Nature is cool

[awanderingbard]

Anybody in the path of totality for the solar eclipse yesterday? We were lucky enough to be able to see it from our back porch. Our neighbour across the street, who is an avid amateur astronomer, was so sweet and dropped off eclipse viewers in our mailbox last week, along with a note on how to use them and times for everything happening. We were super touched she thought to do that for us, especially since apparently it was impossible to get any viewers around here otherwise. I didn't think I was going to be that interested in it, but once it came time, I was actually really excited, so I'm glad we had them. Totality was very cool and very pretty with the corona around it. I think we had about three minutes worth of totality, which is near the maximum. I remember there being an annular eclipse when I was about ten that was exciting at the time and we got together in the school 'pit' (a weird little odeum-esque area in the middle of the school) to watch what I assume was a livestream/broadcast of it on one of those rolling TVs schools use. This is my first, and likely only, total eclipse. I think it's not until 2180 we'll have another in this area and I'm grateful I got to experience it.

I also think it's cool how joyful an occasion it was for everyone. After all the varying levels of bad the world has gone through and is going through in the last few years, it's nice to have a thing where we all just sort of stood together and said 'isn't this fucking cool?!'

Comments

[donutsweeper]

Ooh, you were in the totality! That's so cool!

It was supposed to be 78% where I am, but we had huge cloud cover and drizzly rain all day so no sun at all. According to my son who was outside working all day, it did get somewhat darker when the eclipse was supposed to be at its peak, but if he hadn't been out for a while previously, he never would have noticed.

[awanderingbard]

I expected it to be darker than it was, it wasn’t until basically full totality that it got dark out, and even that looked more like dusk than night time. It mostly looked like a storm was rolling in. Pax even got nervous like he does with a storm and hid with my dad for most of it. It was very cool, but not something that I think I would have travelled far to see. My brother has a friend who teaches physics at MIT in Boston and he brought his family up for it, but I get that; his special area is galaxies and galaxy clusters and his son is very into space at the moment and he was coming home to stay with family, but some people were coming all the way from British Columbia for essentially four minutes of excitement. I don’t think it was worth that.

[donutsweeper]

My thoughts on the eclipse match yours exactly. It was neat, but walk outside and look neat, not travel for hours neat.

Poor Pax though!! Please give him a few pats from me

[aelfgyfu_mead]

That's wonderful!

We got about 58%. I had the proper glasses and let my class out early; a few of them walked over with me to a good viewing site, and I passed around the glasses. I hope someday to see a total eclipse.