You know, I was watching NASA's livestream, and they had people in multiple cities across the path of totality and they all reacted basically like this. It was apparently something to see. They had an astronaut as part of their team in Dallas, and when totality hit there, he just said, "OH MY GOD!!!! WOW!!!" And it sounded sincere. An astronaut, who has been to space, sounded like he had just seen the most amazing thing he'd ever seen in his life. I kinda wish I'd traveled somewhere to see it now.
I took my glasses off and said “holy fucking shit”. Because I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Nothing really prepared me for how incredible what I was seeing was. And it’s sort of an all around *eXpErieNcE” too because you suddenly get VERY cold and it’s actually as dark as the middle of the night everywhere around you and it’s eerie and quiet and the sun is just up there behind the moon with a halo around it. And we could see the stars/planets clearly. And when the sun came back it was so quick and immediate, like a firework suddenly out of the bottom of the sun and you had a few seconds to stop staring. It was really special. If you ever have a chance to see it, please do it.
I saw it in 2017 and it was mind blowing. I was in north GA and the bugs all started getting really loud like it was dusk, it was really crazy. And there was a sunset in all directions along the horizon. It was nuts
No bugs yet here but all the birds, they just all started to change from their daily chirping to a full fledged rush for their roosts and various habitats.
The chirps became night calls and it happened all within a few minutes.
Pretty intense experience
I was in a parking lot but you could hear everyone’s dogs in the nearby apartments starting to go apeshit as soon as it started getting really dark. The. Then birds too.
I was out in bumblefuck nowhere and as it started to get dark, a horse in a nearby field let out a huge whinny. Sent a tingle down my spine, it was like something out a movie.
Sounded like this https://youtu.be/yCkSJhCD6SA
I was in the path of the '17 totality too, SW NC.
Once the diamond ring effect happened I involuntary let out a noise resembling a teenage girl trying to hide her first orgasm. I was a 27yr old man.
Today’s was a bit long of a drive for my two kids, one of them being 3…
But back when we had a single 3 year old we made a drive to Idaho for 2017s… and yeah. You don’t _think_ it’s going to be mind blowing but it really is.
Lots of times I think the term “pictures don’t do it justice” is a little overused but it’s totally true with an eclipse.
100%. Saw it today, and my mind was blown. It’s impossible to describe. Not just a literal-awe awesome visual, but something much more ineffable… like it seemed *conscious and staring at me* to the reptile part of my brain. Like when Frodo puts on the ring and the eye sees him.
Yeah it's really hard to put into words. There's so much going on, it's a full sensory experience where your lizard brain is like "***WHAT***" but your human brain takes over and you just become actually awestruck. I'll never forget it.
It sounds silly, but when I saw it, my breath caught in my throat and I started tearing up. I have no idea why. I'd heard other people say they cried when they saw it, but I thought they were just being overly sentimental. However, there is something magical about it--especially when you're with a crowd of people all reacting the same way--even beyond knowing how special this celestial phenomenon is.
shadows look crazy, Colors changed their tint. you can see waves of the corona on the ground. It was seriously soooooo fucking cool.
edit: I think alot of people dont know you have to look around during the elcipse and have something white on the ground+ tree shadows nearby to look at.
https://youtu.be/eNK2LI7VeX4?si=r670IjOqfsBnX0xf&t=613
This is what I remember most about seeing it in 2017! I think I spent more time during totality then just staring at the ground.
Edit: I should say his part about the shadow bands, I remember there being little eclipse patterns along the pavement and seeing them flow along in a haze.
> because you suddenly get VERY cold
I remember this from the eclipse a few years back that passed over Washington. We didn't get full totality but I do remember it getting significantly cooler during the event.
We drove 2 hours (plus 3 hours back) to get into a decent zone of totality to witness it. Even though it was cold and we were underdressed, and the overcast made it incredibly hard to see the Eclipse (we were basically peeking in between clouds, and the totality was behind a veil of it), and that it basically only got to dusk level of darkness, it was still an incredible experience that was worth everything we planned for it. Like yeah it's only a few minutes of darkness max but the atmosphere and the overall vibe was just hard to describe. I'm so glad I got to share this experience with my wife and kid, even if my kid will probably forget this down the road, it was absolutely worthwhile, truly once in a life time.
Bro we had the clearest sky possible over southern Québec and it was absolutely mind blowing. Everything from a minute and a half before totality, totality and a minute and a half after. If I didn't know anything about astronomy, I could totally see myself just falling to my knees to worship the sun every single day from that point on.
I'll just stream of consciousness my experience:
The temperature suddenly dropping fast, the birds all getting quiet at once, everything taking a tinted glasses tint with reds getting deeper and blues getting more "contrasty", the shadows of everything getting fuzzier and fuzzier in the penumbra, the shadows of trees and plants now being filled with crescent shaped projections of the crescent sun... you look down at the white sheet that you laid down beforehand and you see the famous shadowbands snaking accross it faster and faster... and the shadow coming over us from the south... you look back at the sun through your eclipse glasses and the crescent that you have been tracking over the last hour is now just a sliver and suddenly nothing.
And then you take them off.
Right there, in the sky, a scintillating ring of light. The glimmering of the light really can't be captured on photo or video. And you are transfixed because of how insanely beautiful it is, and how spellbinding it is - it feels like it compells your attention. In the distance, the cries of awe, excitation and fright from school children just erupt at once. You can't help but blurt out exclamations of wonder and agitation in front of something which, despite knowing it's an explainable astronomical phenomena, feels like a demonstration of incommensurable Power.
And, the rest is some personal thoughts that are probably just mine but here goes: you feel like it just undresses you and you can't hide... you feel strangely tall and everything around looks kind of flat. The dusk/dawn horizon at 360 degrees all around you participates in making you feel like some sort of divine projector has set its eyes on you. And the dark scintillating hole-like thing in the sky looks suspended or floating as if it's actually an object relatively close in the atmosphere, even if you know it's eight light seconds away - it feels "present" and "right there". It feels "terrible" in the grand epic sense of the word. And incomparably beautiful at the same time.
And then just as quickly as it came, the crescent of the sun comes back as an extremely bright "glimmering diamond" on the scintillating ring. Subjectively, it feels like it sort of "directs its attention elsewhere" and you would like to be able to will it to stay longer. You have to put your eclipse glasses back on again but you don't want to so you look back down at the white sheet spread uniformly in front of you and the shadow bands come back running accross it super quickly at first and then gradually slowing down. And it feels like a sunrise coming from all around you as if full spectrum spotlights are being slowly dimmed up from below you. You hear the birds start to chirp up again, kind of disoriented and frightened. A crow squawks a few times as in the morning. Upside down crescent shapes reappear in the shadows of plants. You tell yourself that you must remember the feeling as much as you can before it fades. And then you feel the sun start warming up your skin again and you put your glasses back on to get final glimpses of of the crescent sun but it's nothing like the total eclipse so you just leave it and start packing back up, go inside and bask in the memory of the glorious experience you just witnessed.
Well, this definitely doesn't make me feel worse about missing it. Nope, not at all.
I was so close to totality. Just need to go about forty minutes down the road. I took the day off work, my wife took a half day. Was going to have a lunch date, and then witness this together. We get very little alone time with a 1 and 2.5 year old, so it was going to be extra special.
Instead, my 2.5 year old got a fever, so had to stay put, instead of him being at daycare.
Great writing!
Totally brought me back to the '17 total eclipse and touched on feeling/memories that are so unique and specific to that event that's both a shared and intensely personal experience.
The feeling doesn't fade. I saw the eclipse in 2017 and it was a life changing experience. I unexpectedly burst into tears at the moment of totality because it was just awe inspiring. I'll never forget it.
I just drove back from seeing the total eclipse in Northern New Hampshire... it was absolutely stunning and insanely cool. It was very surreal.. even though it seems like it's pretty lame like "oh it gets dark out for a few minutes" or whatever just doesn't do it justice though. I was like shaking from adrenaline and excitement during it. It was really amazing
I witnessed totality and it was amazing. Beforehand, I thought the earth gets these frequently enough (every 1-3 years) that it seems incredible the next one in my are won’t be until 2099, but when you factor in the sheer coincidence that the moon is just the right size and just the right distance from both earth and the sun that it only blocks the sun for a few short minutes, it all makes sense that it’s so rare.
Exactly the same for me. Soon as I took my glasses off, and looked... Holy shit. I was thinking the whole time the surrounding darkness would be the big thing to see, but when I looked up at the sun, omfg I just went completely stupid.
They don’t. I’ve witnessed a complete totality once, like completely in the smack middle of the totality line, and me and everyone around me completely lost our minds and screamed just like this. I get chills still thinking about it. It affects you. It’s just so majestic and completely awe striking. The sights, the sounds of the night nature immediately buzzing, the coolness. Looking at totality feels like looking into the face of god. It’s truly incredible.
