![]() On July 2, 2019, I watched it from a Buddhist temple in Chile’s Valle de Elqui, and it was no less glorious the second time: The 2019 eclipse in Valle del Elqui, considered one of the best places on earth for stargazing (Photo: Courtesy Mardi Fuller) Why Is a Total Solar Eclipse in the U.S. I was so transfixed that I immediately identified as an eclipsophile, and made plans to watch the next total eclipse, which as fate would have it, fell on my 40th birthday. So find your most difficult-to-impress friend (or maybe you’re the skeptic) and place them beneath this show of shows come April 8-and start looking now for prime dark-sky viewing destinations, because, as we’ve seen with this fall’s annular eclipse, the best spots book up fast-and I guarantee they will involuntarily gasp in awe. Wide-angle images capture only one static moment of a dynamic progression that elicits new astonishment with each change, from the sunset light in every direction to the confusion of insects and wildlife as night descends in the middle of the day, to each singular phase: the diamond ring, Baily’s beads, and totality-that moment when the sun is fully obscured, the corona is visible and you can take in the sun’s prominences, or loops of plasma rising from the sun’s surface. Telescopic shots of the eclipsed sun look like digital art. No photo or video footage can do this phenomenon justice. ![]() The eclipse was a bewildering experience, because it incorporated elements I’d known my whole life- the sun, the moon, light on a landscape-and yet felt so entirely new that I imagined myself to be on another planet, or perhaps in another dimension. I stared at the corona-the wispy outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere, not visible at any other time. The scene couldn’t have been more surreal: a handful of friends and strangers and I stood in the axis of the earth’s umbral shadow as the moon crossed the sun’s path, an event that lasted for less than two minutes from my vantage point. The last time a total solar eclipse was visible in America, in 2017, I watched it from atop a small butte on BLM land west of Lander, Wyoming.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |