Seeing a solar eclipse is just about the easiest thing one can do in one's life.
See full article...
See full article...
Here’s our comprehensive, in-depth guide to viewing the total solar eclipse
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
No, no it can't, because, once again, the time will vary depending on where you are at. Shifting what time zone it's displayed in (which is all UTC does) doesn't change the fact that the eclipse shifts location as the planet rotates, it isn't happening simultaneously everywhere on the planet.
Upvote
55
(55
/
0)
Public transit isn't even on the table, outside of perhaps the Greater Toronto Area, Columbus, OH or San Antonio. Most people on the continent (to say nothing of the alleged rest of the world) don't live anywhere near the path of totality.
Even in fairly close population centers like St Louis or Pittsburgh, it means long-distance travel, with either inflated fares due to demand (air, rail) or heavy traffic.
Upvote
18
(19
/
-1)
I tried to get a hotel along the path 8 months in advance (same lead time I used for the last one) and found nothing, like literally nothing, except for two or three $500/night singles. So we decided to day-trip it which, considering the traffic last time, I'll probably regret.
Advice from someone who drove home from the last eclipse: stay off the major roads and expect wait times at every bathroom and gas station within 50 miles of the eclipse path. Highways, on-ramps, and even unpaved country back roads anywhere along the path will be packed. Many town and cities are going to be completely overwhelmed with traffic, gridlocked, when the eclipse actually happens. Be prepared to watch it from the car.
Don't try to leave right after it's over, either; you will become traffic. Kill some time wherever you are, even just an hour will help. You'll have an easier drive and probably get home about the same time you would have anyway.
Another fun thing to look for: last time, several private and scientific planes followed the eclipse and we happened to be right under a couple of them. Watching the contrails veer 90 degrees and disappear into the shadow right before it reached us was cool.
Advice from someone who drove home from the last eclipse: stay off the major roads and expect wait times at every bathroom and gas station within 50 miles of the eclipse path. Highways, on-ramps, and even unpaved country back roads anywhere along the path will be packed. Many town and cities are going to be completely overwhelmed with traffic, gridlocked, when the eclipse actually happens. Be prepared to watch it from the car.
Don't try to leave right after it's over, either; you will become traffic. Kill some time wherever you are, even just an hour will help. You'll have an easier drive and probably get home about the same time you would have anyway.
Another fun thing to look for: last time, several private and scientific planes followed the eclipse and we happened to be right under a couple of them. Watching the contrails veer 90 degrees and disappear into the shadow right before it reached us was cool.
Upvote
47
(47
/
0)
I'm literally forcing my wife to go to Indianapolis with me to see it. She doesn't wanna go but she's letting me drag her. It's the right decision. Friends don't let friends miss the eclipse.
Upvote
35
(39
/
-4)
Pretentious poster
Shitting on anothers' joy
Springtime fun miser
--Definitely not Basho
Upvote
120
(122
/
-2)
I just bought an Earthquaker Devices guitar pedal (Pyramids) that came with eclipse glasses 
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
My house in Western NY is in the path of totality. My work mandated WFH that day, and schools extended spring break by an extra day. So we just need to step outside from 3:15 to 3:30 to experience it.
Also judging by all the "expected visitor" numbers each locality is projecting, added up along the entire path, I think something like 2 Earth's worth of people are travelling to see it.
Also judging by all the "expected visitor" numbers each locality is projecting, added up along the entire path, I think something like 2 Earth's worth of people are travelling to see it.
Upvote
46
(46
/
0)
It’s the internet it’s always tempting to be snarky
It’s also worth noting it’s a short window wherever you are so looking up the time table is key. And seeing it in totality (and driving to do so) is a much different experience than seeing it at 95% ( which will be visible from a larger area)
Everything changes colors, the weather changes, the sounds of nature around you changes. Its surreal. If the drive is doable for you I highly suggest it.
