Total eclipse Americas 2024

[the Earl of Whirl]

I am back from the RIT juggling festival in Rochester, NY.  What a great event and so many great people.  Owen also was headed home, back to Columbus, Ohio.  Jim and I went to church yesterday and then walked around Niagara Falls.  The place was pretty busy for a Sunday.  Lots of lookers and lots of people setting up their vendor areas.  I did not see any security or police at that time and no signs up about a state of emergency.  There was some talk about a lot of people coming but we will see.  Hope everyone has a good eclipse day!!!

[ta0]

I was quite lucky, as I could kind of see the first 50 seconds of totality (out of 4:24) even with a cloud cover of over 90%.

The city of Kerrville organized a great festival in a park by the river Guadalupe, completely free. I'm happy to have come here.

Is it too early to hype the August 12, 2026 eclipse crossing the north of Spain?  😁

[ortwin]

This is the report I got from my Canadian friend:


Hi Ortwin, so I took your advice and travelled the 20 minutes to see the full eclipse with **** and ****....good call !
I think i would have regrets if we hadn't done that.
Quite spectacular !
We had a lot of cloud cover for most of today, but the skies cleared up completely just before the eclipse began, around 2pm. Lucky lucky!

[ortwin]

Is it too early to hype the August 12, 2026 eclipse crossing the north of Spain?  😁

You need a new T-shirt where that is also included!


Mallorca gets 1min 36sec of totality. We should organize something for around that date with our Mallorquine friends!!!

[ta0]

[ta0]

Your friend, Ortwin, was very lucky. Good that you could convince him.

[ta0]

I arrived very early to the festival in order to find good free parking. I got to throw tops a lot and do some ball juggling while waiting for the eclipse to begin. Somebody even gave me free tacos for the entertainment!   

The cloud cover was too much to do the partial eclipse shadow experiments I wanted to do. I don't have photos of the eclipse as I tried to just enjoy the few seconds when the sun peeked between the clouds.

Anybody else experienced the eclipse?

[paulstewart]

the ride north from Germantown to Crown Point was nice, mostly rural roads.  Occasionally seeing long lines of traffic crossing the secondary roads.  The state park on the NY side where I intended to go and explore, was full at noon, so drove across Champlain Bridge and parked at the VT boat ramp.  Gorgeous spot with views of the Adirondack High peaks, Whiteface and Mt. Marcy.  Quite a few people spread out on a lawn and along the lake front.  The eclipse was stunning, so glad I made the drive.  I watched from the very beginning till the moon had completely passed, using a welding helmet with a fresh #12 lense.  Took a few pictures, the light quality was a fascinating experience.  it rivaled a full moon in a snowy field, or blazing sun while ice boating, where light is unusual on a massive scale.  this was the last day of the 2014 sailing season, there wee sunny days with high wind and fast sailing but this was not that, still fun though:  youtube.com/watch?v=pRU1o54A_Uo

I see why James. Turrell works so hard to make light experiences.   Traffic leaving was slow.  I took a few isolated dirt roads along the lake till I had to join the crowds on pavement.  The Albany bi pass, 787, leads to the NYS thruway, as I took the on ramp I could see it was a massive south bound traffic jamb, so went north to loop around Albany to circle back and take the minor road along the river to go home.  Glad I have some local road knowledge.  The news reports south bound traffic is still heavy today, day after the eclipse.   I'm working on the new top today. Glueing up the tip is the last piece to be made, then paint, and testing!  Pretty excited to have these 2 new tops, Octavia the whip top and the new Presto, spinning at the same time. 

[paulstewart]

This is the new, 2011, Champlain Bridge from the Vermont side.  It has a generous sidewalk on each side and 2 lanes.  It's an attractive modern design that feels 1/2 scale of a much grander structure.  Not sure at what point during the eclipse this picture was taken.  Visibility was excellent, I'd guess 50+ miles, so while we were in the shadow of the moon, the edge of the shadow off to the south evident.

[ta0]

Wonderful! I'm very happy that you could see it with clear skies!

I wished we had had clear skies, but I'm still happy that I could see something.
Being with a crowd was nice for the common shared excitement, although I missed some of the silent wonder I experienced on the other eclipse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNQReCUtI2s

[the Earl of Whirl]

That was quite a responsive group you were with.  Things were much quieter here in the Burg.  I was out in front of our church building at 213 East Central.....much like previous pastor Walter Spielman was back in 1925 for the last big solar eclipse.  I enjoyed observing the birds getting quieter and quieter.  Then, when it was over, they jumped down out of the tree and started looking for worms like it was morning.  The most unusual thing, though, were the flies.  We had hundreds of them gathered on the cement posts of our benches!!!  When the eclipse ended, they went on their merry way again.