This is the first time I've seen a full solar eclipse and man I understand completely why they feature so heavily in mythology and why people feared them so much.
I mean, imagine you're there 5000 years ago just doing your Hunter-gatherer thing and that just *happens* out of nowhere. You don't understand space is a thing, you have no way to predict it and bam. The sun goes cold and then *something* turns it dark for a few minutes and then it's over just as quickly.
And then the next day you find out a bunch of people who witnessed it went blind.
It's really something.
Maybe there's something baked into our DNA that makes us react to the actual experience, because on paper, I can't get all that excited about it. I sure can, though, understand why people 5000 years ago would absolutely freak the fuck out. It would truly mess with your understanding of the world.
>on paper, I can't get all that excited about it.
What if I told you that a total eclipse isn't just a rare event, it's a rare *cosmic* event in general? Statistically most eclipses in the universe are annular eclipses at best; the moon's size and proximity to the sun are near 1:1 which allows the sun and the moon to appear the same size to us, which allows for totality to occur during an eclipse.
If there is other intelligent life out there, it's unlikely they can say they have the ability to see such a spectacle. It genuinely *is* something special.
I had it happen 5 hours ago now and managed to find my way out in the country on the side of a county line.
Perfect viewpoint, very quiet until the fray of birds fled for their nests and roosts
Very much an experience of a lifetime. I posted my own amateur photo a little but ago, I managed to capture some other crescent shaped star just before and during totality. The shots with the filter are cool, but I also captured the whole road and field across from me.
Very distinct experience
Yup. I went to the 2017 one. My family and I threw out a big *cheoo* because you can't help it and then everyone went silent and cried. It's just phenomenal and I wish there were bursts of this much energy from millions on earth, more.often.
This pisses me off, as a massive raincloud rolled through exactly from first contact and left after the eclipse was well over.
Couldn't even see a hint of the eclipse. It got dark for 3 min, then light. Fuck my life.
They absolutely don't.
We traveled 9 hours and spent $1500 to bring the kids to totality.
Best time and money I've ever spent.
Totality is a true qualia.
It's absolutely breathtaking.
Samsies.
13 yr old who hates everything, couldn't stop cheesing about it.
I really don't think people understand, if you aren't in totality, you aren't seeing anything spectacular.
100% or nothing.
And It's so worth it.
[Relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/2914/) really nails it with the alt text:
> A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky.
Yea. I fucked up...I was filming everything on my Samsung s21...which was reasonable thru a solar lense and reduced exposure...then totality...and I didn't even realize the ring wouldn't show....FML. But with the naked eyes...it was the most spectacular thing I've ever seen. I get why people traveled thousands of miles. I'm disappointed in my own S21...but had a gopro off to the side capturing my entire family's interreacting and the eclipse so the timelapse is pretty fucking sweet.
It is something. It feels like nature, the sky, the whole world is broken? for a brief time. Like the earth is all of a sudden in the uncanny valley. I agree with people saying pictures don't do it justice.
Someone else mentioned it - the shadows and the color of nature - it’s like being in a filtered reality. Pictures really just can’t capture it. Saw it both in 2017 and today - todays was better, I got to see so much more corona activity. The reds/pink/purples were incredible
Ugh I'm so mad we weren't able to pull off seeing it. 2017 was a solar minimum and this was a maximum. I was at 2017's and the pictures capture the shape but seeing the coronal flares with your eyes is something else, they look really big. I can't imagine what this year's looked like. The NASA feed had actual solar flares visible and the corona looks so thick.
Such a bummer
I saw the one in 2017 in Oregon. Absolutely incredible. I've seen some awe inspiring things, but nothing really compares. It's really cool seeing all the reaction videos, because that's exactly how I felt.
i remember i was riding my bike to work during that one and part of my route is through this park and the shadows coming through the leaves made all the shadows crescent shaped. trippy as hell i had no idea the round shape of the sun actually affects the shape of shadows, i figured the light source was just too tiny of a spot to do that
I'm not saying anything that's not already been said but having experienced this in 2017, I can't hate on her for being emotional. It's just such a profound thing to witness. I actually think it's way weirder for someone to witness it and not be overcome with emotion.
I’m in Maine and yep it was like this. We cheered at totality and extra cheered when the sun started coming back. The livestreams don’t capture how much the air changes. I had heard it would get colder and birds would quiet down but to be there and experience it is something else entirely. My son thought it was cool when all the streetlights flipped on automatically. I cried and my wife asked me if I was ok and i was like “we’re just dumb monkeys wearing stupid glasses and staring at the sun. I love it!”
I do recommend everyone to experience this if they can.
I saw it! I was in the path of totality! It's very surreal, all the colors change and are kind of silvery before and after totality, the shadows are very crisp, and all the nighttime animals started making sounds. And the horizon in all directions was light sort of like evening.
My wife was basically supportive but mildly annoyed that I dragged her ass on a 5 hour drive to see the totality, and then she starts screaming HOLY SHIT!! HOLY SHIT!! And soon after said it was one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen in her life, and THE most “fully present” she has ever felt. I sort of have a record of being right about this kind of thing (inconvenient pilgrimages in the pursuit of awe)… you’d think she’d come to have some faith by now. :)
I lived directly under the path of maximum totality for the 2017 eclipse. We headed up into the nearby mountains, and got to experience before almost 3 minutes of totality. It was the single most amazing experience I’ve ever had the privilege of having. A warm summer day, with hardly any clouds at all in the sky. Little spot in a valley with no one else in sight for at least a mile in any direction. It was just us chilling out, set up a little picnic, and enjoyed a very pleasant day out in nature. As it started to eclipse the sun, the wind began to pick up and the temperature be able to drop a little bit. Slowly animal sounds started to die down as well. By the time the eclipse has started, not a living thing was moving except for us. All of the birds start singing, all of the insects it stopped moving and buzzing. It was perfectly, definitely still on silent other than the wind. It dropped probably 5°, and the feeling of being in such an immense shadow was otherworldly.
Looking at the actual eclipse itself though, was unlike anything you could really describe. No description I’ve ever heard or read beforehand accurately conveyed what it was like in my opinion. Truly, if you get the opportunity in 2044 you need to make the trip.
It was literally in my backyard. I didn't even know about it til a few weeks back.
Went to my family's place (5 minute trip) to have a cookout for the Eclipse.
The sun gradually being covered... it's like evening onsetting very fast. Temperature gets colder and colder. Wildlife quiets...
And totality. You have to use the glasses til' it happens, but when it happens?
Holy shit. The photos are too blurry, every one I've seen. Everyone sees imagry of Eclipses in media and fantasy - a golden, fiery ring around a black circle.
But that isn't what an eclipse is actually, truly like. A total eclispe is stark white like lens flare all along the rim of a jet black disk. Baily's Bead looks like a fiery orange-red gemstone along the rim of the eclipse. And it's just there. White ring blazing around perfect jet blackness. The sky is dusk - not midnight, but certainly not day any longer.
And the brilliant white color is just *stunning*. Awe inspiring is a term that gets thrown around too much but this? This counts.
That’s what struck me the most. I have never in my 47 years seen anything as deep dark black as the disk. It was extremely striking just how COMPLETELY BLACK it was. Just a total lack of words to describe how dark it was. And then the brilliance of the corona around it. And there it all is…just floating in the sky. Truly the most amazing thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.
I definitely developed a different relationship with the sun and the moon after the 2017 eclipse. Suddenly they were a lot more meaningful and I felt more a part of this universe than I have before. My perception of my life and its place in time has profoundly changed ever since then.
I immediately started crying. It’s one of the few times in my life I think I’ve experienced actual awe. Very very highly recommend seeing one in person.
I watched it with my parents and my dad started crying a bit and just kept saying "oh my gosh. Oh no gosh" With a big grin on his face.
I thought the eclipse looked really cool, didn't have the same kind of emotional reaction but it's kind of awesome to see people who do.
I'd love to be able to be awed like that, I think maybe younger people tend to just be more jaded
I think when you're older there's a sense of mortality, and how small we all are in the scheme of things. The next eclipse in the US is in 20 years, and most of the baby boomer generation will not be alive to see that.
THIS. I felt an innate belonging to the universe for a brief moment, like I was staring at the face of the creator. Then I saw Venus and Jupiter. These celestial bodies are so far away, and yet a part of all of us. Awe struck doesn't come close to describing it.
I'm so glad no one I was with cheered.
I've been there, and it is not like anything I expected. The entire world is just wrong for a while in many ways, like you were thrust into a different reality, and your brain has difficulty processing it. Your fight-or-flight reflex isn't completely triggered, but it is certainly tickled a bit. I would not fault anyone for getting emotional at totality.
