Eclipse Addendum

Two things about the eclipse of 2017 that I failed to mention in my previous post (http://timerskinephotography.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-hole-in-fabric-of-sky.html).

First, I didn't publish any pictures of the eclipse after totality because none of them turned out. When I did the second shot of totality, a wide angle one, I must have bumped the focus ring on my lens when I went back to full zoom. The Bailey Beads are just little fuzzy spots and the Diamond Ring is more like a fur collar. It was a stupid, frustrating rookie mistake. 😆

Second, after most everyone had departed the viewing area I noticed something both strange and wonderful: no trash. I looked the length of the viewing area. No bags or bottles or papers. There was one napkin in the grass, which from the looks of it and where it was, was probably there before we were. Everybody took out what they brought in. A Facebook post from the National Park Service rangers at Grand Teton National Park reported much the same thing happened there, too. They were gearing up for a huge mess and there was barely anything at all for them to pick up. Given the number of people they had there, this gives one a bit of faith in humanity, despite the current media-amplified voices of protest, counter-protest, and counter-counter-protest.

A Hole in the Fabric of the Sky

The total solar eclipse of 2017 crossed the US from Oregon to South Carolina, a distance of about 2,600 linear miles.  The path of totality, where the moon would completely cover the sun, was 70 miles wide, making the entire area of totality 182,000 square miles, an area about 10% larger than California. Some 12 million people live in that swath of land and millions more would travel to be there when the moon shadow passed. The Missus and I were two of those itinerant seekers of totality.

Path of Totality

We heard about the eclipse nearly three years before when I stumbled across a poster online saying “See the Total Eclipse of 2017 in the Grand Tetons.” I looked up the eclipse and we agreed that there wasn’t going to be anywhere on its path nearly as beautiful to see the eclipse. The Smokies would be pretty but a distant second. We’ve been to the Tetons several times as guests of our friends Dick and Mary Lou. We KNEW it would be THE place. But then we realized that we never go to see Dick and Mary Lou in August in a normal year because of the crowds and bumper-to-bumper traffic in town and in the park. So we agreed there wasn’t any way we were going to venture into the usual sea of humanity heavily augmented by eclipse watchers.

A small college town in southern Illinois (home of the Southern Illinois University Salukis) was the city closest to the point of the longest duration of totality. At a point a few miles southeast of there, totality would last 2 minutes and 40 seconds. Carbondale, population 25,902, was the place we wanted to be.

The eclipse was to happen on Monday, August 21. There were some requests by the celestially obtuse to have the date moved. My friend Andy from Wyoming reported a conversation with a dispatcher for the Wyoming Highway Patrol. The dispatcher received a call from a woman who asked how Wyoming got picked to host the eclipse and whether it wouldn’t be better to have it on the weekend. Andy then quoted Winston Churchill: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

"I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."

But I digress. The eclipse was to happen on Monday, August 21. We were planning on driving from Columbus to Carbondale but life altered our plans when we moved to Virginia. The drive from Cbus to Carbondale would take 7 ½ hours. Completely manageable for us as we did that distance in early 2017, driving to LeClaire, Iowa to see bald eagles. But relocating to Richmond, Virginia (transplanted from Cbus to RVA) made the drive time an untenable 15+ hours. So we booked passage on Delta Airlines from Richmond to St. Louis and rented a car (hired a car, for those readers who are subjects of the Crown) for the 2-hour drive southeast to our target area. Well before any of this happened though, I knew I had to reserve a room early. Like a year out, generally the maximum in advance individuals can make reservations. Because I had not put this on my calendar I started looking for a room 48 hours late, but still, a full 363 days ahead of the eclipse. My tardiness was nearly lethal for our plans: there were no rooms available in Carbondale.

A quick consultation with Google Maps showed another town nearby.  Marion, Illinois (population 17,193) is about 10 miles east of Carbondale with a state highway connecting the two. After trying three hotels in Marion, we managed to get a room at the Hampton Inn, one of only four left for the event. It turns out that staying in Marion was more than a little lucky (more on this later).

We arrived in Marion on Saturday, about 48 hours before the eclipse. We wanted to use the time to explore the area and, more importantly, scout viewing locations. This was a really crucial point on our agenda as the news reports of how many people were going to descend on Carbondale itself (hundreds of thousands) made being in the town itself undesirable for crowd-haters like us.

I should note here that the staff at Hampton Inn – Marion was really ready for this. The lobby was filled with all manner of literature and brochures about the area and eclipse-related activities, well above and beyond what you would normally find, including state highway maps from Illinois Department of Transportation. All guests received a gift bag that had eclipse glasses (legitimate ones, not cheap rip offs), a local eclipse guide, created by the staff, detailing local activities, places to eat, etc. It also had snacks – moon pies, sunflower seeds and Eclipse gum. Well done, Hampton Inn – Marion. Well done.

