Chasing the Solar Eclipse. August 21, 2017.

4.00am: The alarm rings and we jump out of bed.   Monday morning, the day of the eclipse!  We planned to leave early to avoid all the traffic.  No one knows how bad it will be.  Traffic was bumper-to-bumper in some eclipse-watching states as early as Friday.  And traffic was heavy when we drove down from Chicago to Springfield.  Everyone was heading to the eclipse.

We have chosen to watch the eclipse from Illinois, in the heart of the country.

5.16am: We are on our way!  Ani, Chris, Mary, John, and I.  All packed into the rental car, speeding down highway I-55.

7.00am: Things are going well.  No traffic so far and leaving early was a really good idea!  A quick gas stop for gas near St. Louis.  It is the beginning of a bright, sunny day.

I had first come across an article that talked about the eclipse in March.  It had immediately appealed to me.  A rare celestial event would be visible from a destination we could travel to.  How dark would it get when the sun was completely covered by the moon?  What would it feel like?

We studied the path of totality (the narrow band across the United States where the sun would be 100% covered by the moon) and picked southern Illinois as the destination. A primary motivation was Ani did her residency in Springfield in Illinois and had friends there.  Some of the total eclipse destinations were about a 2-3 hour drive from Springfield.  Ani talked to her friend Mary, who was not only happy to host us, she and her son were thrilled to join us.  Plans began to take shape.

After much deliberation we decided against Carbondale.  Carbondale was the city most talked about in the eclipse chasing community, and later in the mainstream news, as it was one of the locations with the longest duration of totality.  NASA was setting up there and the local Southern Illinois University was going all out to make Carbondale the “Eclipse Crossroads of America.”   (The path of totality for the 2024 eclipse once again runs through Carbondale.)   The country’s attention was on Carbondale, and a mega event was organized at the university stadium.   The concern was traffic would be terrible (Chris was particularly worried about smaller country roads).

Chris studied the map of the eclipse’s path of totality, pored over maps and road networks, and proposed Waterloo as our destination.   Waterloo was a small town, but not far from the highway. Getting in and out would be easier.  And Waterloo had an event planned for the eclipse, as he found out from Facebook.

Chester, a town further south and closer to Carbondale was also in contention.  The Chester Town Library had been organizing a variety of events in the weeks leading up to the eclipse, and one of the viewing places was in a park by the Mississippi river.  The thought of viewing the eclipse close to a water body was appealing.   But that would have meant an hour’s extra drive each way so we settled on the town of Waterloo.

7.28am: We arrive at the Fairgrounds at Waterloo, the location of the eclipse event.   We are the tenth car there.  Lots of volunteers are setting things up, and vendors are laying out their wares.  The fairgrounds are surrounded by corn fields as far as the eye can see.

We are very impressed with the town of Waterloo.  The population is about 10000 (roughly the size of Sargur in HD Kote taluk in Karnataka). They were ready to host 10000 visitors for the day at the fairgrounds.  This meant having enough food, water, parking, and of course special eclipse viewing glasses.  There was not a single pair of glasses to be had the previous week in stores. But Waterloo had ordered them ahead of time, and had a pair for every visitor, complete with a Waterloo logo.  Fantastic.  They had a guestbook for visitors to sign in, so that they could know where visitors were from, with a prize for folks who had travelled the farthest. We felt very welcome.

My friend Praveen had been intrigued that there was so much excitement among everyone in the United States about a scientific event.  He has been working on increasing interest in Science, with the goal of encouraging scientific temperament among school students, in the rural area around Sargur town in HD Kote taluk. So his observation about how the eclipse had become a cultural event in America was an interesting one.

Interest in Science in the United States is broad and deep.  In the weeks leading up to the eclipse there were events all across the country.  Public libraries hosted events by Science teachers.  Astrophysicists gave lectures at Science museums.   Magazines and newspapers published articles about how to experience the eclipse.  In the week before the eclipse it became the central event of interest in mainstream society. EVERYONE was talking about it.  Every news show had suggestions and tips on watching the eclipse.  And they were talking about it as a scientific event, not a mysterious one.  Something to be understood, experienced, and enjoyed by everyone, not feared and observed by a few.  Information about the eclipse was available everywhere: on NASA sites, local Science museum sites, news articles, TV programs.

