Cloudy day here, pretty anti-climactic
Cloudy day here, pretty anti-climactic
It started raining just as the eclipse started. It stopped raining about 30 minutes ago. We got 3" of rain. No eclipses were sighted at Casa de Toyman. The odds are I'll be dead before the next one passes this area. 
Twas pretty neat where I was. The edge of the totality band missed where I work by about 400 feet, so the boss came out and said you can leave early if you want to. Hit the road about twenty minutes before the Eclipse and headed to the nearby community college. The five to ten minutes before totality were odd. Not dark, but an artificial feeling to the light. Looked most like the HDR filter on cameras or editing sites. It went from mid-afternoon to late twighlight in about a minute, and the Canadian geese that timeshare for the summer at the campus pond all got up and started heading up the hill where they spend the nights.
I didn't have eclipse glasses, so I waited until it was darkest to point my camera skyward. Got a couple of photos that look just like everyone elses(a poorly focused ring of light), then it started getting bright again. The geese just turned around halfway across the parking lot and headed back to eat and poop some more by the pond. Hit the road in the HDR daylight, and got home before most viewers had corralled their offspring into their SUVs and minivans.
I went to my favorite taco joint at the edge of the totality, left right at the start of it and headed towards Franklin, Ky. I now know that this was a mistake. Seeing the eclipse from the side of 31W in the Mustang with the top down was pretty cool. The clusterberkeley of tourist traffic realizing they no longer had a reason to be in this part of Kentucky was not.
Pretty freaking cool. Got real quiet here and was more contrast-y. I could take my sunglasses off and not get all squinty (not looking at the sun, just regular looking around). Wildlife got real quiet. Danced on the patio to my playlist until it was over. Glad I took the afternoon off.
So yeah. This was incredibly cool! The horizon looked like sunset 360 degrees. The night animals started peeping. You could see stars. It was a truly amazing moment.
I was pulling the motor on the cabover. Mrs. Deuce made a camera obscura out of a cereal box and brought it over to show me. I think we were something like 70% here in SE Texas. It was nice to have the heat slack off for 20 minutes or so.
The peak of the eclipse form my work.
I shot this during totality. It did get rather dark.
In reply to Toyman01:
Holy E36 M3, was it hailing?
In reply to EastCoastMojo:
No, just raining very hard.
Pretty cool that my office bought everyone glasses, sundrop, Sunkist, and moon pies for the event. Pretty weird the wat it came over and got overcast like a storm was coming in. Despite being careful with the glasses my eyes are a bit tired from it.
Why do the night critters start making noise during an eclipse but not during sudden clouds on any other day? Just the darkness?
The difference between 99.9% and 100% is like reading a haiku compared to watching the complete Star Wars trilogy in a 3D theatre with surround sound.
We were 1 mile from the centerline of totality in a giant field away from population. It got about 30 degrees colder, all of the animals went dead silent, and it looked like an hour after dusk in every direction. We could see Jupiter and midst of the stars as well as the shadow bands as they moved over the hills to and from us. We experienced this for over 2 minutes. Looking at the moon with the corona radiating behind it was literally life-altering. We had 9 kids betwwen 2 and 9 and every one of them completely shut up and sat still for the whole 2 minutes.
tuna55 wrote: Why do the night critters start making noise during an eclipse but not during sudden clouds on any other day? Just the darkness?
Stars.
Total dud here.
They should start scheduling these things on clear days.
DrBoost wrote: Total dud here. They should start scheduling these things on clear days.
Head to the moon and you can probably see the next one without clouds in your way.
We were in the 90% band, and while it definitely cooled off a bit and got a bit darker, it was nothing near what I've been seeing from the totality band. Then again, I'm also glad I didn't have to fight traffic and crowds.
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to EastCoastMojo: No, just raining very hard.
That is so metal.
Checked out the total eclipse in Maupin, Oregon, where the skies were perfectly clear, and the moon was surrounded by a thin, crisp ring of white light. The 7-hour drive back to Seattle was a bit of a slog, but thankfully the scenery was also gorgeous.
On the news tonight I saw them talking to a woman who had just watched the eclipse. She was so excited, she said, “I wish it would have lasted forever”. Uh, no you don’t.
So all in we left the house at 8:30 am and got home at 9 pm. Traffic to the event wasn't at all bad (lots of people spread their time out arriving so there was no big rush). Leaving western KY however was a problem, apparently the roads are not designed for that much traffic flow and largely ground to a halt. That said, I'd do it again in a heartbeat, that was some of the coolest stuff I've ever seen!
Not just the darkness but the complete alien nature of the sky turning black in the middle of the "day" is truly memorable.
Next one is in 7 years, my just-starting-middle-school youngest will be a freshman in college by then!
Yep, planning on trying to see the 2024 one in totality- the little VCHs will be 7 and 10, perfect ages for car trips to see geeky weirdo stuff with mom and dad.
So, this is what a ~75% eclipse looks like, taken with a Blackberry through #10 and #8 welding lenses placed together.
Did anyone else notice that all the hardware stores, tractor supply places, etc were completely sold out of welding lenses yesterday? 
I did a small amount of planning - bought the glasses weeks ago, arranged to take off several hours, checked the weather in various locations, etc. I took my wife to a picnic spot about 50 miles out of town to get out from under the clouds. She didn't seem excited until the actual event started - then she really enjoyed it. We only had about 70%, but it was still worth it.
I wish we had taken vacation and flown to visit friends, then driven the hour or so from their house to an area of totality.
Not too much here. 66%, while not really darker, the light seemed different. I looked through my welding glass. Looked like the picture above.
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