Upvote
17
(17
/
0)
I just told my wife that I’m gonna take our kid out of school for his birthday in a few weeks to go to a big comic book shop and she’s totally all about it.I had this on the calendar two years ago. My wife said no, the kids are in school that week.
Upvote
-10
(4
/
-14)
I don't want to completely disagree with the article, but I think your underselling the stress of dealing with the traffic and millions of other eclipse seekers. Not to mention competition for hotels, flights, car rentals, etc.
Upvote
19
(31
/
-12)
Let’s get back to the last few sentences. A supernova within a 100 light years (from any point around our perspective of our centrally located home) may present a problem? The galaxy is what, an absolute 100k LY from tip to tip? I’m visualizing a volumetric bubble of a bad day.
Upvote
7
(8
/
-1)
Don't complain about the snark when you're the one who started it.
Upvote
42
(47
/
-5)
I'm in Erie, PA and this has absolutely DOMINATED our news for the past year. I'm talking every single day they've had to mention it or run a story about it. We are a city of roughly 94,000 people with virtually no mass transit and they're claiming up to 240,000 travelers coming here and traffic being backed up on I-79 and I-90. Our downtown gets congested on normal days very easily because it's all 2 lane roads and lights that aren't synced every, single, block. Our airport accommodates 2 flights each day to Charlotte and that's it. This is going to be fun to watch.
Upvote
26
(26
/
0)
Upvote
47
(48
/
-1)
Seriously: Read up on how to safely view the upcoming eclipse. I looked very briefly at a partial eclipse back when I was in college - less than one second - and had a spot on my vision for over 20 years as a result. Don't risk doing it wrong.
Upvote
23
(26
/
-3)
One neat thing you can see (and photograph) during a partial eclipse are the shadows cast between the leaves of trees. The overlapping leaves can act as lots of pinhole cameras and project tiny crescents all over the ground.
Also, if you are in the path of totality, you take off your eclipse glasses for that brief time the sun is completely covered.
Upvote
18
(19
/
-1)
What's everyone's experience with how early we need to be to "camp out" a spot in a public park? Is the frenzy like going to a sporting event and being 1-2 hrs early or do I need to wake up at the crack of dawn and squat a parking spot 6+ hours earlier?
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
I saw the 2017 eclipse. Went up into the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness high in the Cascade mountains in Oregon. Right in the path of totality. It was the most surreal, beautiful, amazing, bizarre things I've ever seen. Simply stunning. If you have the opportunity to see this one, it is well worth the effort.
Upvote
25
(25
/
0)
Upvote
5
(15
/
-10)
Upvote
47
(53
/
-6)
During the last one that went across a wide band of the US (2017?), I went to St. Louis and drove south from there about an hour to a highway rest area that was right in the path of totality. I got there early in the morning, and it very quickly filled up. It was good vibes all the while leading up to it, several people brought cornhole boards and ladder golf and other lawn games, and a generally good time was being had by all. It was perfect, clear skies, sunny. Couldn't ask for a better day.
30 minutes leading up to the time of total eclipse, a bank of clouds rolled in. Mere moments before the actual eclipse, clouds completely obscured the whole thing...and stayed there for a whole duration. People shouted and cursed and were in disbelief. And then everyone kind of just silently returned to their cars and morosely drove off.
It was...definitely an experience. This one is much closer to home, but I am not sure I will be going to see it, to be honest. The hype just isn't there for me this year for some reason.
30 minutes leading up to the time of total eclipse, a bank of clouds rolled in. Mere moments before the actual eclipse, clouds completely obscured the whole thing...and stayed there for a whole duration. People shouted and cursed and were in disbelief. And then everyone kind of just silently returned to their cars and morosely drove off.
It was...definitely an experience. This one is much closer to home, but I am not sure I will be going to see it, to be honest. The hype just isn't there for me this year for some reason.
