Beyond the Mysterious Beyond > The Fridge

2024 Solar Eclipse

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f-22 "raptor" ace:
apparently all of the airbnb's in the path are filled up

rhombus:
The family and I are planning on going to the same winery we went to for the 2017 eclipse. We had a good experience there and were able to talk to visitors from all around the world. I am not looking forward to the traffic though.  :sducky

The Chronicler:
Well, looks like my plans are now finalized. My family and I will not be traveling anywhere, and will instead be watching the solar eclipse tomorrow from our home. My brother and his family will be staying where they are, but everyone else who wanted to join us will be gathering at my house rather than my brother's house. While this means we'll get to see the total eclipse for only two minutes instead of three, at least I'll have the literally once in a lifetime opportunity to watch this event from my own backyard.

Tomorrow's weather forecast for this area is expecting to be mostly clear with some clouds rolling in later in the afternoon, so I'll be holding out hope that those clouds stay away just long enough to allow us to personally observe the eclipse when it reaches totality.

The Chronicler:
The eclipse has come and gone today, and I will say there's nothing like witnessing such an incredible celestial event from your own backyard.

During the partial eclipse leading up to (and following after) totality, I definitely used the solar eclipse glasses from the ten-pack I had gotten a few months ago to observe how much of the sun was covered up. I also used a pair of binoculars to project an image of the sun down onto a white paper plate so that I could take pictures of the partially eclipsed sun.

During the two minutes of totality, I took three pictures of the eclipsed sun, along with Venus that was visible to the lower right, but only the last of those three also included Jupiter to the upper left because I forgot about it in the prior attempts and essentially ended up rushing to get that last one taken before totality ended (the second picture ultimately came out the best, albeit hardly professional, while the third one in my effort to include Jupiter was unfortunately slightly blurred). Between taking those photos, I used the binoculars to get a better look at the sun's corona, and I was able to see a bright pink spot on the lower edge, which I later learned was a solar prominence, a special bonus I had really hoped I would get to see thanks to solar activity currently nearing the peak of its eleven year cycle.

As for the environment around me, we definitely heard several birds making a lot of noise in the minutes leading up to totality (including an owl). During totality and in the minutes following it, one rather unpleasant experience was so many mosquitos suddenly becoming active, so at least I'm glad I always wear a jacket whenever I'm outdoors. Also, we have a large tree in our backyard, but this early in spring means there's no leaves on it yet, so not only did it not obscure our view of the eclipse, it also gave us the opportunity to witness how funky the shadows of those bare branches on our deck got in the minutes before and after totality.

As much as I sure wished I could've gotten an extra minute to experience totality, I definitely enjoyed the once in a lifetime privilege to witness a total solar eclipse from my lifelong home, and I'm sure there were plenty of other people in the neighborhood who enjoyed it as well. I will now look forward to hearing from others both here and on other sites on what their experiences were like.

The Chronicler:
One more thing from yesterday's eclipse that I forgot to mention.

Just before totality, we heard an airplane fly overhead, and shortly after totality, we saw someone descending via parachute from the sky over us. We later found out that, apparently, some adrenaline junkies had decided to observe the total solar eclipse while skydiving, and it seems one of them happened to be right over our home town. Kind of strange, but so long as they followed all safety procedures (both the skydiving itself and the observation of the eclipse), more power to them.

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