2017 Eclipse

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

So, I drove down from the Chicagoland area to see the eclipse. Chicago was only getting about 89% coverage - totality is the real magic event! So I drove down to Litchfield, IL (about a 5 hr. drive) on Sunday night and got a hotel so I could have an easier time the next morning. Originally I planned on going to Carbondale, IL, but then I looked at some weather sites and the cloud cover was too high. So then I changed it to Festus, MO. Then that forecast changed. Then when I got to Litchfield the forecast changed again, so I decided on Karnak, IL. The morning of the eclipse that forecast changed dramatically as well. Goddamned worthless weather forecasters! The forecast changed dramatically over the course of 6 measly hours! So with little sleep I finally decided on Columbia, MO, which had the least cloud cover - 41%. Another 3+ hr. drive and it was hot as hell...about 90+ with a 70+ dewpoint (tropical). Sweat my ass off! But hell, the last time I saw a total eclipse was 1979. This one had totality (where I was) for a full 2 minutes, 30+ seconds!

It was a good choice. It was amazing! It's crazy how you can see the sun blotted out about 95% with the safety glasses, and yet without the glasses it's like full sunny daylight. You look up without the glasses, it looks like a full sun. And then the moment of totality hits - the last tiniest sliver of sun is covered, and it's like instant darkness! It's not like a gradual sunset. It's sunny until the last second, then suddenly it goes from day to night literally like turning off a light switch. Crickets started chirping, street lights came on in the distance, the animals went crazy!

After 2 1/2 long minutes the sun peeked out, just the tiniest minute sliver, and in that first split second it looked like an explosion of light from a single point next to the sun, then it was full daylight. Amazing! And while it was blacked out - just unreal seeing the ring of fire and the solar flares.

Then there was the long, impossibly jammed up trip back - Damned tourists! Another 8 hours to get home. So overall about 16 hours of driving in the last 31 hrs. I am tired!

Did anyone else here get a good look at it? I can't wait till 2024 - same area, only with 4+ full minutes of totality!

[RPG Dinosaur]

I live in western Washington state and it reached 89% here. Locally, the Eclipse started at I believe 9:02 a.m. Pacific time and the most coverage was at 10:20 IIRC. It took me so long to get wound down from work on Sunday that I didn't get up until about 9:40 a.m.
Most of Washington state, including my area, lucked out with sunny weather that was clear as a bell. As the eclipse got closer to 10:20, it was a trip seeing the sunlight diminish. It was like a normal, sunny day, but the sun wasn't as bright as usual, but not because of cloud cover, which was a STRANGE effect.
At 10:15 I went out on my deck. I am lucky because the view of the sun isn't affected by any trees or nearby buildings out there. I noticed that it was unusually quiet. I live close to a busy street and there wasn't much traffic. There was no sounds from birds. I put the glasses on and looked up. I watched the 89% coverage happening through the glasses, but frankly wasn't overwhelmed by what I was seeing. I had gone to a presentation by a local astronomical society at my public library a week before and seen projector pictures of complete coverage with the corona illuminated and such. To me, the view through the glasses, while cool, just didn't match up to that.
My biggest payoff of the day actually came from TV. About 10:25, I came in and logged on to the NASA page, put on Pink Floyd's Brain Damage/Eclipse and took in various looks and commentary from different areas, however none featured total coverage of the sun. Then the feeds on the NASA page went out and I turned on CNN. They showed a path of totality look in from someplace in Missouri, not all that far from where you were Halaster. That was just amazing. They did a split screen shot of the sun/moon and also the landscape where they were at. It was amazing seeing the darkness coming. It was amazing seeing the landscape while the darkness was there and it was amazing seeing the light coming back from the Western horizon, all in a matter of minutes.
I heard the term 'path of totality' so often leading up to this that I've been saying it in my sleep.

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

RPG Dinosaur wrote:

but frankly wasn't overwhelmed by what I was seeing.

Yeah, the real magic is in totality. Without special glasses, I've noticed that even at 80% or 90% totality, if you look into the sky, the sun looks full. It's just so bright, your eyes are overwhelmed. It's so bizarre to see the light turn off and on like a light switch.