No post today, other than to mention that we enjoyed the Great Eclipse of 2017.
Our property is about 15 miles south of the zone of totality — a term I never heard until recently. We wanted the full experience, so we drove north to the Green Door Gourmet, a 350-acre organic farm outside of Nashville that puts on a number of events during the year.
That’s Chareva, her mom, and the girls in the radical-lookin’ shades below. (Chareva’s dad, unfortunately, is still in the hospital after falling recently and breaking his hip.)
The shot below was taken just a few minutes before the total eclipse. Amazing how much light there was, even with the sun mostly obscured.
The picture below was taken right around the time of the total eclipse. My Canon camera does a fine job in low light, brightening things up a bit, so it actually appeared darker outside than the image suggests.
Once again, the camera exaggerated the ring of light around the moon in the photo below, but here it is anyway. To the eye, the ring of light was just barely visible around the edges.
Two minutes of darkness, then it was all over. Quite an experience, though.
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Thank you for sharing. So sorry about your pa-in-law — I pray he’s recovering well. He seems to have had a rough time lately.
He’s had a very rough time indeed, and I’m pretty sure it’s all the downstream result of diabetes. Sad reminder of why this diet stuff matters.
We got about 95-97% here in tulsa. I did the “punch a hole in a manila folder” trick and managed to cast a fairly good image on the ground, on some paper, and some other items. Got some reasonably good photos, too. There were some others that did even better, using some boxes with white screens, and a really tiny hole in aluminum foil for the lens — which got some really sharp images.
The company where I work obligingly moved lunch time to an hour later for those of us that wanted to go out and see the show. There were folks with heavy neutral-density filters and welder’s masks (we do a lot of manufacturing here). Some of the photos I tried to take were not very good because the range of luminosity was just too great, as in your totality image.
Fun time. By the time the 2024 eclipse gets here, we plan to be back in Texas. The DFW area will be in the totality path, as will Austin and Waco. IIRC, just south and east of Dallas will be near the center.
I may have to travel to Texas in 2024.
A better option may be to ask if the Low Carb Cruise organizers would schedule the 2024 event to coincide with the April 8th eclipse. It will last more that 4 minutes off the coast of Mazatlán. If so, sign me up!
The annular eclipse in 2023 might be cool as well
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2023-october-14
The people I was with and I were surprised by how cool it got during the eclipse!
The temperature definitely dropped for those minutes. The crickets started chirping too.
Oh yes, last eclipse we had here (UK) was only partial but the temperature drop was substantial, clouds started scudding about at alarming speed, various birds suddenly went “Is that the time???” and flew off to roost, then a few minutes later they all came out again and started a dawn chorus.
We were in the 99% totality area. They were predicting some clouds with storms later but we should have been okay to see the eclipse. Unfortunately we got about a third through the Eclipse and it completely clouded over with a huge storm that lasted until 15 minutes past the event. Arrrrgh! Well I did get to see part of it and we did get the darkness but it was really disappointing that I didn’t get to see all of it. Maybe I’ll go and stay with my sister-in-law in Texas for the 2024 one.
That’s some very unlucky timing.
So awesome that you and family got to see the totality! We had about 70% eclipse here in the DFW area of North Texas. We were training tutors and we all (40 of us) went outside to see it. We only had 2 pairs of glasses for all of us, but those with them shared and we all got to see the orange crescent of the sun thru them. One guy had an app on his phone and I took some pics, but the resulting photos were of a bright starburst, not showing the actual eclipse. I hope I didn’t damage my eyes looking at the image on his phone!
I think your eyes are safe.
Thank you for sharing. So sorry about your pa-in-law — I pray he’s recovering well. He seems to have had a rough time lately.
He’s had a very rough time indeed, and I’m pretty sure it’s all the downstream result of diabetes. Sad reminder of why this diet stuff matters.
We got about 95-97% here in tulsa. I did the “punch a hole in a manila folder” trick and managed to cast a fairly good image on the ground, on some paper, and some other items. Got some reasonably good photos, too. There were some others that did even better, using some boxes with white screens, and a really tiny hole in aluminum foil for the lens — which got some really sharp images.
The company where I work obligingly moved lunch time to an hour later for those of us that wanted to go out and see the show. There were folks with heavy neutral-density filters and welder’s masks (we do a lot of manufacturing here). Some of the photos I tried to take were not very good because the range of luminosity was just too great, as in your totality image.
Fun time. By the time the 2024 eclipse gets here, we plan to be back in Texas. The DFW area will be in the totality path, as will Austin and Waco. IIRC, just south and east of Dallas will be near the center.
I may have to travel to Texas in 2024.
A better option may be to ask if the Low Carb Cruise organizers would schedule the 2024 event to coincide with the April 8th eclipse. It will last more that 4 minutes off the coast of Mazatlán. If so, sign me up!
That would be cool.
I got this flash of a vision of, about, oh… 25 monster cruise ships all clustering in a small tight area; y’all can share drinks across the rail! Hope the CREWS keep their eyes on their competition — so as not to make them ship decorations!
The annular eclipse in 2023 might be cool as well
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2023-october-14
The people I was with and I were surprised by how cool it got during the eclipse!
The temperature definitely dropped for those minutes. The crickets started chirping too.
Oh yes, last eclipse we had here (UK) was only partial but the temperature drop was substantial, clouds started scudding about at alarming speed, various birds suddenly went “Is that the time???” and flew off to roost, then a few minutes later they all came out again and started a dawn chorus.
We were in the 99% totality area. They were predicting some clouds with storms later but we should have been okay to see the eclipse. Unfortunately we got about a third through the Eclipse and it completely clouded over with a huge storm that lasted until 15 minutes past the event. Arrrrgh! Well I did get to see part of it and we did get the darkness but it was really disappointing that I didn’t get to see all of it. Maybe I’ll go and stay with my sister-in-law in Texas for the 2024 one.
That’s some very unlucky timing.
My son and I drove from Atlanta up to Greenwood, SC and got to camp in a nearby park the night before, where we stayed to experience the eclipse. A few clouds started to pop up mid day, but they all disappeared well before totality. Was an amazing 2½-minute “once in a lifetime” opportunity… that I plan to repeat in April of 2024.
I kept an eye on the weather reports for 10 days, and on Sunday, I decided I wasn’t up for a 13 hour drive out to clear skies in Casper WY. The path of totality was going to be partly cloudy from Nebraska to Illinois, so I drove three and a half hours down to Columbia MO, which was closest to where I live in SE Iowa. I went out in the boonies to the Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area. There was only a small crowd gathered out there; I think the several miles of gravel road to get there may have discouraged a lot of people. The shared experience was that words simply couldn’t describe how amazing totality is. Biggest bummer of the whole thing was the traffic jam afterwards; it took almost five hours to drive back home.
We got lucky on the skies as well. Clouds rolled in for a bit, then drifted away in time for the eclipse.
I saw a car wreck yesterday…a totaled Eclipse. 😉
Rimshot.
My son and I drove from Atlanta up to Greenwood, SC and got to camp in a nearby park the night before, where we stayed to experience the eclipse. A few clouds started to pop up mid day, but they all disappeared well before totality. Was an amazing 2½-minute “once in a lifetime” opportunity… that I plan to repeat in April of 2024.
30-40 miles N of Atlanta. I had kinda blown it off; reeeeally didn’t want to drive to KY or wherever and deal with the suggested millions of people and couple hours walk from parking to viewing areas… Okay-fine. {sigh} The night before, I looked it up and: WHAAAAA!!?? 97% total here in Cumming. ACK EEK! No glasses (and fer shure nowhere to find them between the 11-noon meeting AND the eclipse… Decided to go to my machinist’s office and see if he had any #14 welding shields. (Nope. {sigh})
But, I stuck around and watched as the area got gloomy-dark and then unwound. (Yes, of course, I DID grab a glance at the sun… saw THREE of them and … was that partly occluded or just glare? Oh hell. Reading glasses on, not my distance glasses. Oh well.
Did got the ‘effect’ of stillness. (Alas, down here in mid-GA — it did NOT get at all cooler, nor less humid.) Still, pretty cool!
30-40 miles N of Atlanta. I had kinda blown it off; reeeeally didn’t want to drive to KY or wherever and deal with the suggested millions of people and couple hours walk from parking to viewing areas… Okay-fine. {sigh} The night before, I looked it up and: WHAAAAA!!?? 97% total here in Cumming. ACK EEK! No glasses (and fer shure nowhere to find them between the 11-noon meeting AND the eclipse… Decided to go to my machinist’s office and see if he had any #14 welding shields. (Nope. {sigh})
But, I stuck around and watched as the area got gloomy-dark and then unwound. (Yes, of course, I DID grab a glance at the sun… saw THREE of them and … was that partly occluded or just glare? Oh hell. Reading glasses on, not my distance glasses. Oh well.
Did got the ‘effect’ of stillness. (Alas, down here in mid-GA — it did NOT get at all cooler, nor less humid.) Still, pretty cool!
I hope your father in law gets well soon, and be up and walking in no time
Thank you.
I hope your father in law gets well soon, and be up and walking in no time
Thank you.