Experiencing Totality: Eclipse Stories From Sky & Telescope
With our editors and writers scattered across the eclipse path today, we have dozens of stories to share. Here are a few.
Third contact, as seen in Rexburg, Idaho.
Gert Cazemier
To experience a total solar eclipse is to experience the sublime. It is to encounter something that is so awe-inspiring, so earth-shattering, that you lose all capacity for reason. Even if you understand the celestial alignment above, you often react in ways that you never expected.
At least that is what accounts of the celestial spectacle often say. At Sky & Telescope, we have been pouring over these accounts for years — wondering what our personal reactions might be to the Great American Eclipse. Now that August 21, 2017, has come and gone, we no longer have to wonder. In fact, we can now add our own stories to the pool of others.
Of course, it might still be impossible to speak lucidly about the event. Jay Pasachoff — an astronomer at Williams College who has seen 34 total solar eclipses — has said that nobody has ever described a total solar eclipse adequately. But we wouldn’t be writers if we didn’t try.
Here are our stories.
In Sun Valley, Idaho
We couldn’t have been in a more excited crowd. Early this morning, my husband and I climbed a small hill in Sun Valley, Idaho, with a couple hundred friends: astronomers all in town for the American Astronomical Society’s High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) conference. Together, we set up small solar telescopes, eagerly talked about the forthcoming shadow and watched as the moon’s bite grew bigger and bigger.
A small group of astronomers await totality in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Shannon Hall
But with mere minutes leading up to totality, the scene started to shift. Talking dwindled as the winds picked up, the shadows sharpened and the horizon transformed into a surreal image — like one of those romantic landscapes painted toward the end of the 18th century. Then, the crowd started to gasp. Only, they weren’t staring at the Sun, but the mountains to the west of us that had turned black — the eclipse’s shadow was racing toward us at 2,700 kilometers per hour.
We knew we had only seconds before the darkness reached us. Rapidly we swung around to see the Sun as it slid away, replaced by a black hole in the middle of the inky sky. It was fringed with a ring of soft white fire. A chorus of screams, cheers and applause erupted from those surrounding me. Rumor has it that a line of planets and winter constellations surrounded the ring, but I could barely see them. My eyes were glued to the ethereal corona, which started to sway violently as tears slid down my cheeks.
But it ended as quickly as it began. In no time at all, the moon started to slip further past the Sun and the system brightened like a diamond ring. The world grew warm and bright, as though it was stirring awake after a surreal dream. “That’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever felt — totality ending,” my husband later told me.
Writing these words now, I still feel as though I’m wandering between a dream and reality, uncertain of what is true — save for one thing: I will be in Chile for the next total solar eclipse.
— Shannon Hall, Freelance Journalist and Contributing Writer to Sky & Telescope
In Rexburg, Idaho
The weirdest thing about Monday’s total solar eclipse: The eerie quietness in the town of Rexburg, Idaho. Long in advance, Rexburg had been championed as one of the best possible places to watch the celestial spectacle. So, when I started to organize a Dutch eclipse tour with SNP Travels in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, I knew I wanted to take our group of 33 there. And given all the horror stories about millions of American eclipse watchers on the move, we expected congested highways and a crowded town.
T minus 30 minutes.
Mike DiPompeo
To our surprise, there was little traffic the day before the eclipse, and Rexburg seemed deserted. Yes, our hotel (like all others in town) was fully occupied, but temporary parking lots and camping spaces remained largely empty, even on eclipse day. Apparently, many Americans had decided to stay home after all — maybe frightened by the same horror stories, and by ‘fake news’ about potential power failures and other imagined disasters that might be caused by the eclipse.
Too bad for them. At the Rexburg campus of Brigham Young University, we experienced a picture-perfect show that went by the book from beginning to end. Crystal-clear skies, building excitement, brilliant Venus, approaching darkness, a beautiful corona with splendid streamers, dusk colors on the horizon, a dazzling diamond ring at third contact — it couldn’t have been any better. Of the thirteen totals I’ve witnessed so far, this one is absolutely in the top-three of most beautiful eclipses.
Some of the members of my group had never seen a total solar eclipse before. Others saw their third, fourth or even eighth. But everyone knew this wouldn’t be the last — the eclipse chaser virus is spreading fast and we’re already planning our next adventure in Chile, in July 2019.
— Govert Schilling, Contributing Editor to Sky & Telescope
In Jackson, Wyoming
At the suggestion of fellow traveler Heuionalai "Meph" Wyeth, Jim Bell discovered that, indeed, an ordinary Ritz cracker provides a wonderful pinhole camera for viewing projected images of the crescent Sun.
Jim Bell
What a show! I had the pleasure of traveling to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with a Betchart Tours group of about 100 members of The Planetary Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Sigma Xi Honor Society, to witness today's glorious 140 seconds of totality. We took the tram from Jackson Village up to Rendezvous Peak (elevation 10,928 feet), where we joined somewhere between 800 and 1,000 other shadow seekers for a wonderful eclipse party.
From that height, in the thin cloudless air and above the tree line, we were all treated to nearly 360 degrees of gorgeous, colorful twilight along the horizon during the all-too-brief time of totality. A number of folks spotted Bailey's Beads via naked eye and spotting scope observations, and we were treated to some wonderful displays of shadow bands just before and just after totality. The atmosphere was festive and it was especially delightful to see so many children and young people enjoying one of nature's most amazing spectacles. By the end, many of us were already scheming about how to get ourselves to South America for the next total eclipse in July 2019!