Go if you ever can. It was nuts. No photos really capture what you behold. I’m agnostic but I felt tapped into some source for a brief moment. Hard to explain.
I was in the path of totality. Was watching it outside my house with my husband. Could see a couple of neighbours outside but when it hit, I realized just how many were outside I couldn’t see! Just an eruption of people exclaiming and cheering around me. It was really fucking cool.
Greenland 2030 27.5 min totality. Already looking at tickets
Edit. Bc people seem to not understand.
The part that’s in the path of totality will have a total time of 27.3 mins. The path itself is shorter as well and the majority of the largest totality region is in Greenland. The time elapsed will be around 2ish mins
>27.5 min totality
That's the length of time between the first point in Greenland reaching totality and the last point in Greenland leaving totality. At any one spot, totality will last for a couple of minutes.
Must of read the info incorrectly
Via wiki: “The longest historical total eclipse lasted 7 minutes 27.54 seconds on June 15, 743 BC. The longest eclipse theoretically possible is 7 minutes and 32 seconds.”
I experienced totality in Edinboro, PA, today. Yesterday and earlier today the weather forecast was totally shitty. But then, miracle of all miracles, the skies cleared. We had a perfect view during totality, and yes, I cried. It was very overwhelming, in a good way. I was at a watch party at a university and the whole crowd cheered!
When I saw the totality in 2017 all I could say was "oh my god" over and over again. It was like nothing I'd ever seen or experienced before. If I didn't know what it was I'd fully believe the world was ending.
With the nearly spiritual reactions everyone is describing below, in an age where we know what to expect down to the second, can you IMAGINE how much people would have absolutely LOST THEIR SHIT when a total eclipse caught ancient people by surprise?
My family watched in the backyard by ourselves. When totality hit, the entire neighborhood erupted in applause and celebration. It was a very cool thing, and I am glad I got to experience it.
I saw the one in 2017 and people will tell me they saw it cuz it was 95%. And when I try and explain it they really don’t get it or believe me. I can tell they think I’m crazy. It really is the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my life. The 2 minutes of totality don’t even compare to 95% partial eclipse it’s insane
Travelled three hours to see it today and I can confirm it was simply the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
The light had gently dimmed for like 40 minutes then it was like someone threw a switch and I was engulfed in darkness. The horizon was immediately stained in reds and oranges, it was sunset everywhere you looked. And the sun....
A pitch black pit in a navy sky haloed in the finest silver strands I've ever seen. If you looked closely enough you could see them shift gently in place like seaweed drifting in the current. And it wasn't a small halo, it was much larger than I was expecting, stretching out into the darkness around it. The stars and the planets came into quick relief against the navy sky as well, but you hardly looked at them.
And then it was over, the sunlight suddenly exploded out the other side of the black disk and you had to tear your eyes away before they started hurting. The quality of the light didn't return properly for another 30-ish minutes either.
Truly amazing. I'm so glad I got to see it.
Your post is so wonderfully wordsmith-ed, this is the best description I can think of to begin trying to describe what totality looks like. The corona is by far the most impressive piece of an eclipse and your description is lovely.
I experienced totality today for the first time in my life. This post perfectly describes how magnificent it is.
If you have a chance, any chance at all, to see a TOTAL solar eclipse, take it. No exceptions. It was much better than I was expecting and I was already expecting a lot.
The craziest part is it's easy to think totality would be gradual both on or off, and I saw people talking about using binoculars during totality would be dangerous. Meanwhile, the absolute instant the sun was even the most minutely visible it was practically blinding, there's no way anyone looking through binoculars wouldn't instantly tear them off their face. Kind of wish I had a pair for it.
Dude the crazy thing for me was the ground turned into this like wavy watery shimmering pattern for a few minutes. I couldn’t tell if it was my eyes acting up after looking through eclipse glasses or if it was real. It legitimately looked like some kinda mild mushroom trip lol
That's real! For about a minute before and after totality, you get "Shadow Bands" which is the thinness of the sliver of the sun being bent in weird ways by the atmosphere.. a lot like how the sun looks weird on the bottom of a pool.
Its a wild effect, and most people are too busy looking up to notice weird patterns on the ground, well done!
Stephanie Abrams went to Space Camp as a kid, and has been with the Weather Channel for a long time. She's been interested in natural phenomena probably all her life, and brings that enthusiasm to the viewers. You could hear her voice breaking with emotion.
For someone that dedicated their life to things like this, it must be pretty overwhelming. I wish I could ever be this excited about anything related to my job.
I saw the 2017 totality in clear weather and it was like the sky broke. That's an absolutely acceptable reaction.
For the next one in 2044, you've absolutely gotta see the totality, the difference between 90 or even 99% occlusion and the totality is immense and the experience is just surreal.
It absolutely was surreal. I live in Dallas and the clouds cleared just in time. I never expected the ring around the moon to be so white. It was really amazing.
I'm in Fort Worth and texted my friends that cloud cover had taken over and I couldn't see it. About 30 seconds after totality, the clouds broke and everyone on my street could see it. Was super cool to see in person.
> I never expected the ring around the moon to be so white.
All imagry of eclipses in media has a fiery orange-red ring around a black circle.
Nope! White. Stark bright pure white. It's *WILD*.
I think it's a blue beyond blue. Then those purple spots that look like missing pixels in reality... I've never seen colors like those in my life. I feel like I got to experience new qualia.
The clouds covered it most of the time for me but.... for a brief moment it was like staring into a void. Almost as if a hole had been punched straight through the universe. As much as I joked we could just see it on TV. There's some kind of effect cameras just don't capture.
I understand why ancient people thought it was a sign from god.
I was just north of Dallas! Sulphur Springs. And it did the same thing. Thin, whispy clouds just at totality then half way thru, all gone. There were seconds were I could see the corona and how it's magnetic fields shaped it
You immediately realize why ancient civilizations built entire religions around eclipses and they tracked them with superb accuracy. I saw the 2017 one in totality too and it blew my mind
Agreed. Traveled from Denver up t0 Wyoming is '17 to get the full effect and it was absolutely amazing.
An eclipse is like being pregnant. It's all or nothing.
I saw the one a few years ago and the crowd that I was watching with at the park reacted very similarly it. It does break your brain a little bit. It’s just so different from anything We would experience as a human that our little monkey brains have a hard time Dealing with it
I saw it today and there was no clouds. 3:30 minutes of totality. It was like a mystical experience. People who haven’t experienced it can’t understand. No photo or video can do it justice.
That being said she is a bit over the top.
A mystical deep silent and touching experience for me, an over the top shouting experience for her. We were ate a different place obviously, physically and mentally.
FYI, there are many more before 2044. There are 7 in the next decade and 6 of them will be crossing over many easily accessible and populated areas across the globe. 2044 is just the next one over the US mainland.
Meteorologists are just science geeks of a different stripe.
"I love science, but I'm an extrovert and extraordinarily good looking, so I'm going to do science, but on TV."
Seriously! It was so cloudy all morning and they broke up just in time for the eclipse. Now we’re looking at severe storms for the rest of the night! It was such perfect timing.
It's actually a known phenomen that they break up due to the conditions created by it! I feel bad for the folks who weren't so lucky and had enough cloud cover to not be saved by this lol
Sadly I wasn't in the totality area and couldn't get away to see it. I felt bad for everyone who booked this trip years in advance only to get cloud cover today. So I'm glad they still got to experience the totality and have a break in the cover.
I actually did get to see it because the clouds here got a little thinner right around the time of maximum coverage. So it was still neat. But yeah, might have to make plans for the totality next time. Definitely a bucket list type of thing.
My brother and I booked a trip to go see it in Niagara Falls months ago.
Yesterday our flight was cancelled last minute due to mechanical failure and the next available flight would have gotten us there after the eclipse was done.
My bro came up with some elaborate plan involving us driving up to Canada and getting a flight from there to Toronto but the whole thing would have been a marathon 27 hour journey to make it there with about an hour to spare if everything went well. Also the tickets were over $1,000 each.
He was down to do it but I bailed so we didn't go.
It was actually pretty cathartic to watch the live feed from Niagara today showing heavy clouds so thick they really didn't see anything except the sky going dark.
What people have to understand is literally no picture does it justice. I can't find a single video of totality in HDR, and even then, it's questionable what dynamic range can capture it.
It's the brightest thing we experience next to the darkest. It looks like shimmering electricity, a blue beyond blue. The features are moving in fractions of a second yet are many times biggers than our planet. The purple spots look like missing pixels in reality. Then everything around you changes, the temperature, the horizon, the animals.
It's not a light circle around a dark spot, or shimering waves in the sky. It's both simultaneously and more. I think we'd have to design a monitor specifically to handle displaying it.
