Robin WassermanVerified account @robinwasserman 7h7 hours ago
There's a guy in this coffee shop who literally just said, "Did it start yet?" then walked outside, looked straight up, and screamed.
had the kids miss the first day of school today. Drove up to the Lake of the Ozarks yesterday for some family fun then this morning made our way to California, MO and their lovely town park which was nice afternoon church picnic type busy but not overrun at all with tourists. Laid out the blankets, picnic etc and waited. California mayor goes around welcoming everyone who came from out of town.
Kids weren't too enthused but we knew at some point they'd appreciate it at some point and they got to run around with other kids for a few hours. For us totality was 1:13:28 to 1:14:38 according to the internet. We grab the kids around 1:05 to settle down and watch. They were somewhat grumpy but acquiesced.
Around 1:08 it starts to get dusk like and the secedas start up. Odd to hear them in the middle of the day and they were in full force! Then totality happens and my kids have to pick their jaws up off the ground. The streetlights turn on. You can see Venus, Mars and I believe mercury. The moon is a black disc with sun rays coming out around it. It was spectacular. We didn't see Jupiter though I think we were supposed to be able to. Clouds in the area so maybe that's why to internet lies. The difference between 99% to 100% is astounding. Nice thing was we had beautiful weather the entire time and ant cloud cover was light enough that you could still see everything with the glasses on.
Well worth the three hour drive that's for sure. I now understand how people become total eclipse chasers. Argentina 2019 here we come.....
Last edited by ernie; 08-21-2017 at 07:10 PM.
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Just kind of a dumb moment that made me happy today while checking out the eclipse. I made myself the dorky cereal box pinhole projector thing, and I was standing out in the field next to my apartment building to check it out. There were some kids across the street with their mom who had actual glasses. As I'm standing there feeling like a total nerd geeking out about the eclipse, a huge landscaping truck is driving down the street and I'm feeling really self-conscious standing by myself with a cereal box.
But the driver poked his head out of his truck and very excitedly asked if I was watching the eclipse. He was probably a 25 year old guy, and then woman across the street joined the conversation, and he and his buddy got out of their truck and the woman shared her pairs of glasses all around with the landscaping guys and me, it was just this really awesome moment of humanity, all of us sharing this phenomenon.
With all the hate and anger and bad news out there lately, it was a really cool thing, just random people sharing the event together. Just watching how no matter just how terrible the world can be, sometimes there are things that, for at least a little while, can make us all stop and realize what an awesome world we live in. For a few hours it wasn't about North Korea or Nazis or Antifa or what stupid thing Trump did or said. It was about potentially a once in a lifetime event that people all through the US got to experience.
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I was able to recover some detail in the raw files. This is the same shot, basically unprocessed top left, then 3 zoom levels. The contrail with the tree leaves is cool in the full frame, and the detail shows some crazy rays going on. Not gonna lie, I pulled the hell out of the sliders processing this. But the detail recovery is neat. I think there are some planets or stars showing as well.
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I watched through like a stack of sunglasses, and it was shared among a group of people. Probably watched it through the glasses a grand total of 45 seconds.
I saw a crescent moon when I closed my eyes or blinked for about 10 minutes after. Do I have eye damage?
We camped overnight in the bighorn mountains and yesterday morning started driving down to Casper. With the freeway really busy we were reading reports of traffic backups outside Casper, so once we got down near totality, we took off from the freeway, and got on a dirt road that wound its way down through ranchlands. Eventually we found a ridge with a vast, desolate view to the east and west.
My favorite moment was looking out over the landscape and seeing it change at the moment that totality hit. Everything changes so fast, it's so unlike anything we're used to in nature. After an hour of watching through the welding lenses, and a couple minutes of seeing the world around you grow dim as though you're wearing ever darker sunglasses, those two minutes of the actual eclipse are so sudden and intense, and I can't imagine anyone feeling that it's long enough to see everything there is to see. You want to study the corona, you want to count stars and planets, you want to appreciate the sunset in all directions, you want to see the light in the landscape around you. My heart was pounding in my chest the whole time.
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I watched through like a stack of sunglasses, and it was shared among a group of people. Probably watched it through the glasses a grand total of 45 seconds.
I saw a crescent moon when I closed my eyes or blinked for about 10 minutes after. Do I have eye damage?
We went to Olympic Park. There was a man and his wife, who were kind enough to bring a telescope and several pairs of solar eclipse glasses, and share them with the people in the park. It was neat seeing the eclipse through the telescope, but it was somewhat underwhelming without using special accessories. Considering 80% of the Sun was obstructed, I figured the sky would darken substantially, but it was not to be.
We set out from Butte at 5am, I15 south was surprising quiet, we got off the interstate at Dubrois and headed out west on ID22. Had an amazing spot under Saddle Mountain, just NW of the INL Test Area North. We were set 90 minutes before the start of the eclipse.
Totality was absolutely mind blowing, it definitely needs to be witnessed in person to appreciate it. 360 degree sunset was amazing. The corona of the sun, in all it's wispy beauty! We were sweating on bald desert, and by the time the sun was 90+ obscured, I needed a jacket. Highly recommend!
Last edited by Flacker; 08-22-2017 at 09:54 AM.
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GOBSMACKED! That was something I would have never been able to prepare myself for and something words just can't describe. I WILL be going out east for the 2024 totality, I need my fix now!
The temp drop, the dimming, the deep black hole in the sky, that certainly was in the top 2 life experiences, possibly #1. (I have a boring life...). My phone died and my dash cams (trying to get crowd reactions) over wrote the video I had... started driving away without uploading the video from my cameras, like a fool... but that makes this experience wholly my own, almost emotional typing this 24 hours after the fact.
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Last edited by GreatWhiteEbola; 08-22-2017 at 10:31 AM.
So whoever told me that 80% coverage was a 3/10 pretty much nailed it. I took the day off to watch from my backyard and while it was neat to see, I'm not sure I'd dedicate any time to it again unless I was going to see totality. I was hoping for it to be dimmer and cooler, but it was still cool to look up as see the sun look like a crescent moon.
I guess the thing that impressed me the most was the fact that it was still crazy sunny even though 80% of the sun was blocked. Gives you a good sense of how massive the sun (and universe) really is, and how small we are on this planet.
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Totality was easily one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life. I can understand though why Calgary people weren't very impressed though, it was the last minute >95% coverage when things really became impressive. Watching the last edge flickering like a candle in the wind being blown out while the light goes from mid day to nearly black in like 30 seconds was incredible.
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We got back at 2:30 am today. Drove 11 hours straight from Rigby, ID to Calgary with two pit stops and 1/2-hour border crossing. Was totally worth it.
We spent two nights in Butte, like a few others (saw lots of Alberta license plates there). Went to Yellowstone on Saturday to see the Old Faithful Geyser and Grand Prismatic Pool, which was awesome. Then, on Sunday, we drove to "Eclipsestock" - which was a 150-tent camp on a farmer's field near Rigby. Organizers did a good job. Everyone got their piece of real estate without hassles for $80. Portable toilettes were provided.
The total eclipse was something supernatural. Honestly, I didn't care for it much, while it was partial - meh, big deal, right? But when the sun turned into a black hole, everything suddenly went dark and really cold, the feeling was unbelievable. I can only imagine how fearful people of the past must have felt in the old days seeing this... We now want to go see it again when it happens in a reasonably feasible destination.
Took lots of photos. Hopefully, got some good ones. Will post once processed.
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