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.
I, too, was disappointed in my cloud cover here in north Texas but it did part long enough to get some decent photos. This was my 2nd total eclipse. You got some great shots!
You got some amazing shots Karen.
I'm in Clarington, Ontario and we could not see the sun all day. Not even a glimpse. Around 3:20pm it got a bit dark and all the solar lights came on. The temparture dropped a bit. We assumed that's when it happened.
Thanks for sharing your pix.
Well worth all your prep.
Great photos! We didn't have anything here on the Northwest Coast of the USA. (btw--it's always a good plan to meet the end of the world armed with a can of Pringles!)
Same here on the Kitsap Peninsula, WA. So many clouds it looked like nothing was going on. Glad we got to see the one in 2017.
Wow! Fantastic account of what the eclipse was like! I have only one question…
If you had your camera remote in one hand and your can of Pringles in the other, how did you eat said Pringles? I only ask this because I once tried to dump Pringles (the sweet potato ones, by the way) directly into my mouth from the can. It did not work. My floor and tennis shoe saw more potato crisp action than my mouth did! I’m looking for any Pringles eating tips you can provide, as I find eating them and vacuuming are nice companion activities! 😁
All the best to you and Mr and Mrs Snacks.
HEY! You got terrific photos! There is a distinct advantage to being home and organized. In a crowd with the grandkids - chaos! But when it got dark there was silence. Creepy and cool.
So a good friend of mine has an eye condition where little bumps grow under her eyelids that she needs to have (uggh) scraped off occasionally.
She told me she's going tomorrow at 8:30 am before leaving on a trip. It was the ONLY time she could get in because they are swamped with eye emergencies after the eclipse.
A friend in Niagara Falls told me that tons of people were gathered there and they were amazed at how many people kept looking up at the eclipse without proper eye protection. People are experiencing the "and find out" portion of FAAFO.
We weren't in the path, just North of it. The cloudy morning turned into clear blue sky and bright sun in the afternoon when the eclipse happened. For about half an hour, it felt like living in a time-lapse video: you could see and feel the darkening and the return brightening. Eerie!
Thank you for sharing your experience and beautiful pics!
I was in The Path of Nothingness, boo.
Excellent! Thank you. We were too deep in the clouds to see it.
Your photos are amazing! Thank you for sharing.
The eclipse was something so weird for me it defied proper descriptive words except squeals and repeating "This is so weird". The light was changing as the eclipse was happening becoming more blue grey. Weird. I was amazed how bright everything still was when only a sliver of the sun remained. And then all of a sudden the light went out. Weird! We were at a loication where the totality was about 3 minutes. Best experience ever.
Wow! The photos you got are really great!
Wow! Great photos, Karen! My bff and I drove to Ingleside to watch the eclipse on a country road. It exceeded expectations. The nearby woods looked deserted, but they erupted in bird song when the eclipse was in full swing. It sounded as though thousands were singing a dawn chorus. It was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Since then, I've loved the sun in a way I never did before; I genuinely appreciate its magic now. Thanks for capturing the experience so beautifully. By the way, I loved your comment "Just like gardening always does." LOL! Yeah!
Well done!
Where we live here in northern IL, it just got sort of dull outside. I was in my sewing room and my husband came in from doing outside stuff to say it had started - I'd forgotten about it. So no wonder I had to turn on a light to see what I was doing - duh! However - you got some wonderful pictures and I especially like the one that really does look like "space lace" as reader Lynn pointed out.
Very, very skilled photography. Does your expertise never end! And thank you for sharing them.
We were driving into town (Sarnia, not totality but beautiful weather) and how great was it to see people wearing their solar glasses (not while driving, of course)and sharing the event.
Makes me hate that we’re f**king up the planet for future generations. Which doesn’t mean I don’t love the zone boost to 6A recently! Ah well.
Enjoy your seedlings!
Zone 6A! My pea seeds are going in the ground three weeks early!!! I'm having a bit of a freak out. Not only because it's way early but I'm also not ready! I still have a ton of grass in that bed and boy is it ever pernicious.
Your photo is my screensaver for a while; thanks ☺️
Zoom in on the ring/halo. Space Lace?
Wonderful photos, Karen! Your photo of totality reminds me of the heat sensitive US postage stamp produced in 2017 appropriately named "Total Eclipse of the Sun" which commemorated the 2017 eclipse. Casper, Wyoming was the epicenter to view the 2017 eclipse and drew more spectators than the entire population of the state of Wyoming--it was a gangbuster. Thank goodness I live in the boondocks 160 miles north of Casper and witnessed this spectacular event sans the gangbuster.
Any reaction from Mr & Mrs Snacks?
Thank you for sharing your word pictures of this amazing event. I wish I had been there by your side but your vivid description will suffice. I can easily imagine how our primitive - and not so primitive - ancestors must have viewed a total eclipse when it happened without the weeks and months of preview to which we were all blessed. It's the kind of stuff that made throwing perfectly good virgins into volcanoes seem a rational option.
Karen - you got some good pics! What with my cheap SE iPhone camera - I did not! Totality lasted 4 minutes in my neck of the woods in Texas. We were in a field by a pond of a neighbor/friend. When it was almost totality, the frogs around/in the pond started croaking, the rooster was crowing and calling his hens in, street lights came on, solar lights lit up. It was pretty amazing indeed! So glad we able to share it with good friends.
Yours is by far the most interesting and honest account I have read of the eclipse. Thank you!
We just had a partial here in Arizona so it didn't get very dark. My daughter and I sat outside and watched it through our eclipse glasses. It was fun! I loved seeing your photographs and appreciate your sharing them.