Upvote
17
(17
/
0)
American Astronomical Society Approved List Of Manufacturers: https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/viewers-filters
Upvote
38
(38
/
0)
Upvote
11
(14
/
-3)
It's so funny to me that the area around Cleveland is predicting huge crowds for this, we have a 70% chance of being overcast, if I was traveling more than 30 minutes there's 0% chance I would be making my plans including heading here, pretty much anywhere else on the path of totality has a better shot of seeing it than the band ~40 miles south of Lake Erie. In fact I'm about 90% sure I'll be heading SW into rural central Ohio myself despite living only a few miles off the line of maximum totality due to the propensity for cloud cover this time of year, the only thing that would keep me here is if everywhere through Indianapolis is expecting to get skunked by cloud cover.
Upvote
4
(6
/
-2)
I saw the 2017 eclipse from Albany, Oregon and man oh man that was amazing. I cannot stress enough that a total eclipse be on everyone's bucket list
Upvote
11
(11
/
0)
I'm not sure I would drive terribly far, but I'm fortunate enough to in Ohio and have scored a hotel room two hours away in the path of totality that didn't break the bank. We definitely are planning to arrive the day before and leave the day after, and I'm still not sure how miserable the traffic will be.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
If you don't want to risk looking at Sol during non-totality moments, you can build a pinhole camera, which you can also use to observe sunspots at any time. There are instructions online to repurpose cereal boxes, but the longer the box the better -- the projected image is larger, see McMath-Pierce below -- and most of us probably have an oversized Amazon container lying around. The last time we had a partial eclipse in my region, I built one from a pair of long narrow boxes for photographic tripods and IME it works fine without the "paint the interior black" step -- but it is important to make the box light-tight, so use duct tape instead of masking tape.
The tricky bit is using the camera, since you're facing away from the sun. What you do is act like the gnomon in a sundial and align yourself with your shadow (coarse positioning), then peer into the camera and pan/tilt until the image of the sun moves (fine positioning).
The same geometry is used in the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope (1962-2017) in Arizona.
The tricky bit is using the camera, since you're facing away from the sun. What you do is act like the gnomon in a sundial and align yourself with your shadow (coarse positioning), then peer into the camera and pan/tilt until the image of the sun moves (fine positioning).
The same geometry is used in the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope (1962-2017) in Arizona.
Upvote
9
(9
/
0)
I went out to the patio area outside my work. The local astronomy and engineering students were out in force with pinhole projectors and decent glasses, but the pattern on the ground from the light filtering through the trees was just perfect.
Upvote
15
(15
/
0)
As someone who went to EclipseFest in Prineville, OR in 2017, if you are able to make this, do so.
I have had some spiritual experiences in my life but nothing beats howling at an eclipse at 10AM with 75,000 other folks.
Best part? My wife and I at the time had been trying to conceive a child for two years.
The one we tried at EclipseFest stuck.
I have had some spiritual experiences in my life but nothing beats howling at an eclipse at 10AM with 75,000 other folks.
Best part? My wife and I at the time had been trying to conceive a child for two years.
The one we tried at EclipseFest stuck.
Upvote
17
(24
/
-7)
Heh I will be going to Erie to view it. I'm a part of the problem!
We're staying in Pittsburg so at least our hotel costs are reasonable and we booked the kids in an activity outside Erie that spans a few hours on either side of the main event so hopefully we'll miss the worst of the traffic but yeah it could be a lot of the time in the car.
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
Our small midwestern town is right on the western edge of the path of totality, such that if I drive even a half-mile further west I won't see anything. And even in town the farther East and South you go, the longer the duration. I was thinking of going to our high school's parking lot to view it but that may only see approx. 37 seconds of totality.
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Praetorian
Family across the lake in the Adirondacks... she's all MEH... but then folks are concerned of traffic, cows and such. Actually tracks right over their house...told her "put sign up, Parking $20 for the day, campers welcome! limited spots!"... she wouldn't have it..says probably snow that day...
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
My beautiful, amazing wife and mother of my incredible children? No, I envy no man and I wouldn't trade her for all the tea in China.
Upvote
16
(17
/
-1)