Eclipse

[Zoom Zoom]

Yeah, been watching the NASA channel myself. Didn't get the glasses or have a welding helmet. Soooooooooooooooooo oooooo.

Pretty cool stuff though.

John Henry

[Sasquatch Jim]

 Fear not the E-Clips.  I have allowed the sun to come back today.

[Idontwantapickle]

Far out!

[Sheepdog]

We got about 75% of the full eclipse here in Waldheim. It felt pretty cool to be doing the same thing simultaneously with millions of other folks...

[guzzisteve]

Welding mask  #10 tint  w/UV glasses from eye dr, it was plenty. Made a nice box so grand kids could watch, they weren't interested after 10min. Step son and I watched most all of it.

[redrider90]

We were 94% covered. Woods got quite except for the crows. As the sun filtered through the leaves it left a whole lot of scalloped dark markets on my driveway. I could clearly make out the moon on the pavement and my deck but only under the trees.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Watching for aliens.
2017-08-21_04-02-03 by Charles Stottlemyer, on Flickr
As it started getting darker, the crickets and cicadas started doing their sundown thing, then as it got lighter, a rooster was crowing in the distance.
Pretty cool, I watched it all until it clouded over at about 3. Tstorm going on now. We were lucky.

[Bill]

Nice view of 82 % partial from Tampa. Skies were clear. Telescope view showed nice sunspot group on limb of the sun.

[charlie b]

We got 99%.  Got dim but not dark.  Surprising that even with just a very small sliver visible could not look at it without the sun shield.  Pretty cool.

[Arizona Wayne]

I watched it from my TV repeatedly in Madras, Or. and Wyoming.  Saw it back in `79 when living near Madras.

When I was a kid someone challenged me to look up into the sun as long as I could.  Not knowing any better I did that.  It hurt.  Maybe that's why I've been legally blind w/o glasses most my life.  When you're a kid you do stupid things not knowing any better.    No 1 else in my family had bad eyes like me.  DOH

[Testarossa]

Here's what our solar array saw during the eclipse.

[aschem]

Rode over to Arco, Idaho and watched the eclipse in totality. It was something that I will never forget. Simply amazing!

[charlie b]

I watched it from my TV repeatedly in Madras, Or. and Wyoming.  Saw it back in `79 when living near Madras.

When I was a kid someone challenged me to look up into the sun as long as I could.  Not knowing any better I did that.  It hurt.  Maybe that's why I've been legally blind w/o glasses most my life.  When you're a kid you do stupid things not knowing any better.    No 1 else in my family had bad eyes like me.  DOH

Wife's grandfather did the same thing with same results.

[Bonaventure]

Found it to be rather underwhelming.  98.2% here.  Similar experience as a teenager for the one in 1979.  Took advantage of it today to wash my dark gray (black for practical purposes...) Subaru and not have to rush the job to prevent water spotting on the dark paint in the sun.  Went ahead and hand waxed it afterwards. My brother lives in the sticks farther north, has quite an astronomy rig in his back yard a mini-observatory (looks like an outhouse...).  I'll get all the good quality photos I could ever want here pretty soon from his observations today.  Has a solar filter and displays onto a laptop in 1080p, all sorts of whiz bang stuff.   

[KiwiKev]

Can't see much from here


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[charlie b]

And I95 is still backed up.

[demills]

The rain stopped and the clouds cleared up just as the eclipse started and stayed clear though totality, a little over a minute here, Independence, MO. and then afterwards it clouded up again.

[Darren Williams]

Clouded up where we were so we rode fast to the east and got off the road parking in a rural cemetery. Had heard the vampires would all be coming out, so we were in the right spot for that. 

The clouds stayed away and was really an experience watching it go complete, with all the night critter noises starting up at the same time the street lights came on. The ring around the sun was cool too.

The traffic getting back to the hotel was a pain in the backside.

[Guzzistajohn]

View from Ironton, Mo.

[bikeridertim]

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I took this in Winnsboro SC!!   
  I thought it was pretty cool to see!!!!!

[Guzzistajohn]

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I took this in Winnsboro SC!!   
  I thought it was pretty cool to see!!!!!

 

[elvisboy77]

 

[Guzzistajohn]

We had little to no traffic through Missouri boondocks the whole way. Killer day!

[Gliderjohn]

My wife and our four year old grand daughter were in Kansas City this weekend for a wedding so we stayed over last night and drove to the little Kansas town near the Nebraska border called Highland, KS. It was in the direct path. We were near an old school building that had a large brick chimney. About 30 minutes before total, dogs started barking and a large number of swallows came out to feed. Just before total till just after were hundreds of bats coming out of the chimney. The only drawback to our location were street lights and yard lights that came on. Could see a few stars for a bit. Quite eerie but kind of cool. Speaking of cool the temp dropped about five degrees. Neat experience! We were in a very rural area but when leaving it still took an hour to cover 20 miles on highway 36. No problem after that.
GliderJohn

[Moto]

My son (age 15) and I stayed Sunday night in Cape Girardeau, but the forecast in the morning was bad so we drove 150 miles east to Hopkinsville, KY. We were right in the middle of the band of totality and had clear skies. The experience of totality is absolutely unlike a partial eclipse. It's a flabbergasting naked eyes experience.
But driving back to Madison has been a nightmare. The northbound interstate was at a complete standstill, and same for US 51. We finally made about 250 miles in 8 hours by angling over toward St. Louis, but have stopped for the night with 325 miles yet to go. It has been worth it to both of us.
Also had some great barbeque in Hopkinsville, and are bringing 2 pounds of it back home. 😀

[tazio]

A most successful Total Solar Eclipse as measured by the degree of tackiness of the
souvenir. I present to you... Solar coaster! Yes, set this handmade wood coaster on your end table and be the envy of all....