There was a lot going on in Carbondale to attract multitudes besides 2:40 of totality. A three-day eclipse science show at Southern Illinois University was being put on by an uber-geek's Dream Team of NASA, Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and the Planetary Society. The Weather Channel had reporters scattered across the path of totality, but it dropped two into Carbondale. One of them was Jim Cantore, their resident master of disaster. NOTE: If Cantore ever shows up in your town in foul weather gear, leave. Now. Seriously, don’t ask any questions, just GTFO and don’t look back.

Jim Cantore, Meteorologist

Jim Cantore, Very Bad Sign

Further reading on the eclipse showed that Carbondale was the self-proclaimed town closest to the longest totality but that the actual point of greatest totality was 10 miles southeast of town, in Giant City State Park (GCSP). This spot was pretty much equidistant from Marion as the crow flies, but Carbondale got the jump on the closest town claim.

We found on our scouting expeditions that GCSP was preparing several designated viewing areas and girding their loins for an unprecedented deluge of visitors. Armed with good maps and great senses of direction, we set out to find an alternate route into the park to avoid the obvious route in from Carbondale. We found two routes in that would normally take a lot longer, but would likely bypass most of the vehicular congestion and wind up being quicker.

And then we saw it. Both of our alternate routes into GCSP took us through a portion of Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, and just a couple of miles past the Refuge’s visitor center was a wildlife viewing area. It was perfect. It was on a minor state road, had wide open spaces for viewing, a small but paved parking lot, large grassy areas for setting up our spot (and my camera rig), and most importantly, a Porta-Potty™. If we were going to be there for several hours, this was a must. This viewing area, honoring a long-time volunteer, became Plan A. The designated viewing areas in GCSP became Plans B, C, D, and E. If all these failed, the hotel parking lot was Plan F.

Our Spot was Plan A, Plans B-E were west-northwest of the Point of Longest Totality, Plan F was next to the Walmart.

On the day of the eclipse we awoke at 5 a.m. The start of the eclipse was at 11:52 a.m. Central Daylight Time…it was E-minus 6 hours, 52 minutes. We had some fruit for breakfast, packed our locally-purchased Styrofoam cooler with our locally-purchased sandwich fixings and water and headed out. Then we stopped, headed back into the hotel, and got some liquid methylxanthine CNS stimulants (coffee). Armed with that, we actually hit the road. It was 6 a.m. and the sky was just starting to lighten. We got to the Crab Orchard NWR viewing area 15 minutes later. We were the second car there and backed into the spot we wanted on the far side of the parking lot. E-minus 5 hours, 37 minutes.

Other eclipse watchers trickled in. The next people to show up parked next to us. John and Cathy (or Jon and Kathy, or some such) were from Cambridge, Ohio, about 70 miles east of Columbus. Later, a gentleman in a bright, shiny red Chevy Silverado parked in the grass on the other side of us. Bob was a really nice guy from Rock Island, Illinois. We chatted with our neighbors all morning. By the time the eclipse started, there were nearly 100 people in the viewing area that had fewer than 10 parking spaces. Everybody else was parked on the grass.

The eclipse watchers in the viewing area were from all walks of life, all ages, creeds and colors. Everyone was happy, friendly, excited and anxious for what was about to happen.

I set the alarm on my cell phone to go off at E-minus 1 minute and again at the minute of totality. When reveille (or as it is labeled by my phone, army_wake-up_bugle) sounded loudly, people nearby looked at me. “One minute!” I shouted. I could hear the message get passed down the line in both directions. People began donning their solar glasses and getting into their viewing positions. The half-dozen photographers there, myself included, had already dialed in their focus and exposures but we all now cozied up to our camera eyepieces, made final positioning adjustments to our tripods and waited for the first glimpse of the moon.

It has begun.

Just as I thought I saw the sun’s curvature start to flatten at the 1 o’clock position, the guy three cars away with an outrageously good solar telescope shouted, “There it is!” Thus began the Solar Eclipse of 2017.

Everybody watched in amazement as the moon began to cover more and more of the sun’s surface. Even knowing the mechanics of what was happening – you know, the moon is moving between the earth and the sun – it was still a thing of wonder.

About an hour into the moon’s transit things around us began to change. It had happened gradually but the light was now noticeably different. To me, it was as if I was wearing polarized sunglasses. Everything was still brightly lit, but there was a blue-gray tinge to the light. With sunlight still streaming down onto them, there was no longer any glare coming off of the parked cars. Even Bob’s shiny Silverado failed to shine. The other thing that happened was that crickets started to chirp. They kept that up for about 20 minutes before they decided they were too confused for mating rituals and shut up.

