Among B.C. residents who journeyed southward, or eastward, to experience the recent solar eclipse in the path of totality were B.C. Catholic reader Alison Scholefield and her husband Chris. They were on board a cruise ship about 250 km off the coast of Mexico, southwest of Mazatlan. Four other cruise ships were in the vicinity for the same reason: to be among the first in North America to experience this spellbinding event.
I had not intended to devote a column to Eclipse2024, to borrow the widely used hashtag, but reader Mario Acosta convinced me, along with photos posted by the Scholefields within hours of their view of totality.
My own mother is another reason I’m writing this column. She was awestruck by the images she saw on (mostly) the CNN live feed, along with news coverage later in the day from Canada’s east coast.
Like nearly all of you reading this, I’ve experienced partial solar eclipses. However my one journey to view a total solar eclipse ended, as did this April eclipse here in Vancouver, with overcast skies. That would be the 1979 eclipse, where the path of totality passed right through Portland, Ore. I was part of a group from Vancouver’s H. R. MacMillan Planetarium that journeyed to the Rose City for the event, staying in the city the night before and then journeying early Feb. 26 to a rural location with an open view to the east.
Chances of clear skies weren’t very good at that time of year and indeed the event was a rainout. However, the experiences remain vivid for me: the shadow rushing across the landscape in my direction, and the wildlife, birds primarily, being extremely agitated and uncertain of the situation.
Eclipse2024, while not generally a rainout, had cloudy skies along much of the path through the United States and into southern Ontario. Clear skies were the order of the day for much of the path through Mexico and from roughly Cornwall, Ont., eastward out to Newfoundland.
What set this total solar eclipse apart from others in recent years is the number of major population centers it touched, from Mazatlan, to Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara Falls, Montreal, Fredericton, to Gander, and of course major centers such as Toronto.
Twitter user @NOAABrauer, Noah Brauer with the NWS Weather Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, was representative of some of the reactions posted on social media: “Pictures alone don’t do the total solar eclipse justice. It was the combination of the rapid darkness, temperature drop, cool breeze, and the increasing sounds of insects around totality. Coolest thing ever.”
Others reacted with various expletives, all alluding to the surreal experience of a total solar eclipse. Some were experiencing their second, or in some cases even higher numbers, total eclipse. One person was experiencing their tenth, a reflection of just how captivating this sort of celestial phenomenon can be.
One common observation, aside from those regarding the stunning appearance of the sun’s corona at totality, was the experience of a 360-degree sunset. I don’t recall this being widely mentioned following previous solar eclipses. However for this eclipse many sites were occluded, with breaks at or near totality. These cloudy conditions may have added to the enhanced surround-sunset experience.
Photographer Steve Gray, writing to a Facebook specialty group, had this to say: “I did not anticipate the impact this event would have on me. Honestly, I didn’t even think about trying to photograph it until the morning of. In my mind, I just pictured it getting dark for a few minutes, which did happen, but I didn’t know about the 360-degree sunset effect, the serpentine bands of shadow slithering across the snow, and the silver sheen of it all. I wish I could have better captured how it all felt, those other-worldly few minutes in the full shadow of the moon with Mt. Katahdin to my right, standing in the middle of a giant field in Benedicta (Maine), but that will have to be for me. I just hope the memory of it stays as fresh as it is now.”
Meanwhile, off Mexico, Chris Scholefield wrote: “I had the phone (Pixel 8 Pro) set to 12M pixels. The photos had 5x optical zoom and 30x captured (digital). They are not great quality, but as they say, the best camera is the one you have with you at the time! The photo I like best is the total eclipse showing the prominences, but that is the solar weather geek in me. I also managed the classic diamond ring shot with a few aberrations and one of the crescent which was shot with a filter on.”
In a blog post, made shortly after experiencing totality, Scholefield went on to describe his photography of the eclipse.
“Eventually, we got the countdown (of a talking eclipse timer app) to the second contact (C2) of impending total eclipse and received directions to remove the glasses. This was just in time to witness the diamond ring. Alison was still wearing her glasses and I told her to take them off quickly just in time for her to see it too. There was cheering as we entered totality. I removed the filter from my phone and took a series of photos with different exposure settings. We were able to see two red prominences at ~2 o’clock and 4 o’clock on the disk. We also looked around to experience what seemed to be a sunset in all directions. As we approached C3, end of totality, I prepared to photograph the next diamond ring, which looked spectacular to the naked eye, and caught it with a couple of photos that really did not do it justice.”
Eclipse2024 is now part of history. If previous eclipse aficionados are anything to go by, we can be sure that some who experienced their first totality this time have already made plans for the next one.
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