Bucket-lister! Totality from northern Vermont
Apr 28, 2024 7:33:29 GMT -5
quartz, RickB, and 9 more like this
Post by geoff59 on Apr 28, 2024 7:33:29 GMT -5
In the year 1963, when I wasn’t quite 4, there was a solar eclipse that came through New England. I still remember my Dad stacking several film negatives up several layers thick, and then showing me how to hold them and look at the sun. We didn’t get to experience totality where we lived, but it was pretty close, something I know from looking at the history of that day and the path of the eclipse. I understood what my Dad taught me back then (somehow), and for sure something clicked inside of me that day long ago now, and ever since I’ve wanted to see another one and experience it from the middle of the path of totality. In the 1990s we had an annular eclipse here, which was amazing! We were, here in New Hampshire, right smack in the middle of the path, so that the “ring of fire” happened overhead, and that was a day that ended up being sunny! It was still film days, and using what I had available to me, I photographed that eclipse and the ring. I still have those pics in an album. An annular eclipse is, in it’s own right, as amazing to see and experience, as a total eclipse!
The weather in New England in April tends to be pretty dreary and cloudy, wet, lots of rain. I would guess, easily that 75% or better of April days here are overcast and wet. This I know well! Believe me it gets old sometimes! So beginning a few years ago, counting the months and weeks off as this eclipse day drew closer and closer, the general idea was I’d have to head west and maybe south to get myself where I needed to be. I told everyone that mattered, starting about 4 years ago, that I would be away for a few days on either side of April 8, 2024.
10 days before, still in March, those who make their living forecasting our weather were united: the 10 day forecast and early eclipse “models” strongly suggested that northern New England, would be one of the best places to be for the eclipse. And even though I don’t have much faith in these long range “models”, based on the experience of living here and through the weather, I had a strange feeling they were going to be spot on. 10 days turned to 9, then to 8, then to 7 and 6. And this prediction for sunny blue skies didn’t waver a bit. It was incredible! Then the last few days ticked by, and instead of heading west toward the Great Lakes or Ohio, I stayed put. The morning of April 8th, we got in the car, loaded up with day-trip food/drink, photo gear packed in, and we headed up I-89 to I-91 just over the Vermont border, and north to “ground zero”, along the Canadian border. The weather, it would be tough to beat it! We found, just a bit west of the little town of Derby, Vermont, a small little cemetery along a quiet dirt road that had a perfect view.
If you’ve never experienced this before, I can tell you that I don’t think there are words that can really describe the experience. Or maybe the combination of the experience and the emotions you feel. Besides the pure joy and amazement, you for sure suddenly understand why ancients thought the world was ending! 😂 I could try to describe it, but I can’t really, one thing I’ll never forget though is how the voices of the crows in the Vermont hills around us suddenly began to call out as soon as totality began. More than a handful, more like a couple of dozen at least. I can’t tell you if they were frightened or amazed, or maybe both! But it added another element to this event, leaving us happy that we’d stayed away from the crowds back in town, who no doubt were only listening to the sound of people laughing and cheering. Not that I’m antisocial, it’s just that between the 2, I’d choose the sound of the forest and nature any day of the week.
When totality began, immediately I saw pink. And I mean bright, neon glowing, about fluorescent-colored pink, like hunter orange. Along the top left edge of the corona. Pinch me, I thought. Am I seeing this? And I asked my other half if she was seeing it too. She affirmed to me that it was really there. I can tell you, cameras have always had limitations on what they can reproduce accurately. In most lighting situations, they can do a pretty good job. But reproducing those bright, pink prominences within the corona of the sun, that is one thing they can not do with justice.
This image (above) is taken just a few seconds after totality began. It’s the only image I have that begins to show how amazing the pink was. It took me several days before I understood that the pink along the top-left here, it is actually reflecting off the moon’s surface, just the edge as it curves around back toward the dark side of the moon, as close to parallel to the light rays as it gets. Within seconds this effect was gone, leaving the view more like the image below, where the prominences appear more to “stick straight out”; even these smaller spots of pink were highly visible to the eye, like sparkling pink gems within the light of the corona. I am STILL working on my final editing, so the 2 images have some variation in the color of the corona itself.
Type to enter text
The weather in New England in April tends to be pretty dreary and cloudy, wet, lots of rain. I would guess, easily that 75% or better of April days here are overcast and wet. This I know well! Believe me it gets old sometimes! So beginning a few years ago, counting the months and weeks off as this eclipse day drew closer and closer, the general idea was I’d have to head west and maybe south to get myself where I needed to be. I told everyone that mattered, starting about 4 years ago, that I would be away for a few days on either side of April 8, 2024.
10 days before, still in March, those who make their living forecasting our weather were united: the 10 day forecast and early eclipse “models” strongly suggested that northern New England, would be one of the best places to be for the eclipse. And even though I don’t have much faith in these long range “models”, based on the experience of living here and through the weather, I had a strange feeling they were going to be spot on. 10 days turned to 9, then to 8, then to 7 and 6. And this prediction for sunny blue skies didn’t waver a bit. It was incredible! Then the last few days ticked by, and instead of heading west toward the Great Lakes or Ohio, I stayed put. The morning of April 8th, we got in the car, loaded up with day-trip food/drink, photo gear packed in, and we headed up I-89 to I-91 just over the Vermont border, and north to “ground zero”, along the Canadian border. The weather, it would be tough to beat it! We found, just a bit west of the little town of Derby, Vermont, a small little cemetery along a quiet dirt road that had a perfect view.
If you’ve never experienced this before, I can tell you that I don’t think there are words that can really describe the experience. Or maybe the combination of the experience and the emotions you feel. Besides the pure joy and amazement, you for sure suddenly understand why ancients thought the world was ending! 😂 I could try to describe it, but I can’t really, one thing I’ll never forget though is how the voices of the crows in the Vermont hills around us suddenly began to call out as soon as totality began. More than a handful, more like a couple of dozen at least. I can’t tell you if they were frightened or amazed, or maybe both! But it added another element to this event, leaving us happy that we’d stayed away from the crowds back in town, who no doubt were only listening to the sound of people laughing and cheering. Not that I’m antisocial, it’s just that between the 2, I’d choose the sound of the forest and nature any day of the week.
When totality began, immediately I saw pink. And I mean bright, neon glowing, about fluorescent-colored pink, like hunter orange. Along the top left edge of the corona. Pinch me, I thought. Am I seeing this? And I asked my other half if she was seeing it too. She affirmed to me that it was really there. I can tell you, cameras have always had limitations on what they can reproduce accurately. In most lighting situations, they can do a pretty good job. But reproducing those bright, pink prominences within the corona of the sun, that is one thing they can not do with justice.
This image (above) is taken just a few seconds after totality began. It’s the only image I have that begins to show how amazing the pink was. It took me several days before I understood that the pink along the top-left here, it is actually reflecting off the moon’s surface, just the edge as it curves around back toward the dark side of the moon, as close to parallel to the light rays as it gets. Within seconds this effect was gone, leaving the view more like the image below, where the prominences appear more to “stick straight out”; even these smaller spots of pink were highly visible to the eye, like sparkling pink gems within the light of the corona. I am STILL working on my final editing, so the 2 images have some variation in the color of the corona itself.
Type to enter text