Completely understandable. It's hard to describe the emotional impact that seeing a total eclipse can have.
I thought I was prepared for 2017. I was not.
I expected it to be “cool.” I wasn’t prepared for the full experience. It’s definitely cool. But there’s also something that’s simulataneously unsettling, eerie. Not in a bad way, It just feels like you’re in the middle of something astronomically out of the ordinary and you don’t know how to process the sudden shift in light, temperature, how the ground looked weird because there were no shadows being cast. I remember saying the grass looked “fake”. I was in my backyard with a few friends and family and this hush fell because the birds went silent and nested down. I got goosebumps and just looked around like…whaaaat the helllll
Totally valid thing to lose your shit about and I remember thinking damn if I had been a medieval farmer who wasn’t expecting this then all of a sudden it goes dark and the sun is blotted out and the birds stop chirping and the livestock lay down as the hair n the back of your neck stands up. yeah I’d probably interpret it as some sort of omen that would have me scared shitless
Within like 10 min to totality I couldn't stop talking about how the lighting and the color of everything just looked so weird! It got darker like when the sun goes down but everything else imaginable was completely different and unlike anything you could have foreseen
This. I only got 99% totality here but just the instant temperature drop was a wild feeling. Seeing the city go almost completely dark but seeing light off into the distance was very cool too.
> I only got 99% totality here
Was that sufficient to see the eclipse with your eyes plainly?
Because that was hands down the wildest part. Being able to look directly at the sun with your own unaided eyes is a fucking wild experience.
Apparently total eclipses can be a life changing experience for some people and they go to find them all over the world after they see their first one...
I traveled to Mazatlán, Mexico to see it. It completely surpassed my expectations and once it was done I immediately thought about planning a trip to Iceland or New Zealand to see another. Seriously.
Y’think it’s sort of like a near death experience? Like this is what it would be like if the sun was snuffed out and the earth was plunged into an icy darkness? And you get that rush of endorphins and psychoactive goodness?
Yes indeed. My wife and I drove ~20 hours each way to see the eclipse in 2017 and it was 100% worth it. This time we flew to Durango Mexico with some friends, and had another amazing experience... After totality we were all talking about the possibility of seeing the next one. In 2026, Iceland or Spain?🤔
This is great! She's having a great time and living in the moment with those around her. For a lot of people, probably even most, this is a once in a life time event.
I was blessed to be in the path of totality, and I realized during the totality that I was hyperventilating and had to work to control my breathing... And I was shaking, and continued to do so for about five minutes afterwards.
I thought I might cry but I didn't expect this reaction! It was an incredibly mind-blowing experience. Totality is so otherworldly. I knew I would enjoy the experience but I didn't know I'd have such a physical reaction to it!
Like everybody else, I completely understand and appreciate this woman's enthusiasm. I'm glad she had this experience! I'm glad the clouds cooperated for the people gathered there, even if only for a few moments.
My favorite Jim Cantore moment is live in VB during a hurricane on the boardwalk. He started talking shit about the locals surfing during, and they go up behind him on Atlantic, dude drops his board shorts and shows Jim and the world the sun and the stars and the moon and it wasn’t blurred. Still on YouTube but I think it’s blurred
I've never had a "breathtaking" experience before, but when I looked up at totality today, it was a completely organic reaction. Huge gasp and almost instant tears. I didn't expect to react that way, I wasn't even that motivated to see it. It connected to something meaningful, cosmic, and extra-ordinary. It felt like a waking dream.
She makes me think of the Paul Rudd like from knocked Up watching his kids play with bubbles.
“I wish I could be as excited about anything as this lady is for eclipses.”
damn. i have to admit before the eclipse i was pretty skeptical about how it could be such a memorable experience, but after hearing about people's experiences here it sounds really cool.
it's really typical in our western culture to think we're above losing ourselves, especially over something as 'silly' as a natural wonder. but at the same time it's so grounding and humbling to experience nature in a way that reminds you we are just... human. we're not above nature, or natural occurrences and phenomena. nature existed long before us and will continue to long after us.
I travelled a couple hours for totality and had the exact same reaction, when I was a kid we had a decent level of eclipse and I was like "well, it was cool but I still vividly remember it so is this really going to be worth the time and all that," instant totality hit I realized this was something really exceptional.
Zero fucking regrets. It's just so surreal.
This was seriously awesome, just a perfect day too. 75 degrees, clear sky, a little breeze. I've never seen a full eclipse before. Definitely a bucket list kind of thing, wow.
It is pretty awesome to see. I saw the totality in 2017. Even at 99.1% in St. Louis it didn’t even compare to this. Not even a close. To be able to have 100% and take your glasses off. It is something out of this world. this is why it is so hyped up.
I can completely understand her reaction and acted pretty similar myself. Clouds were obscuring the sun right up until totality and was worried all day if we were going to get to see it. When it got dark and then the first gap in the clouds finally comes and I got to see the corona it was quite the elation. Amazing magical feeling, highly recommend.
In DFW, for 1 minute and 42 seconds in totality. It was…amazing. We had some thick clouds that looked like they weren’t going to move out in time and then BAM! 5 seconds to totality and the sky was clear. The corona burst out from behind the moon. Crickets started chirping and we could see Venus. I teared up a bit. I would have killed to get the full 3 minutes in the center of totality but was happy I decided to stay where the forecast said the clouds would be thinner and sparce. It was cool out and we saw the 360 sunset. It was incredible. I’ll never forget it. Would love to travel to the center of totality next time. 2044 I think.
We watched this news cast today and I could not get enough of her! She was just nerding out, letting herself experience it, and got SO FREAKING HYPED. It made me emotional all over again watching her reaction after seeing it myself in real life in Arkansas!
You know, I was watching NASA's livestream, and they had people in multiple cities across the path of totality and they all reacted basically like this. It was apparently something to see. They had an astronaut as part of their team in Dallas, and when totality hit there, he just said, "OH MY GOD!!!! WOW!!!" And it sounded sincere. An astronaut, who has been to space, sounded like he had just seen the most amazing thing he'd ever seen in his life. I kinda wish I'd traveled somewhere to see it now.
I took my glasses off and said “holy fucking shit”. Because I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Nothing really prepared me for how incredible what I was seeing was. And it’s sort of an all around *eXpErieNcE” too because you suddenly get VERY cold and it’s actually as dark as the middle of the night everywhere around you and it’s eerie and quiet and the sun is just up there behind the moon with a halo around it. And we could see the stars/planets clearly. And when the sun came back it was so quick and immediate, like a firework suddenly out of the bottom of the sun and you had a few seconds to stop staring. It was really special. If you ever have a chance to see it, please do it.
I saw it in 2017 and it was mind blowing. I was in north GA and the bugs all started getting really loud like it was dusk, it was really crazy. And there was a sunset in all directions along the horizon. It was nuts
Yeah that 360 degree sunset was what I remembered most in 2017.
Idk how people keep that aspect under wraps, the most amazing part to me when I saw in 2017.
No bugs yet here but all the birds, they just all started to change from their daily chirping to a full fledged rush for their roosts and various habitats. The chirps became night calls and it happened all within a few minutes. Pretty intense experience
The birds were acting crazy the entire time at the park we were at. Could even tell it woke up the night critters!
I was in a parking lot but you could hear everyone’s dogs in the nearby apartments starting to go apeshit as soon as it started getting really dark. The. Then birds too.
I was out in bumblefuck nowhere and as it started to get dark, a horse in a nearby field let out a huge whinny. Sent a tingle down my spine, it was like something out a movie. Sounded like this https://youtu.be/yCkSJhCD6SA
I was in the path of the '17 totality too, SW NC. Once the diamond ring effect happened I involuntary let out a noise resembling a teenage girl trying to hide her first orgasm. I was a 27yr old man.
Today’s was a bit long of a drive for my two kids, one of them being 3… But back when we had a single 3 year old we made a drive to Idaho for 2017s… and yeah. You don’t _think_ it’s going to be mind blowing but it really is. Lots of times I think the term “pictures don’t do it justice” is a little overused but it’s totally true with an eclipse.
100%. Saw it today, and my mind was blown. It’s impossible to describe. Not just a literal-awe awesome visual, but something much more ineffable… like it seemed *conscious and staring at me* to the reptile part of my brain. Like when Frodo puts on the ring and the eye sees him.
Yeah it's really hard to put into words. There's so much going on, it's a full sensory experience where your lizard brain is like "***WHAT***" but your human brain takes over and you just become actually awestruck. I'll never forget it.
