On the day after the third anniversary of Anthony and Charles’s Excellent Adventure, it’s time to remind people to prepare for the next one.
Check out the old post for photograpy.
By Brian Lada, AccuWeather meteorologist and staff writer
Published Aug. 21, 2018 8:20 AM
On Aug. 21, 2017, millions gathered from Oregon to South Carolina to witness the first total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States in over 30 years. Fortunately, people across the country don’t need to wait nearly as long to see another solar eclipse.
The event was given the nickname of the Great American Eclipse and was the most-observed and the most-photographed solar eclipse in history.
While only a small area experienced a total eclipse, much of the rest of the U.S., as well as parts of Canada and Mexico, were able to witness a partial solar eclipse.
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People that could not travel to see last year’s total solar eclipse, and those that missed out due to cloudy weather, may want to start looking ahead to the next one that will be visible from the U.S. in just a few years.
On April 8, 2024, the moon will once again be seen passing in front of the sun in the skies over the U.S. with the path of totality stretching from Texas to Maine.
Major cities that will experience a total solar eclipse include Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Buffalo and Niagara Falls, New York.
Portions of Mexico and eastern Canada will also experience a total solar eclipse while nearly the rest of North America and Central America experience a partial solar eclipse.
With the path of totality including so many highly-populated areas, the 2024 eclipse could surpass the 2017 and become the most-observed eclipse in history.
Those hoping to see this eclipse should plan their trips well ahead of time, including booking hotels and purchasing eclipse glasses from a verified manufacturer.
Here’s a video Anthony captured three years ago.
HT/Yooper
Here’s the correct link.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/space-news/when-is-the-next-total-solar-eclipse-in-the-us/434540
Perhaps Covid will be gone by then
Covid may be gone but the masks won’t. The Center of the total path goes right over my sister’s house. Guess I’ll be there.
More eclipsier?
More corona? SC25 should be close to peak.
Solar corona, that is. Surely they’ll come up with a new crisis scam for the next Presidential election.
I’m sure the photograpy will be even better nowadays.
The more pixies the better.
Actually, I got much better pictures of the 2017 eclipse with my Panasonic DLSR and it’s puny (by 2017 standards) 3.5 megapixels than people with their cell phones and pocket cameras that had impressive (at the time) 10 and 12 megapixel CCDs. Why? Because I also had a high quality Leica (glass) lens system and a larger aperture. In fact, that camera can probably still compete, in terms of picture quality, with the 20+ megapixel cameras in high end cell phones these days. There’s a lot more to modern photography than the number of pixels in the image chip(s).
I was in Casper, WY for the eclipse, and I didn’t even bother to bring a camera. I figured there would be far better photographs than I could even take all over the Internet, and I didn’t want fiddling with equipment to detract from the actual experience.
F8, and be there….
We’ve just moved from Sacramento, CA to the western outskirts of San Antonio. We live in the path of totality. 🙂
It’s almost as if I planned that.
Are you eclipse zombie prepared 🙂
Not yet, but I’ve only been here for a week. 75% of my stuff is still in boxes. Give me another year, and ask me then.
However, the guns (plural) are in the gun safe, and I know where all the ammunition is.
My biggest lack right now is power; we’re on “city” power. I need a generator. And a greenhouse. Both of which are in the 1-year plan.
Did you escape California for Texas? If so, I hope you accept the politics, culture, and beliefs of your new home and leave California and all the reasons you left it behind you.
And, welcome to Texas!
Yes, Sacramento to San Antonio.
And I’m coming to Texas to BECOME a Texan, not to change Texas. California and its politics had become intolerable and toxic for years, but Governor Navin Gruesome is driving the place to a whole new level of insanity.
You’ll like Texas! You made a good move. Sounds like it was just in time. 🙂
Be prepared to see shadows in sunlit areas , esp through tree-leaves, in crescent form as the totality approaches. The shadows through a collander are mind oggling.
And, welcome to Texas. Imoved here in ’78, and have lived in 4 metro areas.
Don’t view the eclipse through a collander, you’ll strain your vision.
Groan, kilty!
Sounds a lot like my move three years ago. Except two hand guns were missing for six months. I was worried. Turns out I needed a brighter light when looking for black cases in the back of the safe. All safe and accounted for.
And this time the darkness won’t be a power outage.
I live in San Antonio and took a group of 16 to see the last eclipse in South Dakota/Wyoming.
