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Planning a trip to see the "great North American solar eclipse" on August 21st

The skies cooperated in Hiawassee, GA so I got 2 minutes 31 seconds of totality. I didn't bring any camera gear so my only picture is of the crescent snapped images passing through tree leaves. I think I'll just say I took the second one. It is from the NASA website. If you look close, you can see the ISS photo bombing the shot.

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At my son's for it. Fireflies came out for the 50 seconds we had there. Hot day. Next time they need to either schedule for cooler month or figure out how we can watch from the shade while it evolves.
 
At my son's for it. Fireflies came out for the 50 seconds we had there. Hot day. Next time they need to either schedule for cooler month or figure out how we can watch from the shade while it evolves.

Our concerns were heard. They've moved it to April for 2024, so it should be cooler then.

But unfortunately, it's back to August for 2045. I asked my son if he would mind wheeling me outside at my nursing home, if it's not too hot.
 
I'm adding some narrative and a few photos.

What I didn't expect with the total eclipse was that the difference in ambient light was not much different than normal up to nearly the last minute before totality. I synchronized my watch to my atomic clock. Per the schedule for my location, totality begins at 13:18:47.9.

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Suddenly, at 13:18:24, there is a darkening of the western horizon clouds as the shadow comes racing at us at about 1733 MPH. (This is based on it reportedly covering 2600 miles across the US in 90 minutes).

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Right on time, just thirty seconds later (according to the camera timestamp), the sun is a black ball and we are thrust into darkness. I was totally (no pun intended) amazed at how fast we went from lightness to darkness.

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A planet, possibly Venus, became visible in the sky near the sun. The sun was no brighter than a full moon so the eclipse glasses were useless and viewing with the naked eye was safe. They should be called partial eclipse glasses because during the total eclipse, you can't see a thing through the glasses.

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Earlier, before totality, little eclipse crescents were projected on my chair as the tree above created pinhole cameras.

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I had read before that you really need to experience totality to appreciate the solar eclipse. I now understand what that meant.
 
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I was watching the last 1% of sun disk to disappear with my binocular contraption and was surprised how much that 1% made in ambient light. Even at 99% shadow it was still fairly "twilight" but when it became 100% shadow it became darker and the brighter planets and stars became visible.
 
The other thing that fascinated us in Madras, Oregon was the temperature drop. It was near 20 degrees cooler in the second half of totality than before or after the event.! It was all so cool. Stars in mid-day, Mars showing up in mid-day, Eclipse shaped shadows, the arrival and departure of the darkness, people cheering, all the cool telescope and camera equipment in the campground, total eclipse, wedding ring, Bailey's Beads...... We got to see it all....... What a cool day.

Even though the traffic coming home was horrendous, the experience was definitely worth the effort!
>Thom
 
2024 - I'll be 75, hope I'll still be able to ride by then.

you will still be young Dennis, my father in law bought a Harley Sportster at 78 and a Jawa slider racing bike at 82. Although I don't think he ever rode the Jawa, he always wanted one and since he was a widower he had no one to tell him he couldn't have it.
 
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