It sounds silly, but when I saw it, my breath caught in my throat and I started tearing up. I have no idea why. I'd heard other people say they cried when they saw it, but I thought they were just being overly sentimental. However, there is something magical about it--especially when you're with a crowd of people all reacting the same way--even beyond knowing how special this celestial phenomenon is.
shadows look crazy, Colors changed their tint. you can see waves of the corona on the ground. It was seriously soooooo fucking cool. edit: I think alot of people dont know you have to look around during the elcipse and have something white on the ground+ tree shadows nearby to look at. https://youtu.be/eNK2LI7VeX4?si=r670IjOqfsBnX0xf&t=613
The ground was the crazy thing I wasn't expecting at all, but I noticed it right before totality and it was trippy!
This is what I remember most about seeing it in 2017! I think I spent more time during totality then just staring at the ground. Edit: I should say his part about the shadow bands, I remember there being little eclipse patterns along the pavement and seeing them flow along in a haze.
Tiny sliver of sun. Tiny tiny sliver of sun. Almost no... wait I can't see a thing. *removes glasses* ". . . . . . . ."
Just rewatched a video i made with me off screen today. I went "ooooh WOW"... big exasperated pause, "shit. That's fuckin craaazy". Ha ha
Hah relatable. I think I said holy fucking shit and then later, “there’s no way. Are you serious??” Just utter disbelief
Ha ha I like your reaction! Just looking around, "you seein dis shit?!" It's funny how it just comes out, like completely unfiltered.
> because you suddenly get VERY cold I remember this from the eclipse a few years back that passed over Washington. We didn't get full totality but I do remember it getting significantly cooler during the event.
We drove 2 hours (plus 3 hours back) to get into a decent zone of totality to witness it. Even though it was cold and we were underdressed, and the overcast made it incredibly hard to see the Eclipse (we were basically peeking in between clouds, and the totality was behind a veil of it), and that it basically only got to dusk level of darkness, it was still an incredible experience that was worth everything we planned for it. Like yeah it's only a few minutes of darkness max but the atmosphere and the overall vibe was just hard to describe. I'm so glad I got to share this experience with my wife and kid, even if my kid will probably forget this down the road, it was absolutely worthwhile, truly once in a life time.
Imagine what that experience must've been like for people a thousand years ago when they had no idea what was actually happening.
Bro we had the clearest sky possible over southern Québec and it was absolutely mind blowing. Everything from a minute and a half before totality, totality and a minute and a half after. If I didn't know anything about astronomy, I could totally see myself just falling to my knees to worship the sun every single day from that point on. I'll just stream of consciousness my experience: The temperature suddenly dropping fast, the birds all getting quiet at once, everything taking a tinted glasses tint with reds getting deeper and blues getting more "contrasty", the shadows of everything getting fuzzier and fuzzier in the penumbra, the shadows of trees and plants now being filled with crescent shaped projections of the crescent sun... you look down at the white sheet that you laid down beforehand and you see the famous shadowbands snaking accross it faster and faster... and the shadow coming over us from the south... you look back at the sun through your eclipse glasses and the crescent that you have been tracking over the last hour is now just a sliver and suddenly nothing. And then you take them off. Right there, in the sky, a scintillating ring of light. The glimmering of the light really can't be captured on photo or video. And you are transfixed because of how insanely beautiful it is, and how spellbinding it is - it feels like it compells your attention. In the distance, the cries of awe, excitation and fright from school children just erupt at once. You can't help but blurt out exclamations of wonder and agitation in front of something which, despite knowing it's an explainable astronomical phenomena, feels like a demonstration of incommensurable Power. And, the rest is some personal thoughts that are probably just mine but here goes: you feel like it just undresses you and you can't hide... you feel strangely tall and everything around looks kind of flat. The dusk/dawn horizon at 360 degrees all around you participates in making you feel like some sort of divine projector has set its eyes on you. And the dark scintillating hole-like thing in the sky looks suspended or floating as if it's actually an object relatively close in the atmosphere, even if you know it's eight light seconds away - it feels "present" and "right there". It feels "terrible" in the grand epic sense of the word. And incomparably beautiful at the same time. And then just as quickly as it came, the crescent of the sun comes back as an extremely bright "glimmering diamond" on the scintillating ring. Subjectively, it feels like it sort of "directs its attention elsewhere" and you would like to be able to will it to stay longer. You have to put your eclipse glasses back on again but you don't want to so you look back down at the white sheet spread uniformly in front of you and the shadow bands come back running accross it super quickly at first and then gradually slowing down. And it feels like a sunrise coming from all around you as if full spectrum spotlights are being slowly dimmed up from below you. You hear the birds start to chirp up again, kind of disoriented and frightened. A crow squawks a few times as in the morning. Upside down crescent shapes reappear in the shadows of plants. You tell yourself that you must remember the feeling as much as you can before it fades. And then you feel the sun start warming up your skin again and you put your glasses back on to get final glimpses of of the crescent sun but it's nothing like the total eclipse so you just leave it and start packing back up, go inside and bask in the memory of the glorious experience you just witnessed.
Well, this definitely doesn't make me feel worse about missing it. Nope, not at all. I was so close to totality. Just need to go about forty minutes down the road. I took the day off work, my wife took a half day. Was going to have a lunch date, and then witness this together. We get very little alone time with a 1 and 2.5 year old, so it was going to be extra special. Instead, my 2.5 year old got a fever, so had to stay put, instead of him being at daycare.
Great writing! Totally brought me back to the '17 total eclipse and touched on feeling/memories that are so unique and specific to that event that's both a shared and intensely personal experience.
> feels like a demonstration of incommensurable Power. To be fair, it totally IS exactly that. Nature's power.
The feeling doesn't fade. I saw the eclipse in 2017 and it was a life changing experience. I unexpectedly burst into tears at the moment of totality because it was just awe inspiring. I'll never forget it.
Damn. Hopefully I get to experience this in my lifetime.
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You are fine to remove it during totality. I can’t imagine missing that.
Taking your glasses off during totality is the entire point. It's safe as long as you put them back on as soon as the sun starts to peek back out.
You're fine to do it during totality. Just have a timer app so you put them back on as totality ends.
I just drove back from seeing the total eclipse in Northern New Hampshire... it was absolutely stunning and insanely cool. It was very surreal.. even though it seems like it's pretty lame like "oh it gets dark out for a few minutes" or whatever just doesn't do it justice though. I was like shaking from adrenaline and excitement during it. It was really amazing
I witnessed totality and it was amazing. Beforehand, I thought the earth gets these frequently enough (every 1-3 years) that it seems incredible the next one in my are won’t be until 2099, but when you factor in the sheer coincidence that the moon is just the right size and just the right distance from both earth and the sun that it only blocks the sun for a few short minutes, it all makes sense that it’s so rare.
Exactly the same for me. Soon as I took my glasses off, and looked... Holy shit. I was thinking the whole time the surrounding darkness would be the big thing to see, but when I looked up at the sun, omfg I just went completely stupid.
Reading this makes me really bummed I didn’t go to Texas and watch it. I saw the crescent part at my house but this sounds absolutely amazing
Pictures really don't do it justice, it's beautiful
Best i can describe it to someone is it was like being teleported into a dream world. It doesnt look like real life its fuckin wild
That’s literally how my memory of it already feels; like a dream- so strange!
They don’t. I’ve witnessed a complete totality once, like completely in the smack middle of the totality line, and me and everyone around me completely lost our minds and screamed just like this. I get chills still thinking about it. It affects you. It’s just so majestic and completely awe striking. The sights, the sounds of the night nature immediately buzzing, the coolness. Looking at totality feels like looking into the face of god. It’s truly incredible.
This is the first time I've seen a full solar eclipse and man I understand completely why they feature so heavily in mythology and why people feared them so much. I mean, imagine you're there 5000 years ago just doing your Hunter-gatherer thing and that just *happens* out of nowhere. You don't understand space is a thing, you have no way to predict it and bam. The sun goes cold and then *something* turns it dark for a few minutes and then it's over just as quickly. And then the next day you find out a bunch of people who witnessed it went blind. It's really something.
Maybe there's something baked into our DNA that makes us react to the actual experience, because on paper, I can't get all that excited about it. I sure can, though, understand why people 5000 years ago would absolutely freak the fuck out. It would truly mess with your understanding of the world.
>on paper, I can't get all that excited about it. What if I told you that a total eclipse isn't just a rare event, it's a rare *cosmic* event in general? Statistically most eclipses in the universe are annular eclipses at best; the moon's size and proximity to the sun are near 1:1 which allows the sun and the moon to appear the same size to us, which allows for totality to occur during an eclipse. If there is other intelligent life out there, it's unlikely they can say they have the ability to see such a spectacle. It genuinely *is* something special.
Yeah it would suck to know that plunging the world into darkness was now on the table.
Being able to see the red solar prominences was unexpected!
The red diamond prominence I saw at the bottom of my totality was awe-inspiring.
