Life

Total Eclipse of the Heart

August 22, 2017

In case you’ve been living under a rock, there was a total solar eclipse in North America yesterday. And while I wasn’t passionate enough to get myself into the path of totality, I wasn’t about to miss out on the 80% that I was going to see.

This weekend I used a mineral-based subtance to build a piece of astronomical observation equipment.

(I made an eclipse viewer.)

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The eclipse started at 1:21 pm and ended at 4:01pm. I made sure my laptop was charged up and then moved my “home office” to my backyard lawn chair. The eclipse viewer was pretty effective.

The “pac-man” phase of the eclipse. That’s a scientific term.

But then my next-door neighbor popped her head over the fence with an extra pair of eclipse glasses, and it made a big difference. (I love my neighbors.) They were kid size but who cares?

I’m a knob.

I put the glasses over my iPhone camera and got this lovely shot.

Totality, here in South Jersey. God, this picture is so 2017.

And then this goofball hopped up and demanded attention.

Look at how freaking huge this puppy is. And he’s only 7 months old.

Here are my eclipse observations:

As a connoisseur of sunshine, I could definitely tell something was up with the quality/quantity of light as we approached totality.

It was cloudy, but that was okay. I think if I were outside in full sun from 1:20-4:01 I would have melted. Plus, it made it easier to look up without the glasses on, if I were stupid enough to have done that.

I thought I was prepared for the birds to stop chirping mid-day, but I really wasn’t. That was pretty darn eerie.

The sun and moon appeared perfectly round. I find comfort in perceived perfection these days.

Our trees weren’t in good position to take the neat crescent-shaped shadows that I saw in others’ pictures.

A++ would eclipse again. Bring on 2024!

eclipse