Total Solar Eclipse 2024

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > The Great Outdoors > Total Solar Eclipse 2024

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

Yes, thank you for making this thread! I went out to bumfuck nowhere South Carolina for the 2017 eclipse, and it was absolutely worth the effort. Just a magical, unforgettable experience.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2023 17:37

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 01:21

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

If you're on the fence, read this blog post from Maciej Cegłowski about the 2012 eclipse. https://idlewords.com/2012/11/total_eclipse_of_the_sun.htm

quote:

6:37 AM

Things happen quickly. The photos capture what it looks like to see the sun turn into a crescent and then wink out. What they don't capture is that feeling of the world fading out just as if someone were turning a dimmer switch. It's darker and cooler than sunset, even though the relative colors are those of a bright, sunny day. The effect hits a big red button in the reptile brain, saying 'something is not right'. The closest I can remember to it is those summer storms in Illinois where it would get really dark in a matter of seconds, and you knew you had best go hide under something sturdy.

6:38 AM

Totality! And we can see it! The beach goes completely dark, except for hundreds of flashbulbs from fools who have forgotten to set their camera correctly. I fumble to get a picture, and my flash goes off. The sun has tricked us all! It was behind a very thin cloud at the end, but so dim that it looked like it was blocked out. Now it's clearly visible, a dark hole punched in the sky, surrounded by the corona. I don't have the equipment for a precise reading, but I estimate the metalness of the eclipse at 2.4 megaslayers. I am getting good value for my eclipse-viewing dollar.

The beach is whooping and hollering, looking at the apparition in the sky. The cruise ship is lit up like a chandelier again, and all around the horizon you can see the red and orange sunset colors, where the sunlight from a hundred kilometers away is filtering through to us. Up in the sky the planets and brightest stars are visible, but no one can look at that since we're all riveted by the sight of the ridiculous, over the top, airbrushed-on-the-side-of-a-van thing hanging in the sky where the sun used to be. I am thankful I have not taken any drugs.

6:40 AM

A single dot of sunlight emerges through some lunar crevice, and for an instant it's reflected in the ocean, like a distant lighthouse at night. An instant later it's too bright to look at, and then daylight starts coming slowly back again. I notice that high tide has snuck up on all of us in the past hour and is menacing our feet. The mood on the beach is as jolly as I've ever seen people before seven in the morning. My guess is that half the crowd is from the region, and half are visitors, but everybody is glad they came out, and that the clouds didn't steal the eclipse from us. I am happy that the timing of the eclipse gave everyone in Port Douglas the chance to come see it, not just us tourists.

[...]

On the drive-time radio show in Port Douglas, Australia, the host promises to bring on an astrologer to talk about �what the eclipse means for your life�. But for me that's the opposite of what makes it wonderful. The eclipse doesn't even know you exist. Nature provides a brief alignment of the Moon and Sun that is completely foreordained, immutable, and will happen with Swiss precision for another billion or so years, whether or not anyone is looking. It is on us to aggregate into litttle bubbles of protoplasm, develop eyes, emerge onto land, discover fire, evolve language, ask the brainier among us where the thing will happen, and make the appropriate travel arrangements.

A good way to feel small is to look at the Wikipedia list of future solar eclipses, and think about that fact that between one and another of them you are going to disappear, but the eclipses will keep happening, about one a year, until the moon finally drifts too far away from the earth to perform the magic trick anymore.

It's the greatest thing that happens in the sky. Find one on the list you can go see, and see it!

Safety Dance fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Mar 7, 2023

# ¿ Mar 7, 2023 18:40

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

Yes but where and when else could you park the ship, get out, and get a decent plate of brisket during the eclipse?

# ¿ Jun 5, 2023 20:45

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

SgtScruffy posted:

I�d ideally like to try to do something that isn�t just �drive 10 hours to the parking lot of a motel that�s in bumfuck nowhere but in the totality!� but also maybe the answer is "gently caress it thats what I do"

Last time around we were staying with some friends in a cabin about an hour away from the line of totality, and we saw the eclipse from the train tracks next to the main street of a tiny town in South Carolina. Traffic was relatively mild.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2023 17:31

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

Unless you're already into astrophotography and you have filters ready to go, I'd sit back and enjoy somebody else's pics later. Right up until totality, keeping your camera pointed at the sun can melt lens elements and burn out your camera's sensor.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2023 22:19

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

Mustache Ride posted:

This was announced in the Marble Falls TX community meeting:

I saw the 2017 eclipse from a community in rural South Carolina and traffic was a non-event. Maybe a little bit of backup leaving town, but nothing to be concerned about. I'd wager a lot of the above is preparing for the worst by about a factor of 10.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2024 19:21

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

I am giddy with anticipation for you all!

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 18:30

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

Typically highs in the 90s. Unpleasant, but not unbearable.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 22:09

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

notwithoutmyanus posted:

It's just not a holy poo poo experience to everyone. People have different experiences.

It was unique and interesting to me, but even if we magically had a two hour totality (which is impossible) I wouldn't exactly care after a couple minutes.

No, there's a correct way to experience the world. All wrong-experience-havers should expect re-education.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2024 20:00

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

I had a brief moral debate about whether I could threaten to ban people who had the wrong experience, but not specify what that was and not ban anyone, but I worried some folks might get upset at the joke.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2024 18:59

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 01:21

Safety Dance: Sep 10, 2007; Five degrees to starboard!

kreeningsons posted:

could I get a scathing commemorative sixer for having the wrong eclipse experience, thanks

The pact is sealed.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2024 21:19

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