Eclipse 2024

The total eclipse has come and gone for my little town until the year 2124. It was pretty O.K. as far as terrifying natural events go.

Just like I thought, the total eclipse was scary. No one describes them as that. It's all ooooos and ahhhhhhs but I'm here to tell you that they're like the third act of an apocalypse movie. But fun.

The eclipse was awesome, mind boggling, and all the other things people try to describe it as, it just also happens to be moderately disturbing. Not as disturbing as an alien invasion or the subsection of humans who emailed me to warn me a total eclipse is the Satanic work of the devil.

I prepared the night before the total eclipse as much as I could. I had my camera batteries charged, all my settings dialed into the camera, my solar cover made and my remote shutter control ready to go.

Everything was going to go according to plan. Just like gardening always does.

I held onto that hope as I stood in my dark, shadowless backyard minutes before the partial eclipse was supposed to begin, my camera remote in one hand and a can of Pringles in the other.

According to my watch the eclipse had begun but there was no cheering. The neighbourhood was quiet, dull, and covered in thick clouds. Looking to the sky I couldn't even tell where the sun was.

5 minutes into the event I walked away from the eclipse, blew the clouds a raspberry sound and headed in the house. I HAD PLANNED. This was soooo typical of plans.

By the time I got to the front of the house there were sharp shadows sparking across the foyer floor.

Running outside in my socks, I headed straight to my remote cable and clicked. When I looked up to the sky most of the thick cloud cover had vanished, replaced with small wisps and puffs that were no challenge for the sun.

That's right. Blowing a raspberry worked.

I threw out my plan, took some photos and stared at the sun.

To do it all wasn't too hard because of the whole practicing and preparation thing. My normal plan of attack is to wing it because plans just complicate things so this was refreshing.

My camera was automatically taking photos at various exposures at timed intervals. Every once in a while I'll walk over to the camera and realign or focus.

Totality came an hour later. Now that was a shitshow.

I had read reports that totality would last anywhere from 43 seconds to over 2 minutes. I wanted to see it, take a photo of the diamond ring effect, and also see everything that was happening around me.

No problem. I would just need to sprint.

My hypothesis being 43 seconds of sprinting feels like way longer than 43 seconds of standing. Science facts.

Totality lasted long enough for me to sprint out of my backyard and into the street because I felt too contained in my backyard.

My neighbourhood during totality was a quiet, eerie landscape punctuated by the odd person making werewolf sounds.

I have no idea if anyone else was out in the street, all I could take in was the weirdness of it all; immediate darkness, streetlights lit, Philip barking from inside the house and knowing it would be over in seconds, and when it was gone it was gone forever.

Just as the diamond ring was reappearing, I sprinted back into my backyard and my camera to get a final photo. I still have no idea how long totality lasted.

If I were to guess I'd say it was somewhere between get me off this ride and let's do it again. Those are also my thoughts when I'm at a party.

I had the same reaction to the book A Short History of Nearly Everything where solar systems, the Universe and the 2 trillion or so galaxies in it are explained in easy to terrify terms.

I put the book away after a particularly alarming chapter on gravity.

I appreciated and was awed by the entire eclipse experience but my favourite part - really was when the sun came back out again.