sbrobert
By Robert Bernstein
As a member of the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit I have been excitedly looking forward to the total solar eclipse of 2017 for the past few years. But it was only a couple of months ago that I could figure out a strategy to experience this event.
Here are all of my photos from the event.
NASA identified Madras, Oregon as the best viewing location based on likelihood of good viewing conditions. The time of totality was a bit shorter than points further east, but the weather was most likely to be good. I read articles claiming that the eclipse would create the worst traffic jam in US history. People were advised to find a place to stay in the totality zone and not to attempt to drive in from outside the zone on that day.
So, I found an event called Oregon Solarfest. It was endorsed by NASA and would have a series of NASA talks on site. It would include several days of music in advance to spread out the traffic. We would stay at Solar Town five miles away which was closer to the center line of totality and would be less “festive”.
It all went well until the last day when they let in thousands more visitors without adding any more toilets. That last day was not pleasant. And, with most people leaving right after totality ended, the roads were a horrific mess after the event. It took us seven hours to make the 50 mile drive back to Bend. It took a total of 18 hours to get to our friends’ house in Ashland just 220 miles away.
That said, it was totally worth it. Eclipse watchers had been telling me for years that a total eclipse is a life-changing experience. People who have had the experience usually want to repeat the experience. Some people I met go so far as to travel to every single total eclipse anywhere in the world. It was a transformative experience, comparable to taking psychedelic drugs or achieving an advanced level of enlightenment through meditation.
How does it compare to a partial eclipse? One woman we met at Solarfest said that comparing a 99.99% partial eclipse to a 100% eclipse is like comparing a kiss to an orgasm. I would have to say that description seems just about right.
You can watch a partial eclipse on TV or on line. You are looking through a filter, a camera or some other mediator anyway. A total eclipse is not something you see. It is something you experience. There is nothing between you and the experience. No filters, no glasses.
NASA gave a series of talks to drill into us all of the things that would be part of that experience. The temperature would drop as it neared totality. By the time we were at 90% or so I would say the temperature dropped about 15 degrees. From feeling hot to wanting to put on a jacket.
We were not able to experience the change in behavior of birds and other animals because we were out in a huge field with no trees. That also made it impossible to view the dappled light through the trees forming little eclipse images on the ground. But we were able to view a sequence of the partial eclipse with a solar telescope quite clearly.
Starting with a full sun like this
At 9:08AM we first could notice the first nibble of the moon covering the sun, also called “first contact”
Here is a zoomed in bit of that image showing a line of three sunspots
The nibbles grew at 9:10AM
At 9:17AM
At 9:24AM
As people watched through solar glasses
And on at 9:38AM
9:50AM
9:59AM
At 10:12AM it was down to a sliver
But it was still light as far as our eyes were concerned. Here you can see the shadow of the sun on the targeting system for the solar telescope
Mount Jefferson to the West was still visible in its snow-covered beauty
But then at 10:19AM exactly on schedule Mount Jefferson went dark even as we were still bathed in light
At that point the NASA people had told us we have seventeen seconds before the shadow reaches us, racing across the continent at 2200 miles per hour in our location.
I had been told for years not to try to take photos during totality. The time of totality would only be two minutes in this eclipse. That time is far too precious to waste taking photos. It is important to experience the eclipse.
A partial eclipse is cool. But that is not what brought me 1,000 miles from home for a total of six days of travel round trip. Totality is something else entirely. It is not something that is seen. It is something that is experienced.
Still, the professional photographer in me got the better of me and I could not help but fire off a few photos.
First there was “Bailey’s Beads” where you can see the sun peeking through the peaks and valleys on the edge of the moon. I was not prepared to observe that because I did not want to miss a moment of totality itself.
I fired off a shot at the moment of the “diamond ring” which is the last moment before totality. I was no longer shooting through a filter. It was time to remove the eclipse glasses.
And then it was as if a switch was thrown and everything in the world changed. It was no longer about the sun or the moon. It was about every sense in all directions. I wanted to look everywhere to take in what was going on. It was now sunset in all directions!
This is what the eclipse looked like in my photo. But that is not what I experienced. This is what most total eclipse photos show. What I experienced was something much closer to what “primitive” people must have experienced.
They would have no idea what was going on. No idea about the moon being in front of the sun. The experience? The sun was gone. In an instant. It was replaced by an utterly alien being in the sky.
There was a hole in the sky that was the blackest black you have ever seen. Outside that black hole was something utterly unfamiliar. To me it looked like lightning bolts radiating far out into space in all directions, but frozen and unmoving. Full of delicate structure. Feeling like a conscious being, not like a simple physics phenomenon. That is the corona and in fact it is not a simple physics phenomenon. It is millions of degrees hot, while the surface of the sun is just thousands of degrees. It was the main area of research during this eclipse.
I have searched in vain for any photo that shows what I saw. The best image sensors and displays have a dynamic range of perhaps 20 to one. The eye can experience orders of magnitude more dynamic range than that. Most photos show the corona as a kind of halo around the sun. That is not what we saw.
That said, here are a few more photos I took during totality:
And then we saw light again on Mount Jefferson as we were still in darkness
And we knew we had just seconds more of totality. The diamond ring appeared on the other side of the sun
Again, it was as if a switch was thrown and we were transported back from an alien world to our own familiar Earth with a sun in the sky.
It was still just a sliver at 10:23AM
And not much more at 10:32AM
But the difference was more than between night and day. The world was back to normal in an instant.
There was so much to experience and so little time. I definitely would like to have at least one more total eclipse experience in my life. To fill in some of what I missed. And to solidify some of what I did experience and am still having trouble assimilating.
And remember, if you have seen a 99.99% partial eclipse, you have never really experienced an eclipse. Totality is something totally different.
