Eclipse!

As pretty much anyone with a pulse knows, today was a total solar eclipse in North America. We were not in the path of totality, but we were pretty close to it at 93% here in Raleigh, NC and luckily, Jay picked us up some eclipse glasses from Lowes back in early July (not even kidding; we had ours before we even left for Comic-Con in mid-July). High five, Jay!

I had to work today, but was fortunate enough to be able to leave my office for most of the “good” parts of the eclipse. Jay and I were going to meet at the RDU Airport Observation Deck, but Jay realized late-morning that we’d have a great view of the sun from our driveway and back deck, so we changed plans at the last minute. Jay made a fun little setup with a table, chairs, and umbrellas. The action in the Raleigh area began at about 1:15 p.m. I got home around 1:30ish and settled in for the action. As you can see, Jay and I have very different methods of sitting out in the sun in general:

So, the eclipse began around 1:15 p.m. and we maxed out at 93% coverage at the 2:43-2:45 p.m. mark. It was really, really neat. I only waited for a little over an hour, it passed by really quickly – and I wasn’t really even playing on my phone during this time. Thank YOU for the natural entertainment, Mother Nature. As we approached maximum coverage, we heard the crickets start chirping like it was dusk and although the temperature on my watch never dipped more than 10 degrees over a 2-hour timespan, it did start to feel cooler once around 50-60% of the sun was covered. The other really neat thing was the way the light changed. It never got dark, but it was this odd lighting like we were outside at dusk but sitting under flood lights. Does that make sense? I left to go back to work a little bit after 3 p.m., and while I was driving back, it was eerie in that the daylight looked like it was very early morning – that still, calm, “new” light effect.

As we approached maximum coverage, we heard the crickets start chirping like it was dusk and although the temperature on my watch never dipped more than 10 degrees over a 2-hour timespan, it did start to feel cooler once around 50-60% of the sun was covered. The other really neat thing was the way the light changed. It never got dark, but it was this odd lighting like we were outside at dusk but sitting under flood lights. Does that make sense? I left to go back to work a little bit after 3 p.m., and while I was driving back, it was eerie in that the daylight looked like it was very early morning – that still, calm, “new” light effect.

I had a great time watching it. It really was such a cool phenomenon to get to witness, and I’m so happy that 1) I was able to go home and view it comfortably and 2) the weather cooperated and we didn’t have many clouds. We decided to leave Zachary in school for it because he’s adverse to wearing any kind of eyewear and in that threenager phase where he would never have cooperated anyway or even “got” what was happening.

Anyways, it took a bit trial and error and advice from a friend, but I was able to get a few decent pictures of the eclipse by holding my iPhone about an inch away from the glasses and then turning the screen brightness all of the way down. I’ve loved scrolling through Facebook and Instagram today, seeing everyone’s pictures. Here are my pictures with time stamps. Enjoy!