Mine also show the sun glowing, not black. Dunno why.
For fun, we looked at the traffic on Google Maps, and (no surprise) saw tons and tons of yellow and red traffic.
Hopefully better tomorrow; several of us are driving to Montreal for the day. @Hari_Seldon , @EmilyG , anyone up for lunch?
Right on cue, a couple of the elephants starting trumpeting during the totality.
The Earth is completely full from the Moon’s perspective during a total solar eclipse, so it is quite likely it may be Earthshine.
Or just a photographic artifact.
I took Bill Nye’s advise and resisted photographing it but I screwed up and watched the moon completely block the Sun. I completely missed the surrounding area change from light to dark in what must have happened in seconds. I looked away from the glasses AFTER it went to totality and missed it. I was expecting a gradual decline in light and it was closer to a light switch effect.
Still a unique experience worth seeing. I did see Baily’s beads which I thought might have been Mars but apparently not.
Wow.
I just want to lead with that, because this was my first ever total eclipse, probably my last, and I’m incredibly glad I got to see it.
We stayed last night in Ozona, TX, a couple hundred miles west of San Antonio on I-10. When we first conceived this trip, we figured on Eagle Pass for our destination, then came up with a few backups like Kerrville, Fredericksburg and Gatesville in case of clouds.
Well, when we set out, we were wondering if there would be clear skies anywhere we could get to on the day of. We checked the Washington Post’s cloud cover map regularly and it was looking horrible. So last night, we sat down with all the weather data we could see and decided to go with - Eagle Pass, because WaPo showed a small clear area to the SE of the town, which looked like our best bet. They had two public viewing areas open, we chose the one that opened at 10:00, and endeavored to be there extra early to beat the crowds.
We arrived about 7:30 and there was on one there save for a few very early arrivals, who had already driven in and parked, so we did the same. Got a space near the entrance to the sports complex itself, and unloaded telescopes and chairs. The cops came by a bit later, and put cones in front of the other spaces on our row, but didn’t say boo to us, so we stayed put since we could put our scopes on the sidewalk right outside our car.
It really wasn’t looking good. The sun rose behind a wall of clouds, though we were able to spot it through clear gaps from time to time. We got the telescopes set up and waited as partial started. SunWife got a few shots of the start of the eclipse, and we watched the sky from the southeast (where the wind was coming from, thankfully) with anticipation. People were streaming in, and they had an MC, DJ, food trucks, jumping castle, and a merch table, so kinda noisy, but we were locked in on the sky. We met an ecllipse-chasing couple from England, and quite a few locals.
With about 15 minutes before totality, the clouds were thick in front of the sun, but there was a hopeful patch of blue a little ways off. Ten more minutes and the sun and moon were right in the middle of that patch, we squeezed off a few shots through the scope as we counted down to totality. I had to warn some folks nearby to keep their glasses on until the direct rays of the sun had completely disappeared.
Then in about five seconds, the night fell and the moon caught fire.
You could hear thousands of people gasping as one. I had just gotten out our binoculars and stared up at the corona. One prominence (that I think other Dopers mentioned above) at about 5 o’clock on the sun’s disk was massive and red. We had a few wisps of cloud before the sun, that just made it look more like it was a fiery globe in the sky.
We could see Venus, but no other stars or planets due to the clouds. I looked around at the horizon and saw the 360-degree sunrise effect, and pointed it out to the folks around us. It seemed to last a long time with the Moon blazing away in the sky, but about 20 seconds before totality ended, another cloud interposed itself and we missed out on the exiting diamond ring.
But that was more than enough. Just incredible. Four minutes that made the whole trip worthwhile.
I’ll see if I can post a few of our (that is to say, SunWife’s) photos, but probably not until Wednesday at the earliest. Hope everyone got to see a display that was at least half as good as ours.
Welp, the festival in Burnet TX was an adventure to say the least. We woke up on eclipse day to the news that the last day of the festival was cancelled due to risk of thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes. Everyone was told to evacuate. They said we could stay through totality if we were packed and ready to leave immediately afterwards. We chose to leave in the morning rather than try to leave at the same instant as thousands of other people. Getting out was not as bad as were fearing, and took us only about an hour to get to a public road.
We stopped in Bertram to see totality. It was mostly cloudy but we got a few glimpses through breaks in the cloud cover. We’re back in Austin tonight, a day earlier than we had planned.
In Richfield, OH, between Cleveland and Akron, we had perfectly clear blue skies from about 10 until 12 or so, then thin, high clouds through the eclipse. But they didn’t significantly obscure the viewing at all (although they probably prevented seeing the shadow bands). It was clear enough that we didn’t have to consider relocating, and were able to watch the whole thing from our friends’ back deck, with wine, cheese, and other snacks. Very convenient.
We observed all the odd lighting effects approaching totality that others have commented on.
At totality we were able to see Venus to the west and Jupiter to the east. The most spectacular effect was a brilliant pink prominence at about 6 o’clock and a series of smaller ones around 10 to 11. The view through my unfiltered binoculars was stunning. (I wish I had brought my DSLR to take a quick shot of that.)
We noticed some changes in birdsong and insect noises at totality, and there were many changes in temperature and winds, but it wasn’t clear to me if any of those were caused by the eclipse specifically or just random variations.
Everyone in our small party of seven had a great experience.
Did anyone manage to see the comet near Jupiter?
Shall we have a Dope Fest in Sydney, Australia, on July 22, 2028?
During totality the second I mentioned to the kid that the birds had stopped singing, as if to mock me, one of the birds started up again. We’re in Texas, so it probably was a mockingbird.