America being America, months before the event the towns in the path of totality saw this as a great business opportunity.  Farms, wineries, restaurants and other businesses in the path of totality organized ticked events around Eclipse Day.  Towns created websites to attract visitors to their events.  Educational institutions organized a variety of educational events.  Carbondale, the “Eclipse Crossroads of America” and the home of the main Southern Illinois University campus, sold tickets for seats in their sports stadium (capacity 40,000).  Visitors could have a seat, listen to organized lectures and other events in the hours leading up to the eclipse, munching popcorn and drinking Coke.  Lincoln Land Community College, near Springfield in an area with around 95% of totality, had a live feed in its campus, with pictures and videos coming from a professor who had travelled south to be in the band of totality.  Schools suspended classes during the eclipse and created learning experiences around the event for their students.  If the parents wanted to take their children somewhere in the areas where there was 90-100% totality, it was an excused absence. 

8.15am.  We have scoped out the fairgrounds, and selected an area to sit in.  A wide swath of grass has been made available for people to sit on.  On the other side of the fairgrounds are picnic tables in sheltered areas.   It was going to be a hot and humid day, so we choose a shady tree.

8.30am.  Chris feels like pancakes, but decides not to move the car as it is in a really good spot. 

9.00am.  The pace of arriving cars has picked up.  Cars are lined up in twos up and down the field next to the fairgrounds.  The shady area we had chosen starts filling up.   It is to Waterloo’s credit that they keep the traffic moving, and the turn from the road into the fairgrounds barely gets backed up throughout the day.  We are very impressed with how organized the town of Waterloo is for this event.  Lots of townspeople are helping as volunteers and keep everything going smoothly. 

10.00am.  The fairgrounds is getting busy.  The sign in desk opens, with the guestbook, solar glasses, and other information.  A music band starts playing.

10.30am.  The fairgrounds is getting very full.  There are lines for icies and ice-cream and food.  Hot dogs, chips, burgers are all available, along with beer and other drinks.  Vendors are also selling trinkets, handmade clothing, and other objects.  Visitors keep coming, there is now a continuous stream of cars turning into the fairgrounds. 

10.45am.  People come fully equipped for an outside show on a sunny day.  Some have large tents that they can put up to shield the sun.  Some, like us, have lawn chairs and choose shady spots under trees.  Others choose a picnic table in a shaded area in the fairgrounds.  Everyone has blankets, snacks, water, and books or cards or board games for entertainment.  The atmosphere is like a carnival.

11.50am. Chris pulls us from under the tree to show us – a small dark semi-circle is visible on the top right corner of the sun’s circle.  The eclipse is beginning!   When we look through our eclipse glasses we can see the orange disc that is the sun and the dark disc that is the moon coming in from the West.  There is absolutely no change visible if we don’t look up wearing our solar eclipse.

12.18pm. The sun is about 20% covered now.  Absolutely no difference in the heat or brightness.   A hot and humid day it continues to be.

Photo by Andrew Nelles of The Tennessean

12.25pm. Am I feeling slightly cooler?   Is it a breeze, or the eclipse, or am I imagining it?  I rush out from the under the tree to take a look.  The sun is about 30% covered now.

12.34pm. No, we are not imagining it.  It is definitely cooler now.  “The sun is not beating down on my skin as it was a few minutes ago,” says Chris.

12.36pm. We notice a difference in the sunlight.  The sun’s rays are a little different, like it is 4.00pm in the afternoon.  I take a quick one-second look at the sun, but I see NO difference – I cannot see the black disk of the moon covering the sun that I can see through my eclipse glasses.  To the naked eye the brightness of the sun overpowers everything else and we only see the sun shining as usual.  

I take a picture with my phone (not looking at the sun), but the photo captures NOTHING.  I cover the camera lens with the special eclipse glasses and try again.  Still NOTHING, the photo only captures a bright sun.  At this distance, the camera lens cannot capture anything else.  It is a complete waste of time to take pictures without a special camera.  

