Solar Eclipse USA

[Joyce]

My dad loaned us his welding helmets. It's not as dark as they should be for watching an eclipse but we're going to be careful and only look a few seconds at a time.

I'm at work and my supervisor is resigned to people going outside for periods of time between 1 and 4.

[fflurcadwgawn]

We're getting 75% totality here in the South Buffalo area.

I'm sitting at reception watching the shadows turn into crescents. I made an eclipse viewer for my one coworker out of an old computer paper box but he chickened out. Lol

My brother and his father in law are currently out on the patio with welding helmets. Their dog is beside himself.

[Rokia]

It was beautiful out here -- the corona was awesome and awe-inspiring! Loved it!

[JD]

It was...incredible.  Totality was way more beautiful than I had ever thought it would be.  From photos, I had assumed it would be orange-red around the moon.  But it was blue-white, those flaring spots were very visible, and it was simply beautiful in the extreme.  So exciting, when you're watching that last little tiny sliver of the sun disappear [through the glasses, of course], everything is all black, so you remove the glasses...and there's this black disc in the sky surrounded by blue-white light!  It was amazing.  I was also fascinated and amazed by the quality of the light as it dimmed -- it wasn't like a cloud covering the sun, it was grayish-blue light, and the shadows were angled, very eerie!  And the temperature dropped about 10 degrees, as predicted.  We had "eclipse guests" who came Sunday and stayed overnight, so had a nice little group to go nuts with, LOL!  Little girls 6 and 4 were intrigued, then bored, and then, when totality actually occurred, were thrilled beyond belief!  I think we all were.  

[PaulinaAnn]

91% here. I used some borrowed glasses. It was cool. But I found the shadows to be just as interesting as the eclipse in the sky.

Shadows Not sure if that will work or not... we'll see. 

[Stormwatcher]

Not sure how it was here, for the simple fact that as we were approaching our totality at 3:45, the clouds rolled in and covered everything up! Before that- around 3:30- the light was definitely getting a bit eerie, dimmer and dimmer without actually being shadowy- very neat. It did get dark enough for the the streetlights and parking lot lights to come on, and the heat definitely did drop (too bad the humidity didn't!) but then it all went gray and became your basic overcast incoming rain type of day. : p Try again in 2024, I guess.

[Scott]

I'm a little over an hour south of JD, so didn't get the totality thing. 

I waited too long to get the glasses. Friday night I drove around trying to find some, but it was too late. I felt guilty because my mother wanted to see it. I ruined the eclipse!

So I made a couple of pinhole viewers. They weren't very good so I got 36" x 8" x 8" box. Spray painted the inside black. Put a piece of paper at one end to serve as a screen. I cut a hole in the other end, put foil over it. Punched a half inch hole in the foil and removed a lens from some cheap reading glasses and taped it over the hole. According to the internet, the +1 lens from the reading glasses had a focal length of 39". The image was in focus inside the box. It looked like a little sun in there. The image of the sun was 4/10". I cut holes in the sides so you could gaze at the tiny sun from only a foot away. 

I was so proud of it. Then it turned out that the YMCA was giving out free glasses at a massive "viewing party" they had in a field, so it was all for naught. We went to that. Sat in a couple of lawn chairs and watched using glasses.

I brought the giant viewer with me. I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself, but I thought that the slightly different image might complement watching the eclipse with the glasses----it didn't. Someone asked if it worked and tried it, but didn't see the point in looking at it that way when they could just use the glasses.

I was a little annoyed by the music blaring. They kept playing "Moon Shadow". The line "If I ever lose my eyes/if my colors all run dry" served as a grim warning to people staring at the sun. 

Sounds like I should have taken the day off and driven half an hour to see the the total eclipse but I was afraid the traffic would be really bad.

[Rokia]

I went to the front lawn with my mom and dad and my friend Elaine and we watched from the front lawn.

I'm with JD - the beauty of the corona around the sun... WOW... absolutely incredible! I am just utterly stunned. The Lord is good, that is what I have to say!

My friend Elaine lives in southern OK which is just north of the totality zone for the next eclipse. Guess where I am going in 7 years???

And now an edit: I just found out the next solar eclipse is, once again, going to be over Paducah. We're in the totality line again! HUZZAH!

[fflurcadwgawn]

South Buffalo region will be in the path of totality as well. Win!

[Joyce]

In 2024, my area has 98% coverage but a (hopefully) simple trip down to Toledo will give me totality! That's just down the road from me! I might want to take a bunch of backroads instead of jumping on the freeway.

[Rokia]

They told us for weeks before the Eclipse that traffic was going to be a nightmare on the 21st -- that was a no-show. I don't know where everyone watched the eclipse from here - I didn't leave my house except to pick up Elaine from her motel that morning.

Do go for totality Joyce! It's incredible.

[Scott]

So I guess it's true. Donald Trump really did stand looking at the sun without glasses while an aide yelled at him to not look.

I can't judge him, at least not for that. I found myself glancing at the sun a couple of times without glasses then thinking, "Good God! What am I doing!" Think of how humiliating it would be wreck your eyesight after all that. At least he had the good sense to squint.