More importantly, there is an annular eclipse that comes through in Oct 2023. Path of the eclipse goes right through San Antonio. In fact, San Antonio is where the two paths intersect.
My house will get about 30 secs of totality but I am working out a party West of the city where we can get up to 7 minutes. Much better than the 2.5 minutes we got in Wyoming.
The path of totality will just miss the Detroit area, but IIRC Toledo and Sandusky will be in it, and are only a couple of hours away from home. I got to see the last one by visiting my father-in-law, whose town in SC was located almost exactly in the middle of the totality path… and the sky was totally clear by the time it started. 🙂
Great article WUWT !!!! – By the way, since you changed servers, the like this tab doesn’t work 🙂
The server change didn’t happen.
What “like this” tab? I don’t see one on the page I’m viewing.
We are planning to view the 2024 total solar eclipse from the exact same spot where we saw the 2017 total eclipse.
I’m very glad for a re-do in both my lifetime and in my country…..this past one I traveled to see in South Carolina had an obstructed view just a few moments before totality. I saw it from the beginning and literally right before totality (when only a think sliver of the sun remained) a thunderstorm showed up and the clouds blocked the sky. So the only pictures I got were some weird looking twilight skies and a few I took thru my viewer before totality.
In 2017 our farmette was smack dab in the middle of the Path of Totality. The whole family gathered to watch. It was awesome and magnificent. Perfectly clear sky.
As luck would have it, on Feb 26, 1979 we (my bride and I) were living a few hundred miles north and were also on the PoT for that TSE. That one was in winter and 3′ of snow covered the valley. Also a perfectly clear sky. The strobe effects were incredible. Baily’s beads. The quiet as darkness fell. I had to remember to breathe.
I won’t be living in Texas, but I hope to travel there for No. 3, God willing. April should be marvelous in the Lone Star State.
My sister and brother-in-law live 10 miles from the line of max totality in north central Ohio. We can watch it from their driveway. IF the weather cooperates. Ohio in April. Not good for chances of clear skies.
Oh, THAT Great Eclipse. Yes, but I couldn’t get to Southern Illinois for the totality, so I did bide my time at home, got the P900 ready, and waited.
And of course, the sky was OVERCAST, but not so much that the sunshine streaming through those clouds was invisible.
Fortunately, the P900 is programmable, and also has that magical device, a rotating viewscreen, which I put to use by searching the sky for a hole in the clouds. Just a break. Just a brief break. Then, finally, when the Moon began to leave the Sun, there was a hole in the clouds and I got a good shot of the departure. And thanks to that rotating viewscreen, I never had to look at the Sun even once, nor did I have to use special lenses on the camera.
Thanks for the warning about this. Now that we’ll be having another Sun/Moon adventure, I will be quite prepared for it.
DOCTOR Fauxi has already weighed in. The near total absence of UV-C will allow an astronomical disasterous SPIKE in CoViD-24 making even tinfoil mask-helmets ineffective.
I was at Georgia Tech when the annular eclipse went through town back in the early 80’s. The physics building was almost dead center in the path of totality. I was quite disappointed. At it’s max, all you could feel was a drop in the intensity of the sun. (It was the middle of summer)
The town where I’m living now is just a few miles from the center of totality for the 2024 eclipse. I’m cautiously optimistic.
If you see the total eclipse (not an annular eclipse), your opinion will change.
Lee,
You are correct about that. It was one of most awe inspiring sights I’ve ever witnessed. Pictures and accounts of the event don’t do it justice. You really must experience this in person. I plan on taking my grandchildren in 2024 – they will be old enough that they will never forget it. Hopefully it will inspire them too.
I remember interviews with physicists from all over the world who had gathered to study the eclipse.
They commented that they often had to travel to the middle of nowhere in order to study these things.
This time they had a world class physics department, smack dab in the middle of the totality. Many of them didn’t even bring equipment with them, they just borrowed what they needed.
I’ve seen several partial eclipses in my life, but finally saw the 2017 total eclipse, at a location where the skies were perfectly clear, and totality was within about four seconds of its maximum duration.
There is just no comparison. You see a three dimensional moon, not the usual two-dimensional disk. It really hit home that there is a massive sphere just overhead. Awesome. It was clear why early civilizations feared them.
I do suggest one thing which many will disagree with. There will be tens of thousands of people taking pictures of it. Why bother? Don’t divert your attention trying to get a really good picture – you can get one from a true professional who has thousands of dollars in camera gear and decades of experience. Instead, just put all your attention on experiencing the eclipse. You won’t regret it.
