At age six, looking at a map of future solar totalities in the World Book Encyclopedia, I had the High Plains part of the path in the crosshairs. Elke and I each have been waiting our whole lives for this, decades since childhood, so it’s fitting that we did it together. After a lifetime, we finally witnessed one of the most intensely spiritual and moving natural phenomena to be found. Thank God the moon’s apparent diameter so matches the sun’s at a proportional distance of one-over, like a cosmically tuned instrumental duo. This is the brief part that’s safe to view with eyeballs: midday sunset, bright horizons and deep twilight overhead, deep navy blue (not black!) sky, filled with stars not normally seen that time of year, and a few planets, surrounds the shimmering silver-white, asymmetric corona, itself ringing the ink-black lunar orb, as if in mimicry of a black hole’s event horizon. Appreciate and absorb the wonder, for all too quickly, the shadow moves past and a gob-turned-crescent of direct sunshine (not safe to view with eyes!) returns. Those 2-1/2 minutes were worth every dime and mile. I made a 13-photo stack of the eclipse sequence into a featured Image of the Week also.
13 SSW Van Tassell WY (21 Aug 17) Looking SSE
42.48, -104.1642