Flash Post #12
I have been fortunate to see two eclipses in the past six months. First, there was the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023. Then, there was the total eclipse of April 8, 2024. Here are a few quick pictures, plus a time lapse (of the total eclipse).
Total Eclipse – April 8, 2024
This one was tricky. Had I not had a storage unit in Abilene that needed clearing out, I might have missed it. The weather forecast for the period totality was abysmal throughout Texas, and I had to travel a little over 1,000 miles round trip to reach the path of totality. And, since it was a Monday, I was going to have to take time off work to see it (and either complete the 500+ mile-long return trip that same day, or else take Tuesday off as well). I ultimately decided the risk of clouds was worth it as long as I could stop by my storage unit and pick up some things that have been collecting dust (so much dust!) for almost 4 years (since I left Abilene for law school in Michigan and could only take with me what I could fit in the back of a sedan).
In the event, the day before the eclipse, just sitting in my hotel room after stopping by my storage unit, I learned that the area around Stephenville, Texas (itself just on the edge of totality, and about 100 miles from Abilene) might just escape the worst of the overcast skies still forecast for most of the path of totality within Texas. After careful review of the hourly weather forecasts for the surrounding area alongside NASA’s interactive eclipse map, I landed on Hico, Texas as the best location to (1) give me more than a few seconds of totality but (2) still be within the area forecast to be only “partly” cloudy during the early afternoon of April 8.
The day of the eclipse, I came across a picnic area just a few miles outside of Hico and figured that was as good a place as any (Hico is not a large city, and I wasn’t confident I’d be able to find a place to park, especially if a lot of other hopeful eclipse viewers had the same idea). And while the picnic area I stopped at wasn’t completely packed, it was certainly busier than one would normally expect of a picnic area (without facilities, no less!) along a state route in Nowhere, Texas (with deep respect for the farmer whose home was just on the other side of the fence from the picnic area).
There were a few clouds in the sky, but fortunately, the view was clear enough that I was able to experience the full 3-minutes of totality available from that location. I can’t say the still picture I took was amazing…
….but I like the time lapse for what it shows of how totality looks relative to the landscape:
Annular Eclipse – October 14, 2023
I didn’t have to travel so far for the annular. I had roughly equidistant paths to view the eclipse from, so I waited until the day before and traveled out to cite that looked like it was going to have the better weather. I could have done it out and back in one day, but it was a weekend and I didn’t feel like waking up too early. I also didn’t want to take the chance that a bunch of other people in my decently populated metro area would get the same idea and run into backed up traffic on the interstate. Anyway, here are some pictures I took from Odessa, Texas, somehow managing to get a few relatively clean shots using just a handheld camera and my own eclipse glasses as a makeshift filter:
Conclusion
Well, that’s it. My deepest sympathies to those whose view was obstructed by clouds (at least those who couldn’t make it to the path of totality weren’t expecting anything special). On a personal level, it was particularly meaningful to get to catch the 2024 eclipse because I grew up outside of Dallas, Texas and I remember being… unimpressed by a partial eclipse that touched the area at some point in the 1990s. I remember a camp counselor mentioning something about a total eclipse that would happen in something like… 30 years, and at the time (being in elementary school and whatnot) not being able to even comprehend such a span of time. I suspect this April 8, 2024 eclipse was the eclipse the camp counselor was referring to, and, well… I saw it. One of the reasons I don’t have a better picture of the total eclipse was because, at some point, I came to realize that there would be (and surely are now) plenty of pictures from photographers, both professional and amateur, with much better equipment (or just better luck/skill) to view after the event. But no amount of high resolution photography or video can fully replicate the experience of viewing totality in-life from human eye. It was amazing.
It’d be neat to be able to see something like it again, but I’m glad I got to see it once at least.
Songs of Babylon 