In 2017, I traveled (with several family members) from San Antonio to Kansas City, Missouri to see the eclipse. It was awe-inspiring. These occurrences are so rare, and the learning possibilities are so unique that I believe we should have a national school holiday to allow children to see and learn from the eclipses.
As you may know, Einstein suggested that his theory of relativity could be proven during a total eclipse. The story of how that was accomplished, including scientists trying to view the total eclipse in Africa being caught by the Germans during World War I, and then the world having to wait over a decade for another eclipse to prove the theory is amazing. There were several scientific groups in Australia to view that eclipse and try to prove the theory. All but one of them were shut out because of clouds. The group that finally was able to observe and prove the Theory of Relativity was also shut out, but a small cloudless window appeared for a short period of time and they were able to make the proof. The scientist who finally made the proof was in one of the two groups in Africa trying to make the proof during the earlier eclipse. They did not get a total view of the Eclipse due to the weather. Their partial view caused the scientist in charge of the expedition to come to a preliminary opinion that the Theory of Relatively was not provable during an eclipse. When he later observed it in Australia, he changed his opinion and successfully proved the Theory of Relativity.
I encourage all of you to see this spectacular event. Plan early. If you have to travel to a location to view it, book rooms and flights early. When we went to Kansas City, I booked early. By the time of the Eclipse, lodging costs had doubled, and flights were expensive and almost not available. Travel to a city that has a good highway system along the path of totality. You may have to get up early to determine if the weather in your location is going to be good. If you determine that it is not, you will need a good highway system that will allow you to travel along the path to hopefully find good weather. That is why we chose Kansas City, because there were acceptable highways along the path that would allow us to seek good weather. We could travel east or west along the path for at least 200 miles along a good highway system to find a place with good weather. It was ultimately helpful, because we had to travel, literally at the last minutes before the eclipse, in order to get a good view.
If you don’t have good camera equipment, either buy some, rent some or borrow some. Make sure you get lenses that are made for photographing the eclipse. Those lenses are not at all expensive. You will also need to purchase glasses that are safe for the viewing. They are very inexpensive. If you have children, please take them along. If you are fortunate enough to see the eclipse with your children, it will be a lifetime memory.
Lee,
I was in Kansas City in 2017 as well. We got really lucky with the weather; it cleared just in time! Can’t say enough good things about the city, and the people were very welcoming. I have to go back some time just to eat at Jack’s Stack again and to visit Boulevard Brewing.
The eclipsed sun isn’t very photogenic but the surrounds may or may not be. Here’s the scene at Fort Kaskaskia IL in 2017
YouTube
Here’s one I took from Casper, WY 2017.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/-7EGG_SDSWW3m7OeNjywwQ.-1Y7Mi9XCjuRZndGQoI4EP
Our group ended up with hundreds of fantastic photographs. We even caught “Bailey’s Beads” on one of the photographs, and we didn’t even know what they were until we studied the photograph. Many of the photographs were put into collages which show the entire eclipse from beginning to end. I also photographed members of our group’s faces with the total eclipse behind them. They were pretty magnificent pictures. That being said, we had more than one photographer. You need to be able to also enjoy the eclipse as it happens, not taking pictures all the time. None of us were professional photographers, we just did some research (and testing) weeks before the actual eclipse. With or without photographs, it is a marvelous experience. I like having the photographs because it helps to relive the experience.
I live just north of Indianapolis — right in the 2024 path of totality.
BTW, I also saw the 2017 eclipse from Russellville KY.
I was waiting for over 20 years for that eclipse, and it even exceeded my wildest expectations. Coolest thing I’ve ever witnessed in person.
There’s also an Annular Eclipse coming up in 2023 for parts of Nevada and Oregon. After seeing the one 3 years ago I definitely plan to travel for both eclipses.
Last time I was headed back to Anderson, IN with a load I had picked up in Laredo, TX and passed through the path of totality at the right time near Marion. IL. In 2024 I’ll be retired and able to view it with a solar filter on my 10″ Meade Star Finder telescope from my back yard.
About 30 years ago, I saw a near total eclipse (perhaps 93%). The sky became a very dark and odd blue, light clouds vanished, and it got noticeably colder. What I believe to be the planet Mercury appeared briefly as well. Where the remaining sunlight shone through overhead trees very cool bright crescent shapes appeared on the ground. Even greatly diminished the sun was way to bright to look at.
I am hoping to be in Dallas for the 2024 event. It would be my first total after a fair number of partials.