|
The trip from home to Mt. Vernon took the usual amount of time--about 1.5 hours. The trip back easily took more than an hour longer than that. While we were able to beat the rush on the way to the event, there was no avoiding the rush to get home. We stayed at the event until maybe 3:30 PM CDT, ate at Bojangles around 4 - 4:30 or so, left town at 5, and I-64 W was just... well, normally it'd be annoying, but I was in a good mood. The only places where I'd say it was parking-lot-levels of slow were from where we entered the Interstate to the I-57 exit, and again around the IL-4 interchange. There were other slowdowns to be sure--miles where we were rolling along around 30 MPH at best separated by miles where we could open it back up to 70--but those two areas were just awful. After IL-4, we got to the Metro East proper, and the road just opened up at Fairview Heights... just in time for me to exit 7 miles later. I hate this kind of traffic, but not today. I saw a few people try to hack the highway's programming, trying to stay in whichever lane seemed to be moving faster at any given moment. We started giving them nicknames. All I could think was, didn't they see the eclipse? Chill and relax, brothers! In 2017, we had totality for around a minute. This time, it was for almost four minutes, and a pretty good spot that had both shade and just enough sky to get clear views of the sun. I took a bunch of pictures on my Canon PowerShot, which was the same camera I had in 2017 I think. It's a decent quality point-and-click for its time, said time being back when phone cameras could not quite yet outperform a good point-and-click with optical zoom. I was using it today because my G21's camera is awesome--I got the model with the best camera--but when you get it close to the eyepiece of a telescope, it starts switching lenses in an effort to outsmart you. Disaster almost struck, though. When I switched to video mode, after a minute or two, the battery icon started flashing. This was bad because I have only three batteries--two aftermarket ones from a few years back that have lots of capacity, and the one that came with the camera a decade ago. One of the aftermarket ones died quickly, I'd probably worn it down the last time I farted around with the camera. The other one was dying just as totality was approaching, and changing the battery would require a quick realignment of the camera in my telescope camera holder contraption thing. But, the original battery was charged, and I was able to record the event. It's not pro, I have to realign the telescope in a few spots, and I paused it so I could take a couple of still pics, but I got it. I can't wait until the batteries are charged, or at least one of them, so I can download the pics and video. Magical. Truly magical. The super late lunch/early supper is why we're having snacks tonight, but I'm having a few drinks, too, to let it all settle in. I'm glad so many of us managed to get clear skies. Or, clear enough skies, as we had high clouds that made the event have a little fog around the sun that was pretty cool.
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 02:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 05:20 |
|
|
2 hours to get there, 5 hours on site, an hour and a halfish to get a leisurely post-totality lunch and take in the town (which was charming), then about 4 hours to get home through rush hour + eclipse traffic. I’m so tired it’s physically aggravating my allergies but it was all unquestionably, completely, a million percent worth it. I went with my mom, who turned 80 last year, and an even older honorary aunt. It was the first time either of them seen the totality in their entire lives. If I can persuade them to come with me to Iceland or wherever, maybe it won’t have to be the last time. I just want to experience it all over again. My memories are already going fuzzy because it was so shocking and weird it was unprocessable. if my plane disintegrates on the way back home, i’m still going to haunt everyone at Boeing, but at least I got to see this first. ENEMIES EVERYWHERE fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Apr 9, 2024 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 02:35
|
|
]
|
Anybody know of any photographers that might have some photos of the eclipse for sale? All my photos were rear end (I only brought my cell phone so I didn't expect to get anything good), but I think I'd be interested in buying a print to frame if I could find something I liked.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 02:42
|
|
|
Sirotan posted:Anybody know of any photographers that might have some photos of the eclipse for sale? All my photos were rear end (I only brought my cell phone so I didn't expect to get anything good), but I think I'd be interested in buying a print to frame if I could find something I liked. I doubt you'll have trouble finding digital pictures in high resolution that can have prints made of them. Just give it a day or so. Of course, there may well be some fantastic, high-resolution, copyright-free images coming from NASA or something, too. Whelp, I finally threw away the box of Celestron EclipSmart stuff that I bought in 2017. I kept one pair of the cardboard eclipse glasses and the fancy ones that came with the kit, but the rest of it, including a booklet and basic map of the event, is now going back to the Earth. I'd been keeping that box secure for seven years, and the sun had faded one side of it noticeably, but I don't need it anymore. I actually had forgotten about the booklet and map that was in it until the other day when I was getting stuff together for today's event. I'm only keeping the eclipse glasses as souvenirs, of course. We carried around our stuff in the backpack bag things we got in 2017. I could tell that the people who planned today's event were people concerned with the arts, because there was much less of a concert vibe than in 2017, when we went to watch at an amphitheater. I mean, we had avatars for the sun, moon, and stars hanging around. It's a pretty cool sculpture park, and while there are a lot of trees there, there was plenty of sky for anyone who wanted to, you know, stare at the sun. The plentiful shade was much appreciated. tarlibone fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Apr 9, 2024 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 02:50
|
|
|
