Tuesday I needed time to process and recover from Monday’s road trip. A total of 820 miles driven, 15 ½ hours driving time. The last 7 hours returning home I did non-stop. Since I was sore all day afterwards perhaps non-stop was not a good idea.
One thing is certain: I want to experience the thrill of another solar eclipse. To stand in the path of darkness again and see the suns radiant atmosphere. Over a day later and I can’t get over how spectacular this was to experience.
It is unlikely I will ever have the funds for an international trip so that scratches the 12th of August 2026 off the list. That is the next major viewable solar eclipse covering land although it is really short duration over Spain. The 2nd of August 2027 solar eclipse over north Africa / Egypt is not possible either. That eclipse has a really long duration over 6 minutes when crossing Egypt.
If I could afford any international trip it would without hesitation be the Australia solar eclipse on July 22, 2028. This total solar eclipse will last just over 5 minutes and cuts across the continent. Besides the thrill of a solar eclipse, Australia has large regions of exceptionally dark night skies. With the moon new at that time this would be the chance of a lifetime to see the southern night skies. Stars and nebula’s not visible from the northern hemisphere. I’d spend all week there if I could. Oh well, one can dream right?
2028 Australian Solar Eclipse map from eclipsewise.com (click for more information)
There is the 2045 Solar eclipse that will go across the United States including Kansas. If I’m still around I will certainly be watching that. But that is a long ways off.
Random eclipse thoughts…
As I suspected my DSLR eclipse picture timing did not function perfectly. Partly from a rush to setup and partly from not having absolutely precise location data (lat/lon/elevation). That said I do have some interesting shots including the one in this post. The picture above is likely a tiny fraction of a second before totality began and I like the sliver of bright sun causing lens flare. There was no filter on the 200mm lens at this point. At least I got that right.
Which brings up a special point: I setup my camera, focused and let the computer run before the eclipse started. I did not look at or touch it during totality. I could hear the voice prompts, the shutter firing but I kept my attention on the sun, sky and the whole of the totality event.
Its remarkable how visible the solar prominence’s were during the eclipse. They easily show up in pictures, even visible during totality. The sun being in a very active state right now, perhaps at or near solar max, was great timing for the eclipse.
Looking at my pictures mid eclipse it is obvious no single exposure can capture the dynamic range of the corona. I already knew that but to have actual raw data to review is enlightening. Perhaps I will try later to combine the various exposures I collected into a composite image.
The temperature drop during the eclipse Monday was really significant. Temperature was around 80 before the eclipse, sunny and hot. Then it was almost chilly at mid eclipse. Maybe it was goosebumps from the situation. No, I experienced something like this in 2017 but I suspect the wider and longer eclipse path this time contributed to the much greater apparent temperature drop.
The ECMWF cloud model was pretty accurate for this difficult to forecast weather situation. I spent untold hours in the days ahead of the eclipse reviewing models, comparing them to reality. While many were close, when it came down to the final hours the European model seemed to be the most accurate. Again, the weather pattern and thin cloud situation for eclipse day was difficult to model.
My dog, Abby, has now experienced totality in two total solar eclipses! Not that she pays any attention to it from what I can tell.