Just weeks ago some friends and I (thanks Casha and Olivia) were on top of Cadillac Mountain getting this first view of the morning Sun: With about 500 or so of our dearest friends (remember these blogs dabble with sarcasm) we watched the Sun come up. The crowd was mostly serene as was the atmosphere. The low drone of peoples voices was only shattered about 15 minutes after the appearance of the Sun by a few Harley riders firing up their Hogs to start their decent of the Mountain; For those not in the know, there is a road up Cadillac Mountain and if you want to see the first traffic jam of the day on Mount Desert Island this is where you’ll find it.
The Sun appeared first as such a tiny dot on the horizon that I was mesmerized by it. I stared and pondered the amazement of the moment - so much so that by the time I got enough of my wits about me to take a photo the Sun was more than 1/2 way above the horizon (photo below). If you have never seen that tiny dot of light on a clear horizon, I suggest you do so.
I was in the path of totality - back home in Nebraska - and so caught both of these phenomena in one summer. This second adventure did not require getting up in the small hours of the morning. The peak totality in and around Lincoln, Nebraska was 1:02 until 1:04 in the afternoon. We (different Amis this time; Anika and Jason) encountered a partly cloudy sky which disrupted the view of totality. The clouds did, however, make for some great photos with just a mundane camera. (I’d include some pictures of totality taken with appropriate filters but haven’t you seen enough of those of the web already :-))
The Beginning of the solar eclipse: August 2017
August 21: Some way into the Moon covering the Sun.
During the whole eclipse period the air cooled (from a high of about 28 C to below 24 C).
Astronomers are, of course, watching, monitoring, and recording with interest. Since it emerges from the Sun’s corona the solar wind is one of the hot topics under study during solar eclipses. Some citizen science was going on as well. A Nasa app could be downloaded and walk one through data collection -including photos - as the eclipse was ongoing.
Except for making a few quick observations about the temperature change I mostly just enjoyed spectacle of the event. You gotta put the science brain away sometimes.