Total Eclipse: Anticipation

by Shane L. Larson

There are many amazing sky events that happen to pique the interest of amateur astronomers. I went out in 1994 and watched the shattered fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 plummet into Jupiter, scarring the giant planet’s atmosphere with dark swaths of discolor larger than the Earth.  In 2001, I sat up all night in a campground in Cloverdale, CA counting Leonid meteors in one of the best storms in recent memory.  I’ve sat cross-legged in an empty field just off of I-80 in Kearney, Nebraska, peering through a small spotting scope at a bright supernova in spiral galaxy M101, just detectable at the edge of my vision.

All of these events, and many more like them, are important and interesting to those of us who forego sleep regularly to stand out under the dark and look at the night sky. There is something exhilarating about hunting for a few photons that just happened to cross the great gulf of space and fall to Earth at the exact moment I was looking up. But it is not for everyone.

Total solar eclipse progression. [Image by Justin Ng]

Tomorrow, people living in North America will be witness to one of the most profound spectacles the Cosmos has to offer: an eclipse of the Sun. Everyone in North America, if their skies are clear enough, will be able to see something. For a couple of hours, on 21 August 2017, the Moon will pass between Earth and the Sun, partially blocking the view of the Sun.  If you stand along a pathway roughly 70 miles wide that stretches from Oregon to South Carolina, there will be about two minutes during your day when the Sun is completely hidden behind the Moon. The skies will get dark, and the day will feel cooler — it will, for two minutes of your day, feel like night. You are standing in the shadow of the Moon.

Standing in the shadow of a total solar eclipse is one of the most profound personal experiences with the Cosmos you can have. Those comets and supernovas I mentioned before are cool to witness, particularly if you know what you’re looking at and can be reflective about the profound distances those little photons of light have travelled.  But a total solar eclipse is different.

Our lives, whether we think about it or not, are ruled by the Sun.

It is impossible to be unaware that our lives on Earth are acutely connected to the Sun. We bask in its warmth, play in its dappled rays, and soak up its energy every day. But during totality it will completely vanish from your view — you can’t help but notice that it is just gone from its normal place in the sky and our lives. People struggle to explain the ephemeral and visceral reaction they have to the sight and raw beauty of these singularly moving events.

For this eclipse, there are more people who live near the path of totality, and more people that can get to the path of totality, than possibly any eclipse in history. The eclipse tomorrow will be one of the most viewed natural events in the history of our civilization.  You owe it to yourself, no matter where you are, to at least take a moment and #lookUp and share in the spectacle with your fellow humans.

What can you expect?  In your local media you should be able to find the times when you can see something going on in your area. There are great online tools; I like the Astronomy Magazine widget (here is the link!) that gives you eclipse times for any place you click on a map.

For most people, the partial eclipse will last a couple of hours, and any time during those couple of hours you can see the Sun looking like a cookie with a bite taken out of it.

Eclipse glasses are a cheap, convenient, and easy way to be #EquippedToEclipse. [Image by Adler Planetarium]

During the partial eclipse, the Sun will be too bright to look at! You wouldn’t normally look at the bright Sun, so you won’t feel compelled to now!  If you want to see the partial eclipse, then a pair of the ubiquitous eclipse glasses are needed to look at the partially covered Sun. There has been a lot of concern about safety of glasses found from various outlets and vendors, and the debacle with Amazon has not helped. The American Astronomical Society (our professional society) has produced a page with vetted sources of glasses — this page includes BRANDS OF GLASSES that are certified, and also has a list of stores (e.g. Lowes etc) that are selling glasses that are safe for the event. That page is here: https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters

But what if you never got some glasses, you lost your glasses, or your dog ate your glasses?  Well never fear. Eclipse glasses are not the only way to enjoy this!

The dappled light streaming between the leaves on trees will make thousands of little eclipse images in the shadows. Watch for them! [Image by John Armstrong]

During the partial eclipse you can see what is going on by projection. Look in the shadows of trees – the dappled light will be mini eclipses. Hold up a spaghetti colander – the light in the shadow will be mini eclipses. Hold up a Ritz cracker – light thru the holes will show mini eclipses in the shadow. People have used straw hats and lacy sweater sleeves! Be creative, and enjoy the eclipse.

Also — the partial phase lasts almost 3 hours. If your friend next to you has eclipse glasses, you can share. 🙂

My image of the Ring of Fire on 20 May 2012, taken with my iPhone held up to a filtered telescope. [Image by S. L. Larson]

I have never seen a total solar eclipse (though I had the good fortune to observe the Annular Solar Eclipse on 20 May 2012 in Cedar City, UT). We watched that event in a city park, surrounded by maybe a thousand residents of the town who were watching with us. Everyone had eclipse glasses, there were projections with spoons and meshes, and we had our filtered telescopes there and talked to hundreds of people who just happened to be walking by and took a look.

What I remember most, was at maximum when there was a perfect ring of fire visible through your glasses in the sky, there was a tremendous swelling mass of cheering and shouting and joy. There was no big sporting event, no blockbuster music stars inciting that reaction.

Just a thousand humans, witnessing together one of the most beautiful spectacles the Cosmos has to offer, unable to control their joy and emotions.  It was awesome to be standing there shoulder to shoulder in that crowd.

My daughter was in kindergarten when she saw the annular eclipse in 2012, and still remembers it. Now she’s going into 6th grade, and I think she’s going to become an eclipse chaser. 🙂 [Image by S. L. Larson]

I wanted to just get a few thoughts down here about what it is like leading up to the event, musing on how it will feel on the far side.  Will I feel compelled to travel the world for the next possible one I could view (2 July 2019, over the Southern Pacific, Chile and Argentina)? Will I become an eclipse chaser, racking up 10 or 20 total solar eclipses over my lifetime? Or will I just be like, “cool, put it in the log book; when’s the next cool something to happen?” I honestly don’t know.  But we’re about to find out.

Catch you on the other side of totality….

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Here is a previous article I wrote about the astronomy behind a total solar eclipse: Stand in the Shadow of the Moon (25 Aug 2014)

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