Overlap of the Paths of Eclipse 2017 and Eclipse 2024
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Many people have become enthralled
with the fact that, after so many years without
total eclipses, the mainland US will be getting TWO
in the space of less than seven years! That's
right, while we absolutely don't want anyone to miss
the great eclipse of 2017, there will be another one
coming along in 2024!
Our sister site, www.eclipse2024.org,
will have much more detail on that eclipse as the
time draws closer.
It just makes sense that if two
eclipse paths are going to both cross the US,
there must be a very lucky spot that will get to see
BOTH of them!!
WOW! People
living there will not have to travel at all to see
either eclipse!
(And I've gone all the way to India
just to see 52 seconds of totality!) Talk about luck.
And of course, many die-hard
eclipse chasers are wanting to go to that location,
so they can say they've seen two eclipses from the
same location.
This actually isn't a very tough thing to do
in one's lifetime, but those intersection points
generally happen to lie in far-off, out-of-the-way
locations – if not in the ocean! (The 2006
and 1999 total eclipses were both visible from a
location in central Turkey, for example.) This
intersection point happens to lie in the WAY FAR
out-of-the-way spot of…Southern Illinois.
Actually, to be fair, the overlap
of the paths of totality of these two eclipses lies
in three states:
Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky. Here is a
map that shows you the quasi-parallelogrammatical
(is that a word?) region that, if you're in it, you
get to see eclipses on two different dates:
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And here's a
closer view:
Here is a little
more information on these two eclipses from the point of
intersection of the centerlines (where the blue lines cross):
2017
eclipse:
totality starts1:20:02pm
mid-totality
1:21:22pm
totality ends 1:22:42pm
2m40s of
totality, with the sun 64 degrees up in the sky just slightly
west of south!
2024
eclipse:
totality starts: 1:59:00pm
mid-totality
2:01:05pm
totality ends 2:03:09pm
4m9s of totality,
with the sun 57 degrees up in the sky just a little bit more
west of south!
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That's truly amazing. From this
point, both eclipses happen at almost the same time
of day, with the sun in almost the same spot in the
sky. Of
course, good weather will be needed to see both
eclipses, but LOTS of people are going to try to get
to this very special spot. (Will we be there? Probably
not. As
cool a thing as this would be to do, the 2024
eclipse goes right over our home base in Indiana,
and so weather permitting, that's where we'll be.)
So what's exactly at this very
special spot?
Not much out of the ordinary. But as of the time this was originally
written in 2009, the kind folks of Carbondale, IL (not to
mention Makanda and
Pomona)
had absolutely no idea what lies in store for them over the next few years! (Hint - they do now!!)
But how bad would it be to be
somewhere that's right outside this region? There are
localities that are only three to four miles outside
both paths, and for those places, to be so close to
such a special place on earth, and not get to go to
the dance…well, let's just hope that residents there
pack up and position themselves a little more
favorably!
Remember,
you HAVE to be in the path of totality to get the show!
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