I’m sitting in a dark hotel room on the eve of my first - and possibly only - total solar eclipse, with my partner and step-son, and I am positively awash with emotions.
I have been waiting for this day for 30 years, since my first partial eclipse in May of 1994. That was an underwhelming experience for many reasons, but not the least of them was that I had nothing and no one to view the eclipse with.
Three decades, two astronomy degrees, 5 years operating a planetarium, and 5 years as a guide at the local observatory later, and I’m fully prepared. Today, I have more viewing glasses than i have fingers, two cameras with filters, I have my family, and I am smack dab in the middle of the path of totality.
And the forecast calls for clear skies.
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that this is actually happening for me. That everything looks like it’s going to work out.
The only disappointment is that I discovered that Potato World exists - it’s the New Brunswick potato museum (and it’s next door to my hotel) - but it’s closed!
I hope it lives up to expectations!
I drove 2200 miles for this solar eclipse. I booked a place here in Dallas last year, and now it seems like it’s going to be cloudy with rain and thunder. :-/
I convinced my dad to fly over and join the road trip.
At least we got to see some incredible stuff on the way! Maybe there will be a break in the clouds…
I’ve heard that it’s still a surreal experience even when overcast. Though, that’s what I had to believe to actually book the hotel room and days off work as somene living on the north-atlantic coast.
I was able to see the one back in 2017 smack dab in the middle of the path of totality and it was such a surreal otherworldly experience. No amount of trying to explain it to other people helped them really understand. Things look a weird way and there’s a very unique feel to it all.
My advice, get things set up, get your shots, start your recordings, but don’t forget to take 30seconds or so and just soak it in and be in the moment!
Enjoy! I’m super excited for you!
I was in the same boat, 2000+ mile drive. NE Texas isn’t looking too bad right now! But if you’re up to it, drive up to Arkansas. I did that today from Austin-ish. Clouds up here are looking much more optimistic!
I just unpacked, and there’s no way I can take another day in the car! :-D
It’s my birthday tomorrow, so I’m hoping to just take it easy.
I debated packing up my stuff and driving a couple hours to Mena, but I’m not sure the weather is going to be any better there…
Three decades, two astronomy degrees, 5 years operating a planetarium, and 5 years as a guide at the local observatory later, and I’m fully prepared.
Me, watching a total eclipse 30 years ago: “MUUUUUM! WHERE’S THE OLD CAMERA FILM? I WANT TO MAKE ECLIPSE GLASSES!” Then I was fully prepared!
It was exciting. (I hope that those folks in MX/US/CA have fun.)
So, apparently Potato World is actually open today, unannounced. So, just this once,
everybody livesI really can have it allFalse alarm. They just have an inflatable planetarium set up inside. No potato displays at all :(
This was a roller coaster of emotions! I had to look up Potato World after that and saw Col. Chris Hadfield is giving a speech nearby this evening
He is! Though I’m not sure how anyone has anything left in the tank after the eclipse for a talk, even from him
“Potatoes throughout the universe! This week only at potato world!”
Hello from someone who lives in New brunswick! Small world
You’ve had Potato World all this time, and you didn’t share it with your neighbours??!?
I feel like no one else in the comments cares. I’m so VERY interested in Potato World.
I mean, not as much as in the eclipse, but still VERY interested.
Right??!?
And it’s a pretty big place, all things considered. But it’s seemingly only open from September to mid-October.
That seems like a reasonably potato filled kind of time down here in Canada
I honestly had no idea, I figured potato world is just what we called Pei
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.
Hopefully that works. Enjoy the eclipse!
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”?
Ot depends on which colours you mean.
I saw it in Barbados years ago.
Completely amazing.
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.
Hope your viewing went well, too.
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.
Certainly hope so, and the memories of the better part of a day in bumper to bumper traffic going home to fade.
“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!
So, How was it? Did it live up to your expectations? Did you get any good pictures?
Pictures turned out ok! I should have done a dry run for my totality setup, as I wanted to do some bracketed exposures and assumed my DSLR would let me do that the same way in live display mode as it does in optical viewfinder mode, and it… didn’t. But the pictures I did get are a reasonable, if insufficient facsimile of the experience.
As for the real deal… I’ll have to update everyone once I’ve processed it. It was clear as crystal, and a perfect day. I was totally unprepared in every way that mattered. I don’t yet have words.
Sounds like it was enjoyable. My son’s mother took him out of school and drove them 2.5 hours to go see it in totality.
That seems like a lot of work for potato world.
Just remember the one important rule about potatos.
Keep your hand really flat when you feed them?
I’m camping in the middle of nowhere southeast Oklahoma, praying this cloud cover lifts in time
Store the memory of this wonderful milestone in your life where you can reflect on a life well spent and be embedded in the feeling of belonging to a loving family. That shit is GOLD and will protect your mental health like a Patronus Charm from Harry Potter.
Unrelated, but I just wanted to say that rotating Mars icon for the channel looks pretty slick.
