Solar Eclipse chasers

Seems like a lot people heading to the Path of Totality, stressing the various localities therein.

partner's family lives outside of austin directly in path of totality, were so tempted to go but airplane tickets were astronomically priced. now i'm seeing it'll likely be rainy there. was kicking myself for not saying money be damned and going for it anyway as this is a life dream but that forecast is making me feel a little at peace. i realize hoping for rain is remarkably selfish but it's more in thought than in deed of course

I am admittedly a bit excited about this. I should get around a minute of total eclipse where I live. I'm thinking of going to a small park nearby to have a more open view of the sky.

Friends have an extra hotel room, so we're headed to Cleveland this weekend.

wondering if i should take the day off. the path of totality is probably an 8 hour or so drive from where i am, but wondering if traffic on that day is just going to be insane.

I live in the path of totality but I'm going to Scotland on Friday oops

but wondering if traffic on that day is just going to be insane.

Yes.

I could drive 40 minutes to the center of totality on a normal day, but I'm going to sit tight right here with only about 90-120 seconds of darkness.

These things are really cool to witness, but that 40-minute drive is likely going to be six hours on the way back.

the path of totality will be almost perfectly centered above my house, its looking like itll be pretty cloudy that day but tbh i'm less interested in seeing the eclipse itself than i am in just seeing day turn to night and back again. local officials are saying they expect up to a million people but idk, i'll believe it when i see it

My daughter is really interested in this and booked a hotel room months ago near Little Rock for the night after it happens. She's going with my wife, wife's cousin and cousin's daughter. I have zero interest so I'll stay at home and hear about the meltdowns in real time as they try to get around. I'll make sure they take a cooler full of food with them, because meals are going to be an adventure.

It's going to be like this across a dozen states.

https://i.imgur.com/oTb3kMb.png

This map kills me:

https://i.imgur.com/lkrBUgF.png

A total solar eclipse happening at sunset. Oooh, it got so dark!

Australia is where the sun lands at the end of each day, didn't you know that

I knew that

Picturing a poster for this eclipse like in that one thread I cannot recall the name of

Lennon, Elvis, Hendrix etc, jamming with the eclipse

Hahaha!

I meant the busy film one of course

post movie posters done in a busy/claustrophobic caricature style from the 70s and 80s

This thing is shaping up to be Woodstock '99 on steroids

There was a scientist nerding out about it on NPR who was so excited. It was kind of cute and kind of crazy. He described it as one of the most life-changing events anyone could experience, and the closest we can come to space travel on Earth, or something like that. I suppose maybe, if it makes you pursue a career in astrophysics.

I totally forgot that the eclipse in 2017 was total so…

I have an ex in Little Rock and she reports that people are panic buying survival supplies like it's Y2K

Ha they definitely think Jesus is coming

This state is expecting up to a million visitors.

We only have three million residents already.

And they're all going to Russellville.

I went a 30 miles out of town to see totality get blocked by clouds in 2017, won’t be clogging any rural roads this time

I drove out to rural Nebraska and camped on a rural cattle ranch for the 2017 eclipse. Minimal traffic. Someone local made BBQ and overall I had a really great time.

not looking good for tx

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/29/cloud-cover-eclipse-forecast-maps-cities/

My boss is taking his family to Dallas

itll be pretty cloudy that day but tbh i'm less interested in seeing the eclipse itself than i am in just seeing day turn to night and back again.

There was a total eclipse here in Portland back in February 1979. Of course it was a day of thick clouds. I decided to go for a walk down toward the Willamette river as totality approached, so as to have a bit more sky overhead. Given the weather I didn't expect much.

I remember it as gradually growing dim, then dimmer, but the moment of totality was still breathtaking, like when a fast moving cloud shadow passes over you in summer, but magnified by many orders of magnitude. Very memorable despite the clouds!

good luck everyone

Excited for this.

I woke from a brief bad dream about some kind of mass shooting during the eclipse. Never have these, and hoping/assuming it’s not prophetic.

I have wondered what you could get away with in two and a half minutes while everyone's outside.

The library branches were giving away free glasses but ran out, apparently. People gathering at my house for the viewing, guess I better make a pinhole box viewer!

Visiting relatives in Ohio to see it. Experienced one in Nashville some years back and despite it being cloudy, it was just great as others said to experience the day to night to day shift and hear the confused crickets .

I was around for the one in NYC in 2017 and it was pretty cool! People were out walking around on the street. I have some good pics of my pinhole viewer and also how weird shadows looked on the ground. I don't think it got fully dark for that one though.

I wish I planned better - I have a friend who's out by Dallas now and I could've gone to see his family (and driven out with them to see the eclipse in the path of totality). Hell, I could've just gone up to Rochester or Buffalo. Kind of kicking myself because any of those would've been a much easier trip to make than whatever I'd need to do to a catch the next 40+ years of total solar eclipses.

rochester and buffalo are under nearly 100% cloud coverage iiuc. dallas is not great either.

"the path of totality" is such a bitchin' parody of new age twaddle

montreal's all totalitying so everyone's pretty psyched, exchanging various eclipse plans, panic over glasses etc. I'm going to keep it simple and just take it in with a bunch of 8-year-olds, why not?

Sky is mostly clear right now, around 3 I'm going to take a short walk to a nearby park with my kids and we will hopefully still have a clear sky then. I should have 1 minute 4 seconds of totality, looking forward to it.

NASA broadcast here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJY_ptQW1o

without commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5j95RUSLd8

I'm using a janky pinhole camera made from a Ritz crackers box.. pretty underwhelming here in California

Took me a second to realize that ambient new age jam was coming from the NASA video in the background.

It started here, btw.

actually the pasta colander works better than the cracker box camera

I got my glasses. I guess I have to remember to go outside and look.

For a minute I thought the NASA cam was playing Tangerine Dream's "Risky Business" score.