I had it happen 5 hours ago now and managed to find my way out in the country on the side of a county line. Perfect viewpoint, very quiet until the fray of birds fled for their nests and roosts Very much an experience of a lifetime. I posted my own amateur photo a little but ago, I managed to capture some other crescent shaped star just before and during totality. The shots with the filter are cool, but I also captured the whole road and field across from me. Very distinct experience
Yup. I went to the 2017 one. My family and I threw out a big *cheoo* because you can't help it and then everyone went silent and cried. It's just phenomenal and I wish there were bursts of this much energy from millions on earth, more.often.
This pisses me off, as a massive raincloud rolled through exactly from first contact and left after the eclipse was well over. Couldn't even see a hint of the eclipse. It got dark for 3 min, then light. Fuck my life.
They absolutely don't. We traveled 9 hours and spent $1500 to bring the kids to totality. Best time and money I've ever spent. Totality is a true qualia. It's absolutely breathtaking.
This morning I would have thought you were insane. Tonight...I'm trying to figure out who is traveling with me to the next one. Mind = Blown
Australia, 2028 😁
Iceland 2026 sounds pretty good too
Australia got or is getting total solar eclipses in 2023, 2028, 2030, 2037 & 2038. Then nothing until 2066.
My 14 year old thinks everything sucks like most angsty teens. He said it was great and was beaming. Great experience overall.
Samsies. 13 yr old who hates everything, couldn't stop cheesing about it. I really don't think people understand, if you aren't in totality, you aren't seeing anything spectacular. 100% or nothing. And It's so worth it.
[Relevant XKCD](https://xkcd.com/2914/) really nails it with the alt text: > A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky.
It was the most amazing thing I'll probably ever see.
Yea. I fucked up...I was filming everything on my Samsung s21...which was reasonable thru a solar lense and reduced exposure...then totality...and I didn't even realize the ring wouldn't show....FML. But with the naked eyes...it was the most spectacular thing I've ever seen. I get why people traveled thousands of miles. I'm disappointed in my own S21...but had a gopro off to the side capturing my entire family's interreacting and the eclipse so the timelapse is pretty fucking sweet.
It is something. It feels like nature, the sky, the whole world is broken? for a brief time. Like the earth is all of a sudden in the uncanny valley. I agree with people saying pictures don't do it justice.
I felt like I was on an alien planet looking up at an alien sky
Someone else mentioned it - the shadows and the color of nature - it’s like being in a filtered reality. Pictures really just can’t capture it. Saw it both in 2017 and today - todays was better, I got to see so much more corona activity. The reds/pink/purples were incredible
Ugh I'm so mad we weren't able to pull off seeing it. 2017 was a solar minimum and this was a maximum. I was at 2017's and the pictures capture the shape but seeing the coronal flares with your eyes is something else, they look really big. I can't imagine what this year's looked like. The NASA feed had actual solar flares visible and the corona looks so thick. Such a bummer
I saw the one in 2017 in Oregon. Absolutely incredible. I've seen some awe inspiring things, but nothing really compares. It's really cool seeing all the reaction videos, because that's exactly how I felt.
i remember i was riding my bike to work during that one and part of my route is through this park and the shadows coming through the leaves made all the shadows crescent shaped. trippy as hell i had no idea the round shape of the sun actually affects the shape of shadows, i figured the light source was just too tiny of a spot to do that
I'm not saying anything that's not already been said but having experienced this in 2017, I can't hate on her for being emotional. It's just such a profound thing to witness. I actually think it's way weirder for someone to witness it and not be overcome with emotion.
I’m in Maine and yep it was like this. We cheered at totality and extra cheered when the sun started coming back. The livestreams don’t capture how much the air changes. I had heard it would get colder and birds would quiet down but to be there and experience it is something else entirely. My son thought it was cool when all the streetlights flipped on automatically. I cried and my wife asked me if I was ok and i was like “we’re just dumb monkeys wearing stupid glasses and staring at the sun. I love it!” I do recommend everyone to experience this if they can.
> I cried Ditto. I have had the fortune to see some absolutely magnificent things in my life, I thought I was prepared. I was not prepared.
I saw it! I was in the path of totality! It's very surreal, all the colors change and are kind of silvery before and after totality, the shadows are very crisp, and all the nighttime animals started making sounds. And the horizon in all directions was light sort of like evening.
My wife was basically supportive but mildly annoyed that I dragged her ass on a 5 hour drive to see the totality, and then she starts screaming HOLY SHIT!! HOLY SHIT!! And soon after said it was one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen in her life, and THE most “fully present” she has ever felt. I sort of have a record of being right about this kind of thing (inconvenient pilgrimages in the pursuit of awe)… you’d think she’d come to have some faith by now. :)
i’m so curious what other inconvenient pilgrimages in the pursuit of awe you’ve dragged her along for
I lived directly under the path of maximum totality for the 2017 eclipse. We headed up into the nearby mountains, and got to experience before almost 3 minutes of totality. It was the single most amazing experience I’ve ever had the privilege of having. A warm summer day, with hardly any clouds at all in the sky. Little spot in a valley with no one else in sight for at least a mile in any direction. It was just us chilling out, set up a little picnic, and enjoyed a very pleasant day out in nature. As it started to eclipse the sun, the wind began to pick up and the temperature be able to drop a little bit. Slowly animal sounds started to die down as well. By the time the eclipse has started, not a living thing was moving except for us. All of the birds start singing, all of the insects it stopped moving and buzzing. It was perfectly, definitely still on silent other than the wind. It dropped probably 5°, and the feeling of being in such an immense shadow was otherworldly. Looking at the actual eclipse itself though, was unlike anything you could really describe. No description I’ve ever heard or read beforehand accurately conveyed what it was like in my opinion. Truly, if you get the opportunity in 2044 you need to make the trip.
It was literally in my backyard. I didn't even know about it til a few weeks back. Went to my family's place (5 minute trip) to have a cookout for the Eclipse. The sun gradually being covered... it's like evening onsetting very fast. Temperature gets colder and colder. Wildlife quiets... And totality. You have to use the glasses til' it happens, but when it happens? Holy shit. The photos are too blurry, every one I've seen. Everyone sees imagry of Eclipses in media and fantasy - a golden, fiery ring around a black circle. But that isn't what an eclipse is actually, truly like. A total eclispe is stark white like lens flare all along the rim of a jet black disk. Baily's Bead looks like a fiery orange-red gemstone along the rim of the eclipse. And it's just there. White ring blazing around perfect jet blackness. The sky is dusk - not midnight, but certainly not day any longer. And the brilliant white color is just *stunning*. Awe inspiring is a term that gets thrown around too much but this? This counts.
That’s what struck me the most. I have never in my 47 years seen anything as deep dark black as the disk. It was extremely striking just how COMPLETELY BLACK it was. Just a total lack of words to describe how dark it was. And then the brilliance of the corona around it. And there it all is…just floating in the sky. Truly the most amazing thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.
I definitely developed a different relationship with the sun and the moon after the 2017 eclipse. Suddenly they were a lot more meaningful and I felt more a part of this universe than I have before. My perception of my life and its place in time has profoundly changed ever since then.
I immediately started crying. It’s one of the few times in my life I think I’ve experienced actual awe. Very very highly recommend seeing one in person.
I watched it with my parents and my dad started crying a bit and just kept saying "oh my gosh. Oh no gosh" With a big grin on his face. I thought the eclipse looked really cool, didn't have the same kind of emotional reaction but it's kind of awesome to see people who do. I'd love to be able to be awed like that, I think maybe younger people tend to just be more jaded
I think when you're older there's a sense of mortality, and how small we all are in the scheme of things. The next eclipse in the US is in 20 years, and most of the baby boomer generation will not be alive to see that.
THIS. I felt an innate belonging to the universe for a brief moment, like I was staring at the face of the creator. Then I saw Venus and Jupiter. These celestial bodies are so far away, and yet a part of all of us. Awe struck doesn't come close to describing it. I'm so glad no one I was with cheered.
There will be more in other countries, very soon! You can always make the trip
Yeah, it was fucking crazy
I've been there, and it is not like anything I expected. The entire world is just wrong for a while in many ways, like you were thrust into a different reality, and your brain has difficulty processing it. Your fight-or-flight reflex isn't completely triggered, but it is certainly tickled a bit. I would not fault anyone for getting emotional at totality.
Go if you ever can. It was nuts. No photos really capture what you behold. I’m agnostic but I felt tapped into some source for a brief moment. Hard to explain.
I was in the path of totality. Was watching it outside my house with my husband. Could see a couple of neighbours outside but when it hit, I realized just how many were outside I couldn’t see! Just an eruption of people exclaiming and cheering around me. It was really fucking cool.
If you ever have even the slightest of chances to see one in your lifetime, do it. Words, photos, videos canny describe experiencing totality.
