So it's over with for this decade. And I'm surprised by a few things.

First off, I've never experienced a solar eclipse in any form of percentage before. So this was totally new to me. I wasn't expecting some amazing celestial event with an angelic choir, but I was smart enough to have very few expectations going in. That said, I really enjoyed the following:

1. Seeing the entire sky turn twilight-ish from a full sun day.
2. Seeing stars in the middle of the morning. (10:17 am)
3. Birds changed their behavior, mostly just landing. Songs changed.
4. I thought the crescent sun pattern through thick tree shade patterns was really cool. I had no idea it would do that. Thousands of crescents was pretty neat.
5. The halo with no glasses was very exciting to me, alongside my children who were really into the whole event.

And lastly, I'm super glad I lived in the path of the totality. The traffic was absolutely nuts, and I didn't have to deal with it. Oregon does not have enough roads to deal with this volume of cars.

What'd y'all think? Boom or bust?

Back to lurking...

I'm into celestial events, so I nerded out.

Living in Raleigh, it wasn't total (shame that), but close enough.

Coolest experience was the eclipse shadows cast by the trees. The crescent shape you mentioned jroc. I was out in my backyard with a lot of trees and
saw that all over the ground as there wasn't a cloud in the sky. And with a breeze blowing those bouncing shapes were everywhere and was an incredibly peaceful sight.

I saw it in '79

I was eight. I thought "big deal, it gets dark every night". Same outlook today. Except today it was a rip-off. Got a touch darker for a little while. Still wore my sunglasses while driving. Still needed them.

We see things- daily- that will never happen again. We don't need a celestial event to evoke wonder, we simply need to be aware of what's around us more.

Maybe if it had any noticeable effects here, I'd feel differently.

I saw an annular solar eclipse in 1984 and it was pretty amazing but today's was even better. Lucky to live in the path of totality, about 5 miles from the absolute center of that path. It was an amazing experience, it got very dark, very quickly. Stars came out, at 2:30 in the afternoon.

I would have liked to have seen what it looked like in or around the path, some pics I saw looked pretty freaky for that time of day. Nothing where I'm at, of course, but a slight overcast look that I noticed from my kitchen table. Hey, any excuse to play "Dark Side of the Moon".

Fantastic night to watch "Apocalypto"

We traveled down to Carbondale IL, 5 hours by train from Chicago on a charter "Solar Eclipse Express". We had clear skies most of the way through partiality. Then a cloud came and covered it in the last few minutes. A huge thick one. Clear everywhere around it. Then right when totality started, the cloud *just* left.. The suspense was killer, the cheering 10x more wilder than it would have been​ with the cloud that we thought would ruin everything. We got 100% totality for 2 min 40 sec. It got dark like dusk, stars appeared, crickets started chirping. It dropped in temperature too. Weird.

Last eclipse I saw in the Chicago area was a partial in May 1994. That one was creepy because it happened after John Wayne Gacy was executed. I just thought, "Yeah, we're cursed.". Haha.

But this was my first total eclipse. And there's another on April 8, 2024 in the same town so we're already talking about going to that one too.

v6,
boNes

Asheville was 99,83 total, and was fun to watch. We mowed up until it began to darken, then ate lunch and watched. My son used 2 polaroid cameras with solar filters over the lenses for a little experimentation. I used welding goggles which fit nicely over my glasses and blocked out the unwanted light. About half of the returning sun was still visible until a heavy cloud ended our observation. an old friend was working on a construction job nearby and he and his helper joined us and we did some catching up and reminiscing college memories. we noticed the birds and insects reactions, more so perhaps since we could not see the last phases. a nice light mist started as we resumed mowing but it was light enough to finish mowing and stopped soon. a while later I talked to a couple who traveled 3 hours in traffic and had a mostly cloudy sky.

looking up at 1315 hrs to see the moon instead of the sun was ....strange !

Took the wife grocery shopping about that time, we had a 83% eclipse here and about 1 pm CST it was darker then 83%, BOOM. Thunderstorm unleashed.The sound of
hail on a walmart roof sucks the big one. My ears hurt from it. We were soaked taking out groceries after waiting 20mn we said hell with it, I was standing in 8 inches loading
up the bags from the cart. Wife jumped in and by time I got of the cart to the drivers seat, Looked like I swam. Thank god I had towels. Get home and had to empty water
out of a few bags. Now to dry the back of the car out.

I am 43 and vaguely remember 79. This was a 180 degree difference. 100% totality is what does it. Full stop.

Went to the Idaho desert for the event and it was absolutely, positively, 100% amazing and no regrets. I say this as a middle aged man that has seen a lot, Totality is where it's at. 95%+ is nothing on it. It needs to be total. Night and day (literally) difference. I won't say life changing for me personally, but I can see how some people might take it as such. I understand how the ancient people would freak, scream, cry and sacrifice. It was amazing and I'm probably still processing almost 12 hours after the event.. I strongly encourage anyone that hasn't seen totality to do it for once in their life. I'm going to try and see it again next decade. It was amazing.

Here are my amateur shots of the eclipse:







v6,
boNes

Yep. Totality is something different altogether. I've seen a few comments of "it was way over hyped" then looked at where the poster lives, I guess if you were expecting totality but lived 500 miles outside the path of totality it would seem like it was "over hyped"

nice shots bones thanks for posting


Total Solar Eclipses Over North America in the 21st Century
https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/future/

The next total solar eclipse will go right through San Antonio and Austin in 2024 - I'll be there ! (i hope)

I saw it in London. Went dark about half eight last night and remained so until some time before I got up this morning. Truly amazing.

Thanks. My brother's were way better. He had better gear. If I get a chance I'll post it.

v6,
boNes

Wow!! I had the same effect in the US East Coast!!



Seriously though we were far enough from the path that it was a slight dimming and nothing more. Looking forward to the 2024 one, we are dead center of the track for that one!

I bet telescope sales are high today (I know I want to get one). Even though I thought some of the reporters on TV were a bit silly, it was really cool to see people out with their kids doing something science related. We had light cloud cover here right at the wrong time, so it didn't seem like much here.

Here is ABC's coverage from 1979, Portland got legit dark



The hype was always for the totality path otherwise so unless you are geeked up about it to begin with most people were always going to be disappointed with a partial eclipse.

Took the family to Brevard College in Brevard, NC to see it. Way less crowd than we thought it would be... maybe 1/5 the size of the July 4th fireworks crowd. Kids moaned, picked at each other and whinned but once it started they were all into it. We brought the 8 in Dobsonian with us that the SimHQ crew recommended. It made a big difference. We could see some sun spots. My 8 year old was too short to view it so i had to hold him up to the eyepiece. We invited some strangers to look and they were impressed then other folk started asking if they could look too. My eight year old made sure to advise everyone that it was his telescope.

Funny side note. Rookie cop standing in the hot sun at the stop light at the college manually controlling the stop light. Next stop light older cop leaned back half asleep sitting in his police SUV manually controlling his light. Guess he'd been there and done that before.