervals for taking
pictures while bouncing back and forth between the eclipse glasses
and the solar scope.
This
was my first total solar eclipse, so I didn't know what to expect.
One thing that surprised me was the fact that it was not until about
30 minutes before totality that there was even the slightest dip in
the Sun's brightness. At about the same time, the amount of traffic
dropped off considerably. By 15 minutes to totality, the Sun was
noticeably dimmer and the temperature, probably in the mid 90s,
started to get a little cooler. It was only now that I had to adjust
my shutter speed, dropping from 1/1600th second to
1/1250th. By the time of my last pre-totality shot when
there was just a tiny sliver of the Sun left, I was down to 1/200th.
The
last 10 minutes before totality were when things really started to
happen. At about 10 minutes to go, the lights on the storefronts'
signs started to come on, as did some of the parking lot lights. In
anticipation of the lights, we had moved from our parking spot, which
was virtually right under a light, to a wide open field that was
about 5 feet higher in elevation relative to the parking lot at about
30 minutes to totality. The scope went too. At about this time, 10
minutes to go, traffic virtually disappeared from the roads as the
Sun's brightness began to rapidly drop. As the Sun's brightness
dropped, the temperature really began to tumble, bottoming out at
what I'd guess was the upper 70s at totality. At about the same time
that the temperature began to really drop, a breeze started to blow.
In
the last 5 minutes before totality, it seemed as though the Sun was
on a dimmer switch. It was then that the brighter stars and planets
became visible. The breeze died down and the whole world seemed to
come to a standstill, save the Moon creeping its final few degrees
across the solar disc. Everyone's gaze was now firmly glued to the
Sun. By now, shadows (at least those originating from the Sun), had
disappeared. In these final moments before totality, I got my pocket
Olympus out and into movie mode as I wanted to get a quick 360 degree
panorama of the site as well as the Sun's return after totality.
And
then it came.
With
one final flash that was the famous 'diamond ring', the Sun
disappeared behind the Moon and the solar corona, the Sun's outermost
atmosphere, became visible. The sudden drop in brightness was as
though the Sun had been shut off with a switch. There was a huge roar
and lots of applause from the assembled crowd. Everyone's solar
glasses came off now as it was now safe to look at the Sun without
eye protection.
Totality
was surreal. It was as dark as about half way between sunset and the
arrival of true dark. The weird part was that the darkest area of sky
was straight up, where the eclipsed Sun was. The sky got brighter as
one got closer to the horizon. The world seemed to stop as everyone's
eyes were glued on the Sun. You could hear the proverbial pin drop.
Taking my pocket camera, I quickly got a 360 degree panorama of the
area then popped off a few pictures of the totally eclipsed Sun with
my Nikon before turning my gaze back up to the Sun. This being my
first eclipse (and with totality only lasting 2 minutes and 40
seconds), I didn't want to get too caught up with the camera,
preferring to just take in the experience.
The countdown at 10 minute intervals until just before totality. I played with shutter speed at totality to get different effects. Notice the prominences in the last totality image.
Eventually,
I noticed that the sky on the right side of the Sun appeared to be
getting brighter. Knowing that totality was about to end, I got my
pocket camera and started shooting video again, catching about the
last 10 seconds of totality and the reemergence of the Sun. Like when
it disappeared, there was a roar and applause from the crowd. As was
the case at the start of totality, the change in brightness from
totality to a sliver of the Sun being visible was dramatic. My video
does a very good job of capturing the change in brightness.
Totality 360.
Totality ends.
Totality
over, a lot of people, at least half of everyone at Walmart,
immediately got in their cars and started for the road. We had long
since decided to stay for the complete event and avoid the mad dash
out of the parking lot. The gridlock lasted for about 45 minutes. As
the eclipse wound down, I kept shooting every 10- minutes, with my
last picture coming at around 2:50pm. By the time we hit the road
the side streets were clear, a good sign, we hoped.
Long
story short, it took 5 hours to make the same drive back to
Elizabethtown. The traffic was absolutely horrible.. Thanks to GPS,
though, we were able to get off the main roads and take the scenic
route back for most of the trip and thus avoid the worst of the
congestion, though there was still some even on back country roads.
By the time we were approaching Elizabethtown, the congestion got
really bad again as this was the only city of appreciable size for
some distance in every direction Being a decent size city meant that
there were a lot of hotels, which were quickly filling up as people
(like us) who had expected to stay only one night were now having to
stay an extra one thanks to the slow traffic. Fortunately, we were
able to find vacancies at places that weren't price gouging. Before
the eclipse, there were stories of hotels charging $1,000+ per night
and requiring minimum 3 night stays!
The
next morning, I turned on the local news and discovered part of the
reason for why the traffic was so bad. Some lady trucker from
California lost her marbles, called 911, said that she was being
truck-jacked by an armed man who was forcing her to drive him to some
unknown destination in a truck that was hauling explosives. None of
it was true as there was no kidnapper and the truck was carrying
books. What was real enough was the fact that she crashed the truck
into a concrete barrier under a bridge somewhere on US Highway 65,
which was the road we had intended to take back and through
Elizabethtown (it was the road on which we drove to Walmart, too).
Not being familiar with Kentucky, I had no idea what township she
crashed in but it had to have been close because the GPS was showing
gridlock on I65 to a point not that far North of Elizabethtown. . .
The
good news was that it was clear sailing for the most part on the
drive back Tuesday morning with only the expected rush hour
slowdowns. We had left before 6am again so as to beat the rush in
Louisville, skirt Cincinnati on the outerbelt at the tail end of it,
and miss it by a mile by the time we hit Columbus. All in all, I was
back home about 1:30pm.
The
first order of business: get the pictures off my cameras and onto my
computer. And speaking of pictures, here they are, enjoy..
All
in all, The Great American Eclipse brought the coolest 2 minutes and
40 seconds of my life. Didn't get the chance to see it first hand?
Well, another total solar eclipse, this one lasting about 4 ½
minutes, will be crossing the United States on Monday, April 8, 2024.
The path of totality will start in Texas and come up diagonally
through Niagara Falls and then up into Canada.
Start
making your plans now!
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