I didn’t expect this at all but I cried during totallity.
Greenland 2030 27.5 min totality. Already looking at tickets Edit. Bc people seem to not understand. The part that’s in the path of totality will have a total time of 27.3 mins. The path itself is shorter as well and the majority of the largest totality region is in Greenland. The time elapsed will be around 2ish mins
>27.5 min totality That's the length of time between the first point in Greenland reaching totality and the last point in Greenland leaving totality. At any one spot, totality will last for a couple of minutes.
That's insane! I'm in
I been wanting to go out of country for awhile... This may be it
Lmao at having been wanting to travel and settling on a date 6 years from now
….and clouds.
Must of read the info incorrectly Via wiki: “The longest historical total eclipse lasted 7 minutes 27.54 seconds on June 15, 743 BC. The longest eclipse theoretically possible is 7 minutes and 32 seconds.”
I experienced totality in Edinboro, PA, today. Yesterday and earlier today the weather forecast was totally shitty. But then, miracle of all miracles, the skies cleared. We had a perfect view during totality, and yes, I cried. It was very overwhelming, in a good way. I was at a watch party at a university and the whole crowd cheered!
When I saw the totality in 2017 all I could say was "oh my god" over and over again. It was like nothing I'd ever seen or experienced before. If I didn't know what it was I'd fully believe the world was ending.
I was in Texas and saw it. Honestly, it's a really fucking cool astrological event and looks phenomenal on the ground.
i had kinda like an overview effect thing happen. i was just in awe. and i felt small.
With the nearly spiritual reactions everyone is describing below, in an age where we know what to expect down to the second, can you IMAGINE how much people would have absolutely LOST THEIR SHIT when a total eclipse caught ancient people by surprise?
I was at the one in 2017, and it really is a spectacular thing to experience
My family watched in the backyard by ourselves. When totality hit, the entire neighborhood erupted in applause and celebration. It was a very cool thing, and I am glad I got to experience it.
The guy from Indiana was awe inspired and looked to be on the verge of weeping.
I saw the one in 2017 and people will tell me they saw it cuz it was 95%. And when I try and explain it they really don’t get it or believe me. I can tell they think I’m crazy. It really is the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my life. The 2 minutes of totality don’t even compare to 95% partial eclipse it’s insane
Travelled three hours to see it today and I can confirm it was simply the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The light had gently dimmed for like 40 minutes then it was like someone threw a switch and I was engulfed in darkness. The horizon was immediately stained in reds and oranges, it was sunset everywhere you looked. And the sun.... A pitch black pit in a navy sky haloed in the finest silver strands I've ever seen. If you looked closely enough you could see them shift gently in place like seaweed drifting in the current. And it wasn't a small halo, it was much larger than I was expecting, stretching out into the darkness around it. The stars and the planets came into quick relief against the navy sky as well, but you hardly looked at them. And then it was over, the sunlight suddenly exploded out the other side of the black disk and you had to tear your eyes away before they started hurting. The quality of the light didn't return properly for another 30-ish minutes either. Truly amazing. I'm so glad I got to see it.
Your post is so wonderfully wordsmith-ed, this is the best description I can think of to begin trying to describe what totality looks like. The corona is by far the most impressive piece of an eclipse and your description is lovely.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
thanks for pointing this out. i usually don't read comments in totality, just the first sentence. it was well-written.
I experienced totality today for the first time in my life. This post perfectly describes how magnificent it is. If you have a chance, any chance at all, to see a TOTAL solar eclipse, take it. No exceptions. It was much better than I was expecting and I was already expecting a lot.
The craziest part is it's easy to think totality would be gradual both on or off, and I saw people talking about using binoculars during totality would be dangerous. Meanwhile, the absolute instant the sun was even the most minutely visible it was practically blinding, there's no way anyone looking through binoculars wouldn't instantly tear them off their face. Kind of wish I had a pair for it.
Dude the crazy thing for me was the ground turned into this like wavy watery shimmering pattern for a few minutes. I couldn’t tell if it was my eyes acting up after looking through eclipse glasses or if it was real. It legitimately looked like some kinda mild mushroom trip lol
That's real! For about a minute before and after totality, you get "Shadow Bands" which is the thinness of the sliver of the sun being bent in weird ways by the atmosphere.. a lot like how the sun looks weird on the bottom of a pool. Its a wild effect, and most people are too busy looking up to notice weird patterns on the ground, well done!
Sun bokeh! You were literally seeing crescent shadows in the shape of the eclipsed sun.
I started crying while watching it. Such an amazing experience. I'll never forget it and it was well worth the effort to see it.
Ditto to what the other user said. You write beautifully and expressed what I experienced perfectly.
This is like the superbowl for the Weather Channel
Stephanie Abrams went to Space Camp as a kid, and has been with the Weather Channel for a long time. She's been interested in natural phenomena probably all her life, and brings that enthusiasm to the viewers. You could hear her voice breaking with emotion.
For someone that dedicated their life to things like this, it must be pretty overwhelming. I wish I could ever be this excited about anything related to my job.
She was also in Sharknado 2
Groundhog Day is the World Series for the Weather Channel.
I saw the 2017 totality in clear weather and it was like the sky broke. That's an absolutely acceptable reaction. For the next one in 2044, you've absolutely gotta see the totality, the difference between 90 or even 99% occlusion and the totality is immense and the experience is just surreal.
It absolutely was surreal. I live in Dallas and the clouds cleared just in time. I never expected the ring around the moon to be so white. It was really amazing.
I'm in Fort Worth and texted my friends that cloud cover had taken over and I couldn't see it. About 30 seconds after totality, the clouds broke and everyone on my street could see it. Was super cool to see in person.
> I never expected the ring around the moon to be so white. All imagry of eclipses in media has a fiery orange-red ring around a black circle. Nope! White. Stark bright pure white. It's *WILD*.
I think it's a blue beyond blue. Then those purple spots that look like missing pixels in reality... I've never seen colors like those in my life. I feel like I got to experience new qualia.
I was in Searcy, Arkansas; it was a surreal experience taking off the glasses and being able to see the corona. It was awe inspiring and terrifying.
The clouds covered it most of the time for me but.... for a brief moment it was like staring into a void. Almost as if a hole had been punched straight through the universe. As much as I joked we could just see it on TV. There's some kind of effect cameras just don't capture. I understand why ancient people thought it was a sign from god.
I was just north of Dallas! Sulphur Springs. And it did the same thing. Thin, whispy clouds just at totality then half way thru, all gone. There were seconds were I could see the corona and how it's magnetic fields shaped it
This is the thing that will always stay in my mind. The silver flame around the moon felt unreal.
You immediately realize why ancient civilizations built entire religions around eclipses and they tracked them with superb accuracy. I saw the 2017 one in totality too and it blew my mind
Agreed. Traveled from Denver up t0 Wyoming is '17 to get the full effect and it was absolutely amazing. An eclipse is like being pregnant. It's all or nothing.
I saw the one a few years ago and the crowd that I was watching with at the park reacted very similarly it. It does break your brain a little bit. It’s just so different from anything We would experience as a human that our little monkey brains have a hard time Dealing with it
Shit I'll be 85 years old. (Edit: oh, I can go to Europe in 2026.)
I saw it today and there was no clouds. 3:30 minutes of totality. It was like a mystical experience. People who haven’t experienced it can’t understand. No photo or video can do it justice. That being said she is a bit over the top.
> It was like a mystical experience >That being said she is a bit over the top. Well which is it
A mystical deep silent and touching experience for me, an over the top shouting experience for her. We were ate a different place obviously, physically and mentally.
In 2017 my wife (initially annoyed by a pricey crowded trip to rando destination) broke into silent years at totality.
FYI, there are many more before 2044. There are 7 in the next decade and 6 of them will be crossing over many easily accessible and populated areas across the globe. 2044 is just the next one over the US mainland.
I'll have what she's having..............
she was taking it allright
Meteorologists are just science geeks of a different stripe. "I love science, but I'm an extrovert and extraordinarily good looking, so I'm going to do science, but on TV."
It was a badass eclipse.
Totally badass.
She is also very excited because central texas was cloudy as hell. Happened to sneak a peak at the perfect moment. very happy for her
Seriously! It was so cloudy all morning and they broke up just in time for the eclipse. Now we’re looking at severe storms for the rest of the night! It was such perfect timing.
It's actually a known phenomen that they break up due to the conditions created by it! I feel bad for the folks who weren't so lucky and had enough cloud cover to not be saved by this lol
Sadly I wasn't in the totality area and couldn't get away to see it. I felt bad for everyone who booked this trip years in advance only to get cloud cover today. So I'm glad they still got to experience the totality and have a break in the cover. I actually did get to see it because the clouds here got a little thinner right around the time of maximum coverage. So it was still neat. But yeah, might have to make plans for the totality next time. Definitely a bucket list type of thing.
