The Total Solar Eclipse

The Total Solar Eclipse

Words cannot describe the eclipse experience, but I will try.  My sister and boyfriend came over my house to view it. My yard is on a hill--above the street lights. The best spot was right in the middle of my currently vacant vegetable garden.  

View before totality from my Kindle camera

We watched the moon start to pass over the sun with our special glasses, and that looked cool.  The color of our surroundings started to look funny--and things seemed to look sharper.  When the moon was about a third of the way across, the spring peepers (tree frogs) in the swamp across the creek started to sing.  Oddly, when the moon was at the halfway point, they stopped singing. Maybe it was because it started to get a little chilly.  The wind picked up,too.  They said that was going to happen.

My yard before totality

It seemed to take forever to reach totality.  Actually, it was about an hour and a quarter.  As we watched the sun turn into a sliver, we couldn't take our eyes off it.  When it reached totality, we tore off our glasses to look.

It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Any pictures you see do not convey its beauty.  I think because it looked alive.  It is so hard to explain.

All around us, it was dark.  People started shooting off fireworks, but I could still hear the spring peepers--they started singing again.  It got very cold, and I wished I had brought a jacket.  We could see Venus and Jupiter.  Eventually, the horizon--360 degrees around us was yellow. That was another amazing sight. 

\

Poor pictures from my Kindle

At the bottom of the sun, there was a pinkish red spot.  I now know that is called a solar prominance--and it just added to the beauty.

And then, we saw the flash of light indicating that totality was over,and we had to put our glasses back on.  It instantly became light again.  It was the fasted 4 minutes I have ever spent in my life.

I wish I could do it again, but then next time a solar eclipse comes to my yard is in 75 years.  One won't come back to the US until 2044.

If ever you can see a total solar eclipse, you will agree it is one of the greatest experiences in your life.