Typical Rochester cloudy rear end sky so I couldn't see poo poo directly, but it getting dark and how the light caught the clouds was still cool. Not near a computer atm to upload my crappy cell phone pics.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 03:12
|
|
|
My daughter made sure that her favorite stuffie was safe too.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 03:24
|
|
|
A photo from my dad. We ended up going to a hotel/condo complex thing on the top of a hill. It worked out pretty well. For some reason the prominences came through pretty good. Headed back on secondary roads and didn't encounter any serious traffic, but did get relentlessly tailgated for the crime of only going 5 mph over.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 03:37
|
|
|
I saw this thread sometime last year and decided to take a little trip, and after an 8hr flight and just over 1800mi in a car I ended up in the DFW area, where the clouds just barely got out of the way for almost all of it to be visible. What an absolutely brilliant experience. Now to wait for the August '26 one.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 03:45
|
|
|
wtf why so much driving after the flight
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 03:46
|
|
|
My Life Hack for not getting much traffic on the way home was eating an early dinner to wait for it to die down.  I'm still just buzzing with how that felt. Any time I feel stressed, I remember how the eclipse looked and feel so much peace.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 03:47
|
|
|
ymgve posted:Time to plan for 2026, I guess. Gonna try for the dead center of totality in Spain this time. I was looking at this one as well as the 2044 Alberta eclipse and both of them look to be very late in the day, close to sunset. Does anyone know how that affects visibility?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 03:50
|
|
|
devmd01 posted:My daughter made sure that her favorite stuffie was safe too. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 04:00
|
|
|
My videos came out better than I expected! I mean, yeah, they're clearly taken with a point-and-click camera-camcorder that's held to an eyepiece with a ridiculous contraption that you can see me adjusting early on*, but it's still pretty cool, mainly because it's mine: I took it, and it might suck compared to any professional's efforts, but I did it. The stills also came out well, although I only took stills on the way up to totality (and one during totality). Nice sunspot pics. But here's a freeze-frame from the very end of totality, when the second diamond ring appears and I had to slap the solar filter back on the scope. On this frame, I am quickly getting the filter over the objective lens, right as I'm about to melt my camera's sensor. Look at what I was able to capture!!!!!!!!1  I might post the videos once I stitch them together, if anyone's interested. You can hear the whole Tarlifamily. *: I ran out of battery just before totality, and I had to swiftly remove the camera from the holder contraption thing, remove the battery, get my last battery that was hopefully charged, put it back on the thing, align it properly in 5 seconds when it took several minutes to do it on each previous attempt, and get back to filming. And I did it! I swear, I slowed down time to make it work.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 04:08
|
|
|
That was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Really happy I was able to go and take my son (1st grade), he was floored. We setup in Herrin, wasn't packed at all. We took off not too long after totality ended up on 148/51 North. Only had significant slowdown once. Spending the night in Davenport before back to Minnesota in the morning. Funny enough, car we parked next to was a guy from the suburb next to mine.MeatloafCat posted:A photo from my dad. We ended up going to a hotel/condo complex thing on the top of a hill. It worked out pretty well. For some reason the prominences came through pretty good. Headed back on secondary roads and didn't encounter any serious traffic, but did get relentlessly tailgated for the crime of only going 5 mph over. This is a fantastic picture, but it is nothing like seeing it in person. Seems like no picture captures the iridescence just right.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 04:11
|
|
|
PokeJoe posted:wtf why so much driving after the flight Because gas in the US is very cheap and I felt like taking a road trip.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 04:16
|
|
|
Mantle posted:I was looking at this one as well as the 2044 Alberta eclipse and both of them look to be very late in the day, close to sunset. Does anyone know how that affects visibility? It can vary but should generally be good. August is our prime supercell season, with huge thunderstorms, but they tend to be around 1-5pm, although they can be later. I've seen some killer sunset rainbows here. Sunset is about 8:45pm, and can either be clear if the storms were earlier or possibly cloudy if the storms were later. Calgary gets the most sunshine hours per year in the whole country, which will help. And having the Rockies on the horizon as the scenery during a golden hour eclipse would be loving amazing. I already feel like that one is going to be a big deal, especially because people will also use it as an excuse to visit Banff National Park.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 04:33
|
|
|
I have more to post when I get back home to Pittsburgh. One of our telescopes had a hydrogen-alpha eyepiece for looking at the surface of the sun. I'm confident that the middle prominence is the one that stuck out during totality. We figure it was two or three Earth-diameters in length.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 05:20
|
|
|
https://packaged-media.redd.it/3hrd...2bda35697ca#t=0
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 06:23
|
|
|
Mantle posted:I was looking at this one as well as the 2044 Alberta eclipse and both of them look to be very late in the day, close to sunset. Does anyone know how that affects visibility?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 06:30
|
|
|
i jokingly mentioned to my sister that we should go to egypt for the 2027 eclipse but now we're seriously considering it
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 12:33
|
|
|
A Nile river cruise is fun and seeing an eclipse during it would be neat for sure. Aswan\Luxor is insanely hot during the summer though but hey you won't have to deal with a single cloud because they won't exist!