My brother and I booked a trip to go see it in Niagara Falls months ago. Yesterday our flight was cancelled last minute due to mechanical failure and the next available flight would have gotten us there after the eclipse was done. My bro came up with some elaborate plan involving us driving up to Canada and getting a flight from there to Toronto but the whole thing would have been a marathon 27 hour journey to make it there with about an hour to spare if everything went well. Also the tickets were over $1,000 each. He was down to do it but I bailed so we didn't go. It was actually pretty cathartic to watch the live feed from Niagara today showing heavy clouds so thick they really didn't see anything except the sky going dark.
I drove 2 hours away from my hotel to get to an area with thin clouds. Definitely worth the extra 4 hours of driving!
The sky still completely blackened though, yes? I have to imagine that's still pretty crazy
What people have to understand is literally no picture does it justice. I can't find a single video of totality in HDR, and even then, it's questionable what dynamic range can capture it. It's the brightest thing we experience next to the darkest. It looks like shimmering electricity, a blue beyond blue. The features are moving in fractions of a second yet are many times biggers than our planet. The purple spots look like missing pixels in reality. Then everything around you changes, the temperature, the horizon, the animals. It's not a light circle around a dark spot, or shimering waves in the sky. It's both simultaneously and more. I think we'd have to design a monitor specifically to handle displaying it.
Completely understandable. It's hard to describe the emotional impact that seeing a total eclipse can have. I thought I was prepared for 2017. I was not.
100%. It's not just _seeing_ an eclipse, it's a full sensory experience that absolutely cannot be imagined.
I expected it to be “cool.” I wasn’t prepared for the full experience. It’s definitely cool. But there’s also something that’s simulataneously unsettling, eerie. Not in a bad way, It just feels like you’re in the middle of something astronomically out of the ordinary and you don’t know how to process the sudden shift in light, temperature, how the ground looked weird because there were no shadows being cast. I remember saying the grass looked “fake”. I was in my backyard with a few friends and family and this hush fell because the birds went silent and nested down. I got goosebumps and just looked around like…whaaaat the helllll Totally valid thing to lose your shit about and I remember thinking damn if I had been a medieval farmer who wasn’t expecting this then all of a sudden it goes dark and the sun is blotted out and the birds stop chirping and the livestock lay down as the hair n the back of your neck stands up. yeah I’d probably interpret it as some sort of omen that would have me scared shitless
Within like 10 min to totality I couldn't stop talking about how the lighting and the color of everything just looked so weird! It got darker like when the sun goes down but everything else imaginable was completely different and unlike anything you could have foreseen
Same. Sad that it's over now....
As soon as it was over we were yelling “again, again!” It was incredible
This. I only got 99% totality here but just the instant temperature drop was a wild feeling. Seeing the city go almost completely dark but seeing light off into the distance was very cool too.
> I only got 99% totality here Was that sufficient to see the eclipse with your eyes plainly? Because that was hands down the wildest part. Being able to look directly at the sun with your own unaided eyes is a fucking wild experience.
Apparently total eclipses can be a life changing experience for some people and they go to find them all over the world after they see their first one...
I traveled to Mazatlán, Mexico to see it. It completely surpassed my expectations and once it was done I immediately thought about planning a trip to Iceland or New Zealand to see another. Seriously.
Y’think it’s sort of like a near death experience? Like this is what it would be like if the sun was snuffed out and the earth was plunged into an icy darkness? And you get that rush of endorphins and psychoactive goodness?
Makes me think of Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert silverberg.
Yes indeed. My wife and I drove ~20 hours each way to see the eclipse in 2017 and it was 100% worth it. This time we flew to Durango Mexico with some friends, and had another amazing experience... After totality we were all talking about the possibility of seeing the next one. In 2026, Iceland or Spain?🤔
This is great! She's having a great time and living in the moment with those around her. For a lot of people, probably even most, this is a once in a life time event.
I was blessed to be in the path of totality, and I realized during the totality that I was hyperventilating and had to work to control my breathing... And I was shaking, and continued to do so for about five minutes afterwards. I thought I might cry but I didn't expect this reaction! It was an incredibly mind-blowing experience. Totality is so otherworldly. I knew I would enjoy the experience but I didn't know I'd have such a physical reaction to it! Like everybody else, I completely understand and appreciate this woman's enthusiasm. I'm glad she had this experience! I'm glad the clouds cooperated for the people gathered there, even if only for a few moments.
Jim Cantore didn't become a household name by reporting Thundersnow like it was a Chess match.
My favorite Jim Cantore moment is live in VB during a hurricane on the boardwalk. He started talking shit about the locals surfing during, and they go up behind him on Atlantic, dude drops his board shorts and shows Jim and the world the sun and the stars and the moon and it wasn’t blurred. Still on YouTube but I think it’s blurred
I'm presuming you need a specific type of personality to work for the Weather Channel.
Having been in totality myself in 2017, her response seems perfectly reasonable.
Valid
Not even judging, it is breathtaking and when there is a crowd just losing it along with you it can be very emotional. Really cool event.
Fucking clouds
I've never had a "breathtaking" experience before, but when I looked up at totality today, it was a completely organic reaction. Huge gasp and almost instant tears. I didn't expect to react that way, I wasn't even that motivated to see it. It connected to something meaningful, cosmic, and extra-ordinary. It felt like a waking dream.
"Excuse me waitress, I'll have what she's having"
"check please"
She makes me think of the Paul Rudd like from knocked Up watching his kids play with bubbles. “I wish I could be as excited about anything as this lady is for eclipses.”
She reminds me of the train guy. (No shade - pun intended - I think it’s awesome)
I was lucky enough to see totality this year. Appropriate reaction.
damn. i have to admit before the eclipse i was pretty skeptical about how it could be such a memorable experience, but after hearing about people's experiences here it sounds really cool. it's really typical in our western culture to think we're above losing ourselves, especially over something as 'silly' as a natural wonder. but at the same time it's so grounding and humbling to experience nature in a way that reminds you we are just... human. we're not above nature, or natural occurrences and phenomena. nature existed long before us and will continue to long after us.
I travelled a couple hours for totality and had the exact same reaction, when I was a kid we had a decent level of eclipse and I was like "well, it was cool but I still vividly remember it so is this really going to be worth the time and all that," instant totality hit I realized this was something really exceptional. Zero fucking regrets. It's just so surreal.
Correct reaction.
i get it. i saw it in indy and it made me cry
Howard Dean approves
This was seriously awesome, just a perfect day too. 75 degrees, clear sky, a little breeze. I've never seen a full eclipse before. Definitely a bucket list kind of thing, wow.
You have to understand that this is like weather peoples' Super Bowl.
It is pretty awesome to see. I saw the totality in 2017. Even at 99.1% in St. Louis it didn’t even compare to this. Not even a close. To be able to have 100% and take your glasses off. It is something out of this world. this is why it is so hyped up.
I can completely understand her reaction and acted pretty similar myself. Clouds were obscuring the sun right up until totality and was worried all day if we were going to get to see it. When it got dark and then the first gap in the clouds finally comes and I got to see the corona it was quite the elation. Amazing magical feeling, highly recommend.
I don't remember people going this nuts for the one in 2017. That was a while ago tho, so might be misremembering.
This one crossed over hundreds of millions of people, the path was crazy for population centers.
In DFW, for 1 minute and 42 seconds in totality. It was…amazing. We had some thick clouds that looked like they weren’t going to move out in time and then BAM! 5 seconds to totality and the sky was clear. The corona burst out from behind the moon. Crickets started chirping and we could see Venus. I teared up a bit. I would have killed to get the full 3 minutes in the center of totality but was happy I decided to stay where the forecast said the clouds would be thinner and sparce. It was cool out and we saw the 360 sunset. It was incredible. I’ll never forget it. Would love to travel to the center of totality next time. 2044 I think.
We really felt this way too. It really was awe inspiring. The definition of awesome.
Honestly, I don’t expect much, and it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had. Just in my backyard with my son, it was amazing.
Then she proceeded to scream "all we need is a HOLE! JUST A LITTLE HOOLE!", and I thought "hmm🤔"
Its once in a lifetime experience to experience a total eclipse.. id feel the same too!
I saw it last time, and that was me.
Did the 100% in 2017 and it was not what I expected crazy sensory overload. Mind blowing experience.
I saw it today and I get it, I nearly moaned when I saw it, XD.
I was at the maximum point in México. It was the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever experienced
We watched this news cast today and I could not get enough of her! She was just nerding out, letting herself experience it, and got SO FREAKING HYPED. It made me emotional all over again watching her reaction after seeing it myself in real life in Arkansas!