[rodekyll]

A most successful Total Solar Eclipse as measured by the degree of tackiness of the
souvenir. I present to you... Solar coaster! Yes, set this handmade wood coaster on your end table and be the envy of all....

When you see these souvenir ideas, you gotta remember that some people stared directly at the sun.

[rocker59]

My son (age 15) and I stayed Sunday night in Cape Girardeau, but the forecast in the morning was bad so we drove 150 miles east to Hopkinsville, KY. We were right in the middle of the band of totality and had clear skies. The experience of totality is absolutely unlike a partial eclipse. It's a flabbergasting naked eyes experience.
 

I have to say, the 92% coverage here was kind of underwhelming.  1:11 pm peak, and the sun dimmed to a late afternoon brightness.  Sun was still incredibly bright.  Amazing how much energy that thing puts off!

Was neat looking at the eclipse through the glasses.  And, I snapped a few pix with my digital camera through the glasses.

2024 eclipse totality is supposed to pass right over, so maybe it'll be more impressive.  I've always wanted to see a total solar eclipse.

[Lee Davis]

photo host sites

This is the bike when the eclipse was at 95%, just outside of Guernsey, Wyoming. It got so dark that the bike doesn't show up in the next picture...



The amazing thing was the traffic... at least several hundred thousand people converged south of Casper, maybe millions. I had never seen traffic STOPPED in an interstate in the wilds of Wyoming before.
Oh, and on the way up, this was seen just south of Colorado Springs... many thousands of VWs again.

[rodekyll]

Around about 11PM Sunday my sister opined that the eclipse would be better in totality than the 92% we were going to get on the island here.  So we caught the next ferry off the rock and drove to Lincoln City, OR via US-101.  We arrived in time to set up gear and chat with others at the park we settled on (Devil's Lake -- seemed appropriate). 

Running for it was a good choice.  Traffic south was light, if any.  We did not see any of the long lines, out-of-gas, and other horrors we were warned of.  We did see a lot of opportunism, with gas prices up $0.50 at roadside stations, impromptu camp sites everywhere, and the little stores along the way having specials on whatever wasn't selling.  There were little camper and tent cities in many yards and fields along Oregon 101.  I felt a little sad for some of them:  16 rented portapotties in a row and three tents in the field.  Crowed campsites in burn ban areas (no rain since May) and no eateries for miles.  Trailer towns springing up in gullies with no east or south exposure, and thick fog.

It was foggy along most of the coast overnight, but the last little pass north of Lincoln City blocked the damp air.  It was clear or clearing as dawn broke in the totality zone.  We scouted for a good vista, and after several sorties off the highway, we found a little city park in Lincoln City (north margin of totality) that had a good line of sight down my compass.  It was morning already.  My sister napped in the car while I walked the grounds and found the best place to make my stand.  We were alone at first, but as the sun rose, local totalitytarians joined us until the parking overflowed onto the adjacent streets.  Cars with plates from all over the US and Canada lined both sides, leaving a one-way lane in the middle.  They were doubled-up in the parking spaces, with the properly parked vehicles boxed in.  Nobody minded -- we weren't going anywhere.  It looked like a popular guy's press conference with all the cameras lined up -- banks and banks of cameras in rows and rows throughout the park.  Kids played in the algae-choked lake.  Parents gossiped.  Strangers met.  It was a festival air.

The event started.  I watched through the welding mask and those cardboard glasses as the celestial dance began.  It was initially a slow creep.  Then the temperature dropped significantly as the moon covered the last quarter of the sun, and daylight snuffed out astonishingly quickly as the giant frog of tribal legend tried to eat the sun.  A state-wide gasp and heartfelt "oohs and ahhhs", cheering, and clapping were heard in that few seconds of midnight darkness.  Dogs at the park seemed startled, but not frightened.  Birds went silent.  People felt very small and fragile.  It was something to have witnessed, indeed.  The abrupt temperature drop invoked the Devil to rise from the lake in the form of a thick, ominous, very local fog bank on the water.  As the sun returned, it was like bringing stage lights up -- from darkness to daylight in less than a minute.  The demon fog rose in the rapid reheating and obscured the return of the sun -- just what you'd expect the Devil to do.  For us in Lincoln City, the event was over.

The road home was more crowded.  I was reminded of the old pictures of stampeders climbing the ice staircase out of Skagway.  We decided that we were in no hurry and had the patience for it, so we joined the queue.  It was like leaving a pro football game, but it went on for a couple hundred miles.  Motorcycles were stopped on the shoulders regularly -- overheated, I imagine.  Cops were stationed every 10 miles or so, but they were mostly bored or amused.  I didn't see any interacting with motorists until we were in the urban dogfight that is the Tacoma/Seattle I-5 corridor, and those of course had nothing to do with the eclipse travelers. 

With the stop-and-creep traffic, we didn't want to fall out of line.  We didn't know if we'd get back in.  A traffic light in a small town would back up the line for literally tens of miles, and our average speed from Lincoln City and Garibaldi was 12mph.  Yeah, it took a while.  Once clear of the traffic lights, and with more and more vehicles turning east to find the interstate, 101 became its old self, with a "weekend heavy" traffic load that moved fairly well.  By the time we got to the Astoria bridge, all was normal.  We arrived back on the island about 11:30PM.  I hadn't slept since Saturday night, so I was beat.  I haven't looked at my pics, but I predict they suck.  I think the welding mask was making a moiré on the pictures.  I'll find out for sure when I get them on the screen.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.