My son and I are taking a week-long tour that starts in Jackson Hole, WY and ends in Boise, ID. We will be in Idaho on Eclipse Day. Unfortunately, it is the first day of school for my younger son who will be a HS freshman, so he and DH are not coming along. College doesn’t start for our older son until mid-September.
This will be our 5th total solar eclipse:
– Australian Outback, 2002
– South Pacific near Pitcairn Island, 2005
– Libya, 2006
– China, 2009 (mostly rained out)
We are really looking forward to this one, as it’s been several years since our last one.
Previously, we’ve been near the centerline for the longest duration. This time we will be closer to the edge, and hope to see more of the things that last longer there. (Though totality will be shorter.) These include shadow bands, Baily’s Beads, diamond ring, watching the shadow approach and leave, the sun’s red photosphere,
This morning’s local paper had an article on how the electric company is working with local officials to disable the street lights from coming on automatically during the eclipse. We will evidently have quite a few people gathering at the riverfront and they are going to make sure they get the best possible show.
Oh, no @atomom …please, please, please, if you are that close to totality, you MUST make the effort. Being “very close to the 100% zone” and actually being IN the zone of totality is immense. Yes, there will be traffic. If there are clear skies, or if the clouds clear, it will be worth it.
We have been planning for months! Luckily our kids do not start school until after Labor Day. We will be driving 12 hours to my hometown just north of Nashville, TN. We plan on watching from my sister’s yard in Gallatin, TN. We have our glasses and are so excited!! Looking at the map of Totality, we should get about 2 min 35 sec of totality!
If this one is rained out, there is another in 2024 that goes S-N right through the center of Texas and heads up to the Great Lakes from there. It’s nice to have a fallback plan!
We are in the Chicago area which will be about 85%. But we have a hotel reservation in southern Illinois so we can experience totality. Son is coming back from grad school to go with us. We have done many lunar eclipes, partial solar eclipses, the transit of Venus, etc. Really happy about that.
We will be watching from a point about 50 miles to the east of snow-capped Mt. Jefferson (elevation 10,500 ft.). They say we will get a spectacular view of the shadow approaching when the mountain goes dark.
Thanks for the link @greenwitch. Looks like I’ll be right next to the path of totality in the 2099 one. Hope I’ll be able to drive over to it at almost age 140. Actually, the 2024 one is near the city I grew up in, so I think I’ll start making plans now.
It is funny to think if you’ll be alive still for the next eclipse. 2045 is really iffy for me. I’ll start choosing my assisted living residence to make sure it’s right in the path!
I just found out that the eclipse glasses I got from Amazon may be unsafe. When I got them I saw they were made in China. They had what looked like an ISO logo but no number. Then I saw this warning:
" NASA recommends glasses from one of 4 American companies, and says not all of those sold on Amazon may be safe. The agency is recommending consumers only use eclipse glasses with ISO 12312-2 printed on them that have been printed by the four following companies:
American Paper Optics, Rainbow Symphony, Thousand Oaks Optical, and TSE 17
NASA says buying your eclipse glasses on Amazon does not ensure their safety. Make sure to check your eclipse glasses and viewers to verify that they have the correct ISO designation and were manufactured by one of the four companies recognized by NASA as legitimate"
I just ordered more glasses, this time from American paper optics. I may be out another $10 but at least I won’t have a burned retina!
We’re driving from San Francisco up to Oregon. Bought $3 glasses from an astronomy place in Arkansas off EBay. On the Saturday night before the eclipse, we’re going to a play at the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
Just praying it’s not cloudy. If so, we’ll wake up really early and head east in the hope that the mountains will block the clouds.
@Mom03 , just saw a post about this in my FB feed yesterday. A local bank bought glasses as a give-away and has already distributed all of them. Evidently news reports, etc. regarding safety are starting to surface and they were posting that their glasses were certified so all who had received them would know.
Thanks @mom03. I’m returning the ones from Amazon that just came today because they don’t meet the standards (no return postage needed, but I have to find a big envelope because they came in a big box with other stuff). I just got the American Paper Optics ones. I already have a number of eye issues, so I certainly can’t afford to further damage them the eclipse!
BIL just invited us out to his place for the eclipse - I wasn’t sure if his wife was speaking to us, but I guess she is. He’ll get 2 minutes 38 seconds of totality, we’ll only get 1 minute 22 seconds where we are. So we’ll bring glasses from B&H and food and lawn chairs and whatever else seems appropriate. But if it’s going to be cloudy that day I’m going to be annoyed. Maybe we should have moved to Wyoming. DS has already claimed the guest room at my sister’s house, they’ll get a minute or more from the battlefield site near her home.
Our public library is giving away glasses, although I have no idea if there are any left!
I just heard last night that many of our school systems are having delay dismissal for the safety of the children during the eclipse. As regular dismissal for some grades will put the kids on the bus during the eclipse, the schools decided to hold the release time. What I do not understand is we are not in line for the full eclipse! I could understand an early dismissal so the students could be home to view what little we can see, but keeping the entire school system in school seems silly to me. This means the middle school students will not get home until 5:30; of course parents can pick up their kids at anytime.
