I’m skipping next year’s eclipse because it’s in the South American winter and the UK summer and plumping for the 2020 eclipse instead which is in the SA summer and the UK winter.
I’ve already seen 4 total eclipses. I’m waiting for 2024, when all I’ll have to do is step outside and look up.
You are very lucky. I hope you will be lucky with the weather.
In Northeast Ohio? Might as well buy some lottery tickets, too. Around here, when the weather report says “partially cloudy”, they mean that for at least some part of the day, there’s some patch of the sky where it’s possible to see blue.
I saw the one last year, and plan on heading east in the US to see the one in 2024. I wish I had the money to travel to others.
There was an eclipse in the middle of the ocean in the late 80s or early 90s. A friend of mine and his new wife took a honeymoon cruise out to where it was. It was a normal cruise ship that went on a special run instead of the normal Mexico route or whatever.
My friend was talking to one of the staff at the end and he said it was the most pleasant cruise he had ever worked. Instead of the normal drunken idiots, it was a bunch of nice science geeks. He said it was the first cruise where there were no injuries and they didn’t need to use the brig.
Same here, NE Indiana. 99.93% totality here. I jokingly already asked for that day off from work.
99.93% totality is not much different from 0% totality. I’m serious. The sun is that powerful a light source. You absolutely need to get to somewhere where you have 100% totality.
Speaking of eclipses and cruises, there’s a cruise being organised for the 2021 eclipse in Antarctica. It’s over $20K. :eek:
Last year’s was my first. Totality is amazing. I’ll likely head to Texas for the 2024 one. I don’t need to spend lots of money (or much of any amount of money) to see other ones. I can wait for 2024.
Quoted for truth. Less than total is just like a cloudy day.
At around 85% of totality, things might seem a little darker, but that is about it.
At 95%, you might notice a small drop in temperature, but certainly nothing to write home about. It’s really amazing how little of the sun it takes.
At 99%, yeah, it’s getting darker, and cooler, but it really isn’t that much different than a cloudy day.
At 99.9 % it’s like 99%, but a bit darker. Again, interesting, and if you know what is happening, something to remember, but nothing truly amazing.
At 100%, the sun goes out. Really, not like night, but not day. To describe it is like trying to describe color to a blind man. It’s like trying to compare someone shining a flashlight in your eyes to a meal at a 5-star restaurant.
My point is that if you have the opportunity to experience totality, even if you have to go out of you way a bit, do it! I wasn’t far from Hopkinsville for the 2017 and I will try to get close to maximum totality for 2024. Orgasmic sex with your soulmate approaches the experience, but is far, far too mundane.
Maybe I’ll see you there! 
I was at a large eclipse festival for this past one and I’m definitely hooked enough to go see the one in 2020.
And I agree with everyone else about totality. It’s just something that no description can do justice.
In 2024, the line of totality is going right over the city of Niagara Falls. That will be one heck of a honeymoon event! Better book now! Just watch out for the birds…
Niagara Falls, and lots of other major cities / locales! I love looking at maps so I’ll list some:
MEX — Mazatlan and Durango,
TEX — San Antonio, Austin, Dallas,
IN — Indianapolis,
OH — Dayton, Toledo, Akron, Cleveland, (NE Ohio, the ‘burbs),
CAN — Hamilton, Kingston, the Thousand Islands, Montreal, Gander
PA — Erie,
NY — Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Watertown, Lake Placid, Plattsburgh,
VT — Burlington, Montpelier,
ME — Rangeley and Oquossoc, Mooselookmeguntic (been there!)
I’ll probably head over to west / central Texas, looking for sunny, cloud-free areas.
That’s a great idea, and if you got the time stick around until January and follow the Dakar rally. Do you plan to take a tour for the eclipse?
The 2017 eclipse was a wonderful experience for me, but the coolness factor wasn’t high enough for me to travel to another hemisphere. Have a good time anyway.
One other thing that I experienced as totality approached that I wasn’t expecting was that around 95%, the world started transforming from color to B&W. That was neat. In addition, we could see the umbra approaching from the northwest. It looked like a rain storm but we knew it wasn’t.
I’m looking forward to 2024.
p.s. Where I live, we had about 90% coverage, and a woman I know told me afterwards that she wasn’t particularly interested in it, and around the time that it was peaking decided to pick up a few things at the grocery store. She noticed the crescent shadows, and some people were standing in the grass median in the parking lot with their safety glasses.
When she got home, things still didn’t look all that different outside except for the crescent shadows, and then she walked into her house, and it was almost as dark as night. She had to turn on the lights, but just for a few minutes. At that point, she understood why so many people were interested in it.
Already having photographed 3 eclipses (and one Transit of Venus [see my avatar]) last time I didn’t even bring my camera. I got a few shots of crescent shadows with my iPhone, but that’s all.
No, I’ll be home for Christmas.
Absolutely. The eclipse itself is only a few minutes so we’ll be visiting plenty of other places.
Yes, you get ripples. It’s very cool. I didn’t see them last time, but did with the Indonesia eclipse.
I feel the need to share from my travel journey entry for 21st August 2017, Hopkinsville, Kentucky. (I decided in round about 2000 that I wanted to see a total eclipse in my lifetime, picked one, and started saving.)
"The tiniest sliver of light still visible through the eclipse glasses disappeared, the whooping and cheering started, and I took the glasses off.
And immediately threw my hands over my mouth and started gasping, laughing and crying all at once. For some reason it was smaller than I thought, which is really stupid, because it was the size of the sun high up in the sky, after all. The corona was stunning, but what got me most was the colour contrast. There was the perfect, black circle, jet black, light-falls-into-it black, a hole in the sky, an absence rather than a presence. Round it is the shimmering corona, and then the most-definitely-not-black sky. A gorgeous, rich, deepest blue colour - WITH A FREAKING HOLE IN IT. And then the stars and planets. Thankfully we’d been fully briefed and there’s Jupiter shining bright to the left and Mars to the right and OMG the only time you’ll ever see the planets actually in orbit around the freaking sun with the naked eye.
After a bit I tear my eyes away to take in the full 360 degree scene. There it is - a full circle glow around the horizon. Not like a sunrise or a sunset, but a reminder that you’re standing in the moon’s shadow, and the edge of it isn’t that far away."
That’s totality.
If it had been cloudy, I would be going to South America next year. I may go to the States again in 2024, and have Spain in 2026 planned as well.