We took time away to drive down to Dallas for the April 8, 2024 full eclipse. We made our “reservation” with my wife’s sister a couple of years ago when the path of totality was published.
We weren’t all that optimistic on the drive down from the Kansas City area to Dallas. The forecast not only called for clouds but for strong storms.
For the eclipse of 2017 the path of totality was nearby. It was an easy trip to get to a spot where we could set up. I had brought my daughter and her new tracking telescope with solar filter but we only got one or two breaks during the period before totality where we could even get an idea that an eclipse was in progress. After about 30% coverage we never saw the sun again and before totality it even started dripping rain.
We retreated to a shelter house and conversed with others while we waited. We noticed it getting darker and the street lights coming on.
Then, it hit! When totality happened it was like someone had taken one of those slide dimmer switches and just turned off the light. It went from light to dark in a period of one or two seconds. It was something you could almost feel even though you couldn’t see anything. It actually took us a moment to figure that this was totality. Everything up to that point had been so gradual you almost didn’t notice it.
My wife had missed that eclipse since she had been working out-of-town and away from the path of totality. I told her that even if it was cloudy there would be an almost visceral reaction to the moment of totality.
I also learned that I just wanted to enjoy the eclipse and not be doing significant fiddling with equipment during totality.
For this year’s eclipse I bought a cheap HD video camera at the last minute to set up on a tripod. The idea was to do a time lapse up to about 20 minutes to go and then to record real-time. I had pretty much zero experience working with that camera and it showed.
The day before the eclipse was beautiful in Dallas. My wife’s sister drove us around looking at Blue Bonnets and Indian Paint Brush flowers. They had discussed going to the banks of the Trinity river as a wide-open place to watch. My issue with that was a) it’s a long way to lug chairs, etc. and b) it’s a long way from bathrooms.
Instead I set up about 10AM at a small park next to a stream a block away from their house. I had scouted it the day before so I had a pretty good idea of where the sun was going to be at 1:30PM. I brought a pop up cover which would either provide shade or rain cover. I set up the camera and started the time lapse.
At 10:30 I texted my daughter in Wichita that I was set-up but didn’t have much hope. It was so overcast you couldn’t tell where the sun even was. At 11:15 my wife came down so we could trade shifts and let me go up to the bathroom and change into shorts. At that time the sun occasionally peeked through the clouds. In Dallas the beginning of the eclipse was supposed to start at 12:20 or so.
I walked back up the hill and found that my Brother-in-Law had returned from biking and had seen where we set up (well, he’d seen someone that looked just like my wife). I think then he understood we didn’t need a whole wide-open space just a nice spot with a good view of the sky. Half an hour later the breaks in the clouds were more pronounced as I headed back to the park.
By 12:15 my wife and her sister returned with a picnic lunch. The moon was scheduled to touch shortly and it arrived right on the predicted schedule. It was clear enough we could use our glasses to actually see it. I later found out my Brother-in-Law had broken his foot stepping off a high curb (while texting) while walking to the park.
For the next hour the moon moved progressively across the sun and the clouds progressively disappeared. More people joined us in the park with people using all manner of contraptions to shoot pictures of the eclipse.
In addition to eclipse glasses with folding plastic frames (much more comfortable and stable viewing) I had purchased a couple of “cell phone eclipse filters”. A 3 inch circle of eclipse filter material with a cardboard holder that let you easily hold the filter over the cell lens while holding the camera. The problem was when I had tried it I didn’t like the results. It turned out the first time I tried it the camera was trying to focus on the filter itself. Then, even with the filter on, it was trying to focus and expose on the clouds. I had to figure out how to get to the shutter controls on my Samsung S21 in order to force the camera to a short shutter speed. Then I got more of the silhouette pictures I was expecting.
At about 1:20PM things were noticeably dimmer and yet they weren’t. Your eyes adjust. Part of the disconnect was that while it was about as bright as a high cloud day, the clouds had broken and there was full solar shadows and color. It’s an odd effect.
I checked the camera and it had run out of battery – not a huge surprise since I had just left it on. I had a spare in the car that I retrieved. I thought I started it in real-time but apparently I didn’t get it started because I had nothing on the chip and the camera turned itself off a few minutes later.
By this time the skies were completely clear. There was latent humidity in the air so it wasn’t a crisp clearness but there was absolutely no obstruction of view. Shortly before totality I played with taking some pictures of people watching. The lighting was odd (and I had to figure out how to reset my phone to normal mode). I also noticed an airplane I saw flying to the southwest suddenly disappear and I knew that totality must be close.
Then the main event. When totality hit I was flabbergasted. First of all the change didn’t seem as sudden as it did when it was cloudy. I looked up to see the corona. I hadn’t done a lot of preparation for what to expect and somehow I was surprised by this. I’ve seen pictures before, but the brilliant white with the (almost) perfect circle in the middle still somehow stunned me.
I got a laugh when the people in the house across the street from the park started playing “Black Hole Sun”. Probably a little too much laughter. I was pretty giddy.
After fumbling with my phone trying to get camera settings back I took a couple of pictures and not great ones. I’m glad I didn’t spend much time taking those pictures because what came next was worth the whole trip.
I noticed I could see a planet! At first I thought it was Jupiter, because that’s where I’ve been seeing Jupiter lately and then I realized that’s where Jupiter would be in about 6 – 8 hours. I must be looking at an inner planet. Then I looked across to the other side of the sun and saw another planet further out. I realized I was seeing both Mercury and Venus. I never got a good exposure when I tried, but it appears I accidentally got one with Mercury in an earlier shot.
The corona was surprising bright and illuminated the surroundings clearly. The sky around was also lit where non-totality was still hitting the atmosphere and providing some light like you get after sunset. We were all pretty sure we could see prominences at about the 5:30 position on the sun.
That 4 minutes goes by pretty quickly. I was looking elsewhere when the moon first uncovered so I missed the “diamond ring” effect.
Just like that, the lights came back on. I’ve seen quite a few partial eclipses before so mostly I didn’t pay close attention to the moon sliding out of the view. I did make sure to show folks the crescent shaped light dapples from the sun shining through tree leaves acting as a pinhole camera. I always find that amusing in an eclipse.
I am completely in awe of the folks that can predict with such accuracy when the eclipse will be and what the path of totality will be. I hadn’t even considered why we don’t get an eclipse every month when the moon lines up with the sun.
Thinking about it, because of our 23 degree tilt the moon doesn’t orbit on the same plane with the sun. And since our spinning planet keeps the north pole pointing in the same direction the entire orbit around the sun (thus the seasons) that also means that sometimes the moon can never be between the sun and earth. So in addition to figuring out when the moon’s plane and the sun’s plane intersect with the center of the earth so that there will be an eclipse then there’s the math of the moon’s motion and the earth’s rotation. That’s quite a bit of things to work out.
I’m so glad I made the trip and I’m doubly glad that the weather cleared. Finally I was quite pleased when my wife said “That was cool. I’m glad you made me come”.
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