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 14:00
|
|
|
The 2027 eclipse path seems to go directly over the Straights of Gibraltar, which would probably also be an amazing viewing spot
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 14:14
|
|
|
George H.W. oval office posted:A Nile river cruise is fun and seeing an eclipse during it would be neat for sure. Aswan\Luxor is insanely hot during the summer though but hey you won't have to deal with a single cloud because they won't exist! we've always wanted to go to egypt anyway, so it seems like the best possible excuse to go. prolly spend a week or so there so we can properly check out thebes, maybe try and put together an itenerary that includes other sites and stay a bit longer. this, of course, assumes we can afford to actually go.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 14:46
|
|
|
The 2027 and 2028 ones are relatively long duration too, over 5 minutes. I think I'm most jazzed for 2026 in Iceland, weather will almost certainly suck but it's fuckin Iceland. Clouds or no clouds you win. Then once you get into the 2030's, assuming we're not all fighting for scraps in a barren wasteland, 2033 and 2037 are my picks. Getting to Nome in March might be an expensive challenge but getting on top of a mountain/hill and looking down to look for shadowbands on a layer of snow sounds interesting.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 14:59
|
|
|
GunnerJ posted:The 2027 eclipse path seems to go directly over the Straights of Gibraltar, which would probably also be an amazing viewing spot The killer whales know, and they've been practicing. Waiting for the arrival of all those boats.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 15:05
|
|
|
I was in totality for around 3:30 with perfect clear skies in Newport VT. 2 for 2 between 2017 and today. Feeling extremely fortunate and still riding the glow.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 17:27
|
|
|
Mantle posted:I was looking at this one as well as the 2044 Alberta eclipse and both of them look to be very late in the day, close to sunset. Does anyone know how that affects visibility? https://eclipsophile.com/tse2026/ does seem to think it will be an issue btwn angle and clouds
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 17:29
|
|
|
Kids and I went to a grocery store parking lot in a small town west of Waco TX and had a perfectly clear patch of sky when totality happened. I was further amazed going into the grocery store afterward for snacks for the trip back and seeing people just shopping away with full carts absolutely oblivious to the eclipse.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 17:37
|
|
|
duodenum posted:Kids and I went to a grocery store parking lot in a small town west of Waco TX and had a perfectly clear patch of sky when totality happened. lol
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 17:58
|
|
|
Drove a cumulative ~14 hours from Chicagoland to rural IL to stare at the sun. Would recommend. Got some wild shots - was not expecting to be able to see solar flares.  
