It’s Monday afternoon, and we just experienced a total solar eclipse here in Nashville. I wasn’t all that excited, but I must stay it turned out to be pretty neat. I was able to snap some pictures by putting my eclipse glasses over my iPhone camera lens. This photo shows the sun at its usual state.
This photo was taken 15 minutes before totality. The sun is small, but you can clearly see the crescent shape.
Here’s another shot of the crescent:
By the time totality hit just before 1:30pm, the birds and insects were making their nighttime noises, which was quite strange. Through our glasses, we watched the sun disappear completely. Then we removed our glasses and were blown away. My camera didn’t pick up the image, but this photo is a near-exact representation of what we saw:
Were you able to see the solar eclipse? What did you think?
Anonymous
Just got done watching it. We had decent sun coverage here. Not total, but a lot. We also noticed the light dimming and the landscape getting eerie. Also, what sunlight was left on our skin was not making us hot any more. We had the neighbors over and had all sorts of ways to view it, including a solar-filtered telescope. So cool!
That picture you posted shows what's called the "diamond ring effect," the last flash of sunlight before the moon covers the sun completely (or the first flash on the other side as the moon moves away from totality again).
nashvillewife@gmail.com
Sounds like you know something about astronomy. One thing we missed seeing were the "snake shadow bands." I saw them in YouTube videos after the fact, and they looked neat. Do you know anything about why those occur?
Ellie
Anonymous
The exact mechanism that produces these fleeting snaky shadows isn't fully understood, but they're probably caused by rippling air currents in the atmosphere acting like lenses that bend the light as the eclipse shadow races towards you. It's similar to what happens when you look down into a pool on a sunny day, while someone is standing in the water. If the surface of the water is disturbed, everything under the water looks like it's distorted and rippling, too. The person isn't moving, but their underwater image looks like it is.
It's hard to think of the air around us like a liquid, but that's what it essentially is when it comes to the motion of air currents. Thanks to the sun (and rotation of our planet), our atmosphere is a moving, almost "boiling" mass, like a pot of water about to come to a boil (and then at night, the heat gets temporarily turned down). Predicting weather is like trying to predict where in the pot the first bubble will form, how big it will be, and which way it will move. If you've ever stood over a pot watching water come to a boil, you've probably seen the ripples start as the water heats up. Now imagine that the pot is turning while it's heated, and you can get a feel for how difficult weather forecasting for any particular location can be, and how advanced the science behind it needs to be.
nashvillewife@gmail.com
Wow, thanks for sharing! That's very interesting. Where did you learn all these facts?
Ellie
Anonymous
Thanks for the pictures. No I was not able to see the eclipse it was cloudy here.
Ellie is that your new front porch in the background.
nashvillewife@gmail.com
Yep, that's our porch. 🙂
Ellie
Regina
You were blessed to see a total eclipse. We ended up watching it on the NASA channel when I got back from physical therapy. It was too cloudy here to see much.
Anonymous
I was just like you—not really excited, but I must say…I was amazed! It was so cool! And am glad I was able to enjoy this once in a lifetime experience.
Anonymous
I am up in Wisconsin. We had a little too much cloud cover to get the total experience, but we did get some peaks of the sun, and the sky did darken a little bit. It must have been quite an experience being in the path of totality. So I am wondering if people can reuse these glasses for the next eclipse in 2024, or would they outdate and be ineffective by then?
Anonymous
They can be reused!
Anonymous
As long as you don't physically damage them (rip, scratch), they should be OK. But you have plenty of time between now and then to research some other ways to view, or get some glasses more substantial than ones with floppy cardboard frames.
Anonymous
We had about 75% coverage in NJ. There were crescent shadows everywhere and it got noticeably darker and cooler. I also heard crickets during that time.
Anonymous
My hubby and I watched it on NASA channel. Than we went outside to watch it, which we had 80% eclipse.First time for us, thought it was awesome…Jane
naomi
We were in Hopkinsville ky and had full eclipse ! Totally cool!
nashvillewife@gmail.com
That's just a hop, skip, and a jump from Nashville! Glad you were able to see it.
Ellie