— Jim Bell, President of The Planetary Society and a Contributing Editor to Sky & Telescope
In Jackson, Wyoming
I waited for the shadow of the moon with a group of 30 or so relatives, friends, and friends of friends on a hill outside Jackson, WY. The sky was a brilliant blue, hardly a cloud to be seen. As the eclipse advanced through the crescent phases, we all looked for crescents in the shadows under trees and made our own crescent-shaped shadows using everything from colanders and tin foil to our hands. My son and I kept an eye on the sky using our solar glasses and pinhole projectors, and I watched through my sunoculars — at times I was certain I could actually see the moon moving across the Sun's face.
S&T News Editor, Monica Young, watches the eclipse with one of her sons.
Soon enough, only a thin crescent remained. The air had become dawn-cold and the sunlight looked oddly silvery. The dogs began to wander nervously around the site, switching this way and that — they knew something was happening. I can only imagine how a feeling of doom or nerves might have overcome an ancient ancestor who didn't understand what was happening, but all I could feel was my heart drumming with excitement.
Suddenly, darkness fell on the western horizon and two white birds flew up to roost in a nearby tree. Tearing my eyes from the sunset-colored horizon, I looked back at the Sun just in time to see the brilliant flash of the diamond ring. "Glasses off!" we all shouted. There it was — a black hole in the middle of the sky. The ethereal glow of the corona surrounded the eclipsed Sun, and I realized for the first time how far the Sun's reach really is. How incredible that this corona is always there and we only then, in those two minutes, had the chance to witness it ourselves! Venus was shining brilliantly just to the west. I grabbed my binoculars for a glimpse of the corona's white tendrils, the pink prominences at the edge of the eclipsed Sun, and Regulus nearby, before passing the binos on to the next person wanting a glance. Then, somehow, it was already over — we watched the moon glide over the Sun, revealing the second brilliant diamond ring, and sunlight returned, seemingly more quickly than it had disappeared.
Now the only question I have is, how can I get to Chile in 2019 to see the next total eclipse of the Sun?
— Monica Young, Sky & Telescope's News Editor
In Casper, Wyoming
Casper, Wyoming really went above and beyond to host visitors on the line of totality. My wife and I arrived on Thursday and the town’s eclipse festival was already in full swing. The small downtown area was awash with eclipse chasers from all over the world and the excitement was simply electric. Each night saw the crowds increase and the party atmosphere intensify. Main streets were blocked from vehicle traffic, mobbed with foot traffic, and filled with entertainers, memorabilia merchants and food. I suspect that this was repeated all along the path of totality, but I was quite happy to have chosen Casper to enjoy this eclipse. The AstroCon (Astronomical League Convention) going on in Casper was just icing on the cake. More than a dozen of my friends from the Huachuca Astronomy Club of Southeastern Arizona were in town and several other members were spread out along the path, keeping in close touch.
Crescents dance in the shadow of a tree.
Monica Young
Eclipse day dawned clear and the early morning forecast looked perfect, but things changed as totality approached and a high thin cloud began to cover much of the sky. As the clouds thickened, there was an unspoken undercurrent of dread infecting the crowd visibly struggling to remain positive and optimistic. In the end, it wasn’t much of an issue at all. Totality was everything we hoped for. The fastest two and a half minutes anyone there had ever experienced and undoubtedly the most remarkable phenomena nature has to offer.
I chose the parking lot of our hotel (along with about 200 hundred of my closest friends) to view the eclipse. This is an astronomical event that just has to be shared to fully appreciate and it was a big enhancement to be surrounded by friends. Their excitement just multiplies the sheer joy. An active Sun was an unexpected bonus; I kept thinking how very fortunate we were to have so much interesting activity on our star to augment the event.
Our trip to Casper was two years in planning and represented a considerable investment in both time and treasure, but I can say in hindsight that I can’t think of a better place to have witnessed the Great American Eclipse and couldn’t be more pleased with the results. Can’t wait for the next opportunity to feel the shadow!
— Ted Forte, Contributing Editor to Sky & Telescope
In Alliance, Nebraska
My family and I had great weather for the eclipse. We drove northwest from Lewellen to a point about 8 miles south of Alliance, Nebraska. Heavy fog burned off by 9 a.m. leaving perfect skies. A farmer along the highway was offering eclipse parking for a modest fee, which we gladly paid to get off the road and into a picturesque area.
The change in daylight was obvious as early as 80% partial eclipse. By 90% it was dramatic, but along with the falling temperatures, masses of clouds were quickly forming at the top of the sky. We used the clouds as a filter during the delicate crescent phases, and then just as quickly as the clouds blew in, a big clearing appeared, which the sun rolled into just moments after the start of totality. Wonderful!
It was a wildly beautiful eclipse with a stunning corona remarkably like the prediction. Long and stretchy with beautiful magnetic filaments crowning the north and south polar regions set in a deep blue, cloudless sky. Regulus was easy to see in 10x50 binoculars just outside or maybe even a little inside the corona; Venus brilliant to the west with the naked eye. Many of us were screaming and shouting. For me, it was two and a half minutes of crazy joy.
The approaching moon's shadow was very clearly seen — grey and ashen. There was also a sense of the moon being "on fire" with Baily's Beads just before and after totality. The sudden return of the sun was shockingly fast.
It was a scene of tremendous beauty.
— Bob King, Contributing Editor to Sky & Telescope
If you have an eclipse story, please share it in the comments.
The post Experiencing Totality: Eclipse Stories From Sky & Telescope appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
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PUBLISHED; August 21, 2017 at 12:54PM
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