The biggest environmental change I noticed during totality was that the car that drove by had its lights on.
We are exhausted and still driving home from Minerva Lake NY to Long Island, 4 hours 20 minutes with no traffic, but traffic was horrible. And we had car trouble too and stopped at a mechanic in a small town to have it looked at, which added over an hour.
But it was a satisfying, impressive experience with clear skies. Totality lasted only 90 seconds, which went very quickly. Someone shouted “Bailey’s beads!” when it started, and we saw Venus as well.
I forgot to look at my green shirt or my husband’s red jacket so i have no idea how that phenomenon worked.
Great username/ post combo. 
My pictures. The first one is edited to get closer to actual light
Eclipse 2024 Eclipse 2024 - Album on Imgur
I noticed bird calls I am used to hearing at dusk. And I noticed a bird afterwards on a powerline, seemingly waking back up.
That’s an incredible photo!
My own attempt to capture totality (with a handheld camera) was far less impressive. But I am proud of the time lapse I got with my cellphone, which shows the (rural) landscape, wisps of cloud, the sun, a spec of moon, and (briefly) Venus all in frame. I got ~7 minutes on either side of totality, compressed to 38 seconds.
If I could just figure out how to post it somewhere (other than Instagram and Facebook, I mean).
Okay, so I went ahead and put my one… I won’t say good (certainly not compared to what people have shared here) but “serviceable” (for a rank amateur without special equipment) picture of the eclipse, plus the time lapse on my blog:
Plus a few pictures of last October’s annular eclipse for good measure.
The 12P/Pons-Brooks. I did not, being in the UK. I looked for it last night but too cloudy to see Venus or Jupiter. Tonight it should be near the tiny sliver of the crescent moon and still of course near Jupiter. I’ve only my small binos here yet am hoping it naked-eye visible.
Had an amazing experience in Burlington. I found a good spot on a fishing pier on Lake Champlain. Got there a couple hours early, and managed to get a seat on one of the benches. Once the eclipse started, there was a guy with a telescope who was inviting people to look through it. I did, and while I was up four kids (college-age probably) took over my bench without asking. Well, when one of them stood up to look, I plopped down in his spot. None of them said anything, but eventually they managed to squeeze all five of us on. Rude, entitled little whelps.
The actual eclipse was amazing. Thin clouds, but not enough to block the view. There were probably a few thousand people on the shore behind me, and I could hear them shouting when totality started. A little more relaxed where I was. No one fell down and wept, but I think we were all moved to some extent. Still hard to put into words, but I’ll think of something.
As I was leaving, I found someone’s sunglasses under the bench. Score.
A couple things did occur to me. In the morning before the eclipse, I tried to see where the moon was, but I couldn’t. It’s obviously close to the sun, and almost completely backlit. I was thinking of all the people for thousands of years who saw this, but may not have known why it was happening. If they could see the moon 6 hours, or 12 hours before the eclipse, they may have figured out they were converging. So how soon before an eclipse can you see the moon with the naked eye?
After totality, it didn’t take long for folks to start clearing out. Folks who had been looking through the telescope and oohing-and-ahing over the crescent sun just seemed to pack up without a second thought. I looked through the telescope again. The view was just as cool waxing as it had been waning. As I was walking to meet my friend for dinner, I kept putting my glasses on and looking. I saw one other guy doing the same. I think we both caught the moment when the eclipse ended.
That was the only real frustration of the day. I had a hotel room reserved in Springfield, about 120 miles away. Google Maps picked a route for me that would put me on a side road to miss some traffic on Route 7. Something in their algorithm must be broken. There were hundreds of cars. Took me 90 minutes to go 3 miles, with the road showing blue the whole time, and the projected arrival time ticking up and up. I suspect the speed limit was 25 mph, and 2 mph didn’t register as a slowdown. So Google kept sending more cars there, expecting the road to be free and clear. I test software; that’s a bug.
Made it to the hotel about midnight. Gonna hit a couple museums in Manchester on the way back to Boston today.
I tried, deliberately taking wide-field photos, but the sky was much too bright.
Maybe if the eclipse could have been viewed from a very tall mountain, it would have been possible.
Perfect eclipse weather in Montreal, and though i could have watched it from my balcony, I decided to go to a more central location early - along with a few thousand others. I staked out my spot on a grassy hill, and watched the show. Applause and screams as totality and darkness approached, and lights in the downtown office buildings became very noticeable. Public transit was chaotic - even around noon - but I managed.
One of the radio stations I tapped into on my drive up yesterday was having a bit of fun. Back-to-back they played Dancing in the Dark, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and Walking on Sunshine.
We missed it, and my wife is extremely disappointed, since this was probably her last chance to see one. We drove across Missouri on Sunday to stay with my brother in St Charles county. Our original plan was for my wife and I to pick up my sister (who lives in N. St Louis county) early Monday morning and drive down to Cape Girardeau to watch. My brother and sister-in-law decided at the last minute that they wanted to go along, and we switched destinations to Perryville MO which is about 45 minutes closer but still in the path of totality. Except that SIL had to work early and couldn’t leave until 10 am. By that time of course the highways were packed and it took us three and a half hours just to get to Crystal City, which was only about halfway to where we wanted to be. So we pulled off the highway and watched from a QuikTrip parking lot.
The most annoying thing, other than my brother who drove and complained the whole way, was that my niece and her boyfriend who live just a few blocks from my brother, left after us but managed to make it down there. They took a route that went over into Illinois and down and then back over. We should have followed them!