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 18:12
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 18:18
|
|
|
Those are some fine prominences and beads. I love how every eclipse has its very own corona and solar flare combo. It is insanely easy to spot shots of the 2017 eclipse from the three pointed corona for example. The prominences of 2024 to me are the most identifiable trait. And in case it hasn't been mentioned in here yet, those are about 3 earths long.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2024 18:24
|
|
|
duodenum posted:Kids and I went to a grocery store parking lot in a small town west of Waco TX and had a perfectly clear patch of sky when totality happened. Because no one cares. Don't let the sudden influx of eclipse tourists make you think there's a lot of interest in celestial events like a total solar eclipse or a great comet. No one fuckin cares. I've been evangelizing amateur astronomy since the day I picked up The How and Why Wonder Book of Stars from a bookshelf in my second grade classroom, not even a month after meeting an astronaut at my grandparents' fortieth wedding anniversary in 1994. My parents (or maybe my grandparents first) gave me the nickname Star Man because of it. And no one ever fuckin cares. I could strap someone to a stretcher and staple their eyelids open and they will spontaneously combust if it means not looking up at a crescent moon. I don't know what it is. People just don't understand what things are unless it directly affects them and don't learn because reading hurts and education is inconvenient at all ages. I'll try to tell people to go outside and look at Venus and it's met with complete indifference. "It's too cloudy." "There's too much light pollution." "I don't care." I don't care how many millions of people saw this total eclipse of the sun, but approximately two or three individuals will ever so much as learn how to find the Big Dipper.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 00:02
|
|
|
Star Man posted:Because no one cares. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 00:06
|
|
|
Star Man posted:And no one ever fuckin cares. I could strap someone to a stretcher and staple their eyelids open and they will spontaneously combust if it means not looking up at a crescent moon. If it help you feel better I got my elementary school to care for a partial eclipse in the 80's, I was the resident space nerd and read about it in my copy of Odyssey. End result the entire school was out in the playground with various homemade solar viewing apparatus.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 00:26
|
|
|
This "No one cares about the eclipse" take has made me feel a bit better about all my gushing to people, after which I worry I made them feel bad for missing out. I am like a little evangelist for taking vacations to Spain in two years, I just want everyone to experience this!
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 00:54
|
|
|
Gratz to all the new umbraphiles in this thread who will now learn the struggle of trying to convince other people that totality is amazing and worth traveling to see. I would regularly pester my friends about it as far back as grad school in like 2010. That regular pestering resulted in getting a couple of them to road trip to Oregon with me in 2017. Then THEY came back and started helping me pressure the friends who missed out, and this week I got another 9 people to see it who hadn’t before. On top of that, one of the guys that joined me in 2017 managed to get like 20 people in his extended family to see it in Ohio. It is possible to proselytize about totality but it takes some time and only really works on close friends/family or turbonerds, in my experience.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 01:26
|
|
|
The post-event blues is settling in. I get this a lot when there's some big thing that I experience, and I do it, and it's just as great as I thought it'd be, maybe even better... and then it's over, and there's a day or two of suck. In 2017, I didn't feel it very much, probably because for all the fun we had in Chesterfield that day, I had recently found out that there'd be another one in the far-off year of 2024. I bought a viewing kit a few months before the big day because there were talks of shortages if you weren't prepared, and afterward, I kept all of it so I'd have it on hand for the next one, which I though would be kind-of funny. I kept that box for nigh seven years, and every time I'd run across it in my garage, I'd remind myself that it was important to save it because of the upcoming eclipse. Initially, I was planning on setting up some grand campout years in advance, but that wasn't practical, and with time the urgency faded, and I eventually decided I'd just look for an event, buy tickets, and hope for good weather. We got it, and it was a great day--and I do mean a great day, because we left early in the morning and got home after our usual supper time. But, it's over now. Yeah, I know there are other total eclipses in the next few years for people who can afford to travel the globe, but I can't. I might not be here for the next one in the US, and it'd be a significant trip if I wanted to go. So, for me, it's over, and I'm feeling it. But, I did do one thing that hurt a little, but I'm glad I did it when I did it and where I did it.  If I'd have waited until I got home, that box would be with me now and probably forever. I did keep some of the viewers, and I plan on making some kind of display for my living room with some of the mementos of the two exclipses I saw so close to my home and so close together. But that box had to go. (Look at how faded it is from when it was sitting on a shelf near a window. It's crazy I kept that around all this time.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 01:31
|
|
|
bawfuls posted:Gratz to all the new umbraphiles in this thread who will now learn the struggle of trying to convince other people that totality is amazing and worth traveling to see. it's sort of wild how hard it was to convince my dad, a lifelong space and tech lover, to drive 1-2 hrs north for it. now he's persuaded. but it really is hard to explain.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 01:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 05:20 |
|
|
I wonder if the digital age and prolific access to video and still images plays a part in the difficulty now. It’s hard for people to believe that something exists which is beautiful beyond description AND there are no images or videos of it which accurately reproduce the effect. You can say “oh you just have to see it for yourself!” and people will think that’s the same as a beautiful sunset or the Grand Canyon or Yosemite etc. Sure, better in person but a great photograph is still pretty good.But it’s not, there’s definitely something more to an eclipse and the sight of the sun’s corona glowing brilliantly in a darkened sky. In an earlier age where you couldn’t simply pull up a spectacular image of anything and everything instantly on a device in your pocket, I wonder if people would take more seriously the words of friends who testified to the unique majesty of an eclipse.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2024 01:44
|
|