12.57pm.  The sun is 70% covered now!   But there is no really difference in the amount of light or brightness.  It is not dark.  It feels like late afternoon.

In many ways it feels like the sun is setting, but it also feels a bit different.  To me it feels like the sun is fading away.  I think to myself, “One day, billions of years from now, the sun’s life will end.  This is how it will feel then, with the sun fading away.”

1.09pm. The sun is only a crescent now.  It feels like 6.00pm in the evening.  We are getting excited.  We watch as a smaller and smaller sliver of sun is visible through our eclipse glasses.   We must be at over 95% totality now but it is not really dark.  When will it get really dark?

1.16pm. There is a sudden eruption of crickets chirping.  Lots of them.  They sense something.  They are shrill, as though they are alarmed.  I feel goosebumps.  It is close to the time when the moon will completely cover the sun.

1.17pm.  I am watching through my glasses, and as I watch the crescent disappears.  I remove my glasses, and there it is.  Totality!  The sun covered by a black disc, with the white halo around it – the Corona. 

And there are the planets!   Venus on the right, Jupiter on the left.  We know the heavenly bodies are always there in the sky, day or night, but to actually see them appear is quite something.  It is like a reminder that they are all there all the time.  With the brightness of the sun temporarily gone, they appear in the sky.

1.18pm.  This is it.  Totality.  The sky is dark, like a late summer evening on a long summer day.  Like 9.00pm early July during long summer days in northern United States.  There is some light in the horizon, so it is not the pitch dark of midnight.   The sky is inky blue, not black.  It is eerie in some ways.

Photo by Andrew Nelles of The Tennessean

1.19pm.  A sparkle appears on the edge of the black disk, the “diamond ring” effect as the moon moves away from completely covering the sun.  This is the signal to put on our glasses again.  In that moment, when the Corona gives way to the diamond ring, the intensity of the sun’s light goes up 400,000 times and it is no longer safe to look at the sun with naked eyes. 

Photo by Helen Comer of The Daily News Journal

Everyone at the fairgrounds claps.   Nature put on this show for us, and we immensely enjoyed it.

1.20pm.  The sun is now visible again as a crescent through our solar glasses.  It is rapidly getting bright again. 

Totality has ended. Oh, it was so short, so brief.  That moment went by all too soon.  Totality lasted 2 minutes and 18 seconds in Waterloo.

Within 15 minutes or so, it is as though the eclipse never happened.  The sun is out, the fields are green, it is a blazing summer day.  It is all over.  The Sun is back.

We decide we should start driving out quickly, but several others have the same idea.  Bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way to the highway I-55, and then slow traffic on I-55.  Everybody is leaving.  The two hour drive in the morning takes us four hours on the way back.  But we are happy and satisfied.  We had a great view, and a full 2 minutes and 18 seconds of totality.  As we drive back we keep looking up at the sun through the window,
through solar glasses – as the dark crescent of the moon becomes smaller and smaller and the orange disc of the sun becomes full again.

Dear old Sun.

We later discuss what we felt and observed during Totality.  Chris, the astronomer amongst us, had some interesting thoughts.  It felt like sunset, but there was a strangeness to it – the West became dark while the East had some light, the opposite of sunset.  He also noticed that the shadows were short.  With the sunset like experience just before totality his mind expected longer shadows.  But this was midday, and the sun was right above our heads.  The shadows were midday shadows.

It was not pitch dark, probably because the band of totality in this eclipse was 70 miles wide.  We were in a flat, farmland region.  We could see for miles around us.  The light we saw at the very edge of the horizon, during totality, was probably the edge of the band of totality.  We could probably see 30-35 miles in any direction because we were in a flat area.  The light beyond the band of totality, in the distance, meant that where we were did not become pitch dark.  How fascinating. 

Final thoughts:

Melli: We were lucky to be in a time and place where we could travel to see an eclipse. I am so happy to have seen it.

Ani: In the days after the eclipse I find that I pay more attention to the Sun now, and think of where it is during the day.

Chris: Where are we going in 2024?