It was at this point, where 70% to 80% of the sun was obscured, that ancient civilizations in the path of an eclipse had to be utterly freaking out. They couldn’t see a cloud in the sky and it yet was getting dark and the temperature was dropping. There weren’t any ophthalmologists to warn them against looking at the sun, so they would have looked up to see the sun disappearing. How frightening that must have been for them. Cultures across the globe and across the millennia have developed different responses to eclipses, including making as much noise as possible to warn the sun of its impending doom.

In 585 BC, it was the sixth year of a bloody, brutal war between the Kingdoms of Medes and Lydia in what is now Anatolia in Turkey. Right in the middle of a battle in May of that year a solar eclipse occurred. Everybody agreed it was an omen. They dropped their weapons, exited the field of combat and immediately declared a truce. A solar eclipse is more powerful than one’s bitter hatred of a mortal enemy.

At E-plus 1 hour, 27 minutes, approximately one minute before totality, light began fading rapidly. It was as if somebody had put the sun on a dimmer switch and was twisting it fast. That was something I hadn’t read about and was startled by it.

At E-plus 1 hour, 28 minutes the last glint of the sun’s surface was enveloped by the moon. Totality had come to Crab Orchard. With so many things to look at that we had never seen before, the next 2 minutes and 40 seconds went by much too fast.

First and most obviously, there was the sun’s corona. Even the clearest, most vivid pictures of it don’t convey how truly awe-inspiring it is to see the thing hanging in the sky. And the center is so dark, so completely black, that it appears that a hole has been cut in the fabric of the sky and surrounded by a silvery mist.

Totality

Next, there was the dark. There was some light but it was like what you see about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset in the summertime. With this dark came stars and the planet Venus, as well as noticeable cold. According to the Weather Channel’s reporters in Carbondale, there was an 8 degree drop at totality – about 5 degrees centigrade.

The other thing to see and marvel at was the 360^o sunset. The horizon was lit with colors of sunset…frosty pink, pastel orange and midnight blue. Seeing this all the way around instead of just to the west where you normally see it was beautiful.

Then there was the sound of the people. Gasps, oohs and aahs, laughter, happy chatter, cheering and shouts of joy, and that was just me! Reactions were quite varied. Some people found it to be magical, some mystical. Some people prayed, others simply wept at the astonishing beauty of the event. Regardless of their reaction, everybody was just overwhelmed by what they were experiencing and trying their best to express it to each other.

160 seconds later it was over. The end of totality was announced by the appearance of Bailey’s Beads, where beads of sunlight began to peek from between mountains on the moon’s surface. This was followed rapidly by the diamond ring where most of the coronal ring is still visible but a large burst of sunlight emerges on one side, creating the look of a diamond ring.

The process of darkening towards totality reversed itself, with the dimmer switch being twisted in the other direction for about a minute, returning Crab Orchard to polarized light and then gently increasing. By E-plus 3 hours, 5 minutes, Luna had completed her transit of Sol.

It was at this point that having lodging in Marion was shown to be one of the luckier things to happen. A half million people were estimated to have gone to Carbondale and they were all trying to go home, with most of them apparently trying to get to the nearest interstate on-ramp, at I-57 in Marion. Had we been staying in Carbondale it would have taken hours to go the 10 miles or so. As it was, we were able to take back and side roads to avoid the crowds. Getting to Crab Orchard NWR took 15 minutes; returning to Hampton Inn took 20. From the comfort of our hotel room we were able to watch the traffic from Carbondale not moving towards I-57, which was at a standstill. In 20 minutes, the same amount of time it took us to get back, a semi tractor-trailer moved the length of one semi tractor-trailer.

I wish that I could better convey the feelings of exhilaration of experiencing totality (and really, you don’t just see it, it is experienced). Since the discovery of what causes eclipses countless poets, writers, philosophers and musicians have experienced totality and none of them have been able to adequately communicate the experience through their tools. So I don’t feel too bad about my incapacity in this case, just a little disappointed. 

I think perhaps the best way to convey the experience is to tell you to seek out the next one. On April 8, 2024, just a little more than 6 ½ years after I write this, a total solar eclipse will once again traverse the US. It will travel from Texas up to Maine. Cities like Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester and Montreal will be in the path of totality. Interestingly, it will once again cross southern Illinois. And that’s where we will be…in “our spot” at Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge.

My pictures of the eclipse can be found in my Flickr account: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm71PdM6