RESET THE CLOCK!!!

Is it over yet?

(August 21, 2017 at 5:09 pm)Nymphadora Wrote:

(August 21, 2017 at 5:05 pm)Cecelia Wrote: Didn't get to see much here.

Just want to strangle someone every time I hear they say "IT'S A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE!" or "IT SHOWS YOU GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS!"

Exactly. This is science. Not some imaginary sky daddy bullshit.

I agree.I hate the word "spiritual" too. I have a deep sense of awe when seeing or thinking about certain things, but I don't assign it to magic. There is lots of nasty shit on the planet and and in the universe too.

Meh...

That was great!

Have you guys seen the timelapse taken from an airplane?

That's right, Donald. There it is. The eclipse! Stare at it long and hard now!

I'm back home now.

Left at 5AM and had carefully planned traveling mostly west to intersect eclipse bath instead of heading south. Also was able to get 4:30AM local news with weather update and decided to go to my original destination, Broken Bow NE area. As I traveled west, cloud conditions steadily improved, when I pulled out of the driveway and for the first 50 miles even saw lightning, behind and in front of me.

Travel plan seemed to work well, remarkably little traffic going EW, can't say I ID'd fellow eclipse chasers till I was in Loup City NE. Made a couple stops along the way to stir up the blood clots, and arrived on site 2 hours early.

Enjoyed company of distant relatives and a tour of their farm, and when I confirmed first contact we broke for lunch. I recalled from 1979 the first 60-70% of the eclipse was like watching paint dry, so had a nice luncheon on the picnic table and I managed to only check progression of the eclipse every 5 minutes or so.

Lunch wrapped up around 60% coverage and then we adjourned to the lawn chairs and at around 80% we all agreed it was 'looking funny outdoor'. Contrast of shadows was dropping, feeling of warmth from sunlight on the face disappeared, and the color balance of our surroundings was off.

I was watching intently for Bailey's Beads, but they presented for a very minimal amount of time (few seconds at most) and then diamond ring, and then

zorch !!

Totality.

Saw Venus and a couple others, and then at about 1:45 in, definitely noticed red/orange glow over about 90 degrees of the edge on the trailing side. And color intensified very steadily until ZAP !!, diamond ring again signaled the end of totality.

Yes, we saw farm mercury vapor lights come on, goats in the pen layed down, and barn cats quit playing and all settled down. Didn't notice chickens/roosters making noises, but the backyard ducks made a racket most of the time I was there, eclipsing or not.


Ride home uneventful, minor traffic delay in Columbus, hard to say if it was eclipse chaser traffic, or maybe just some poorly timed left turn arrows.

On way back noted approaching storm clouds too !

Viewing conditions SE of Broken Bow were 'pristine', maybe a few percent of the sky had high thin cirrus, the rest was cloudless.


It was spectacular !!!

(August 21, 2017 at 2:06 pm)Brian37 Wrote: I get the fascination with the eclipse, but some people are fucking stupid paying what they have to have a hotel room. Just watching a story at a stadium where some idiots paid 10K and guess what, it is cloudy in any case.

I would have seen a partial eclipse outside my house, but it is cloudy. This is the fucking problem with America, not the differences in price of anything, but the outrageous gap. I get a little inequity, but 700 for a hotel room? 10K for a stadium seat for what? And many in this path still got screwed by bad weather.

I booked mine on Hotels.com four or five months ago for $68.00 at a Super 6.  We stayed in Columbia, MO and worked our way down to Ashland, which is was very close to the center line.  We went to a playground on a public school yard with a handful of other strangers scattered about.  The weather wasn't perfect but right before the eclipse some high cirrus clouds disappeared with the rapid drop in temperature.  It was a very memorable experience even if the sky was not completely transparent!  Saw the Sun's corona clearly with solar prominences all around.

This was officially the single most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.



Photos simply do no do eclipses justice. And this isn't even an awesome photo! I literally had to figure camera settings on the fly in order to get a decent exposure!

The most exciting part was that I set my camera to take a photo and missed capturing the diamond ring because of the timer and not having a remote shutter or a bulb, but I got to WATCH it happen!! Even better!

I also now don't understand a single person who said "I saw the one in '79, I don't need to see it again" because I'm already trying to figure out where I can go in 2024 to see the next one! Only the next time I'm not farting around with cameras or anything, I'm watching the whole thing!

Anyone in the 2024 path of totality and want a house guest?!? (Totally serious.)