...in the path!
If you read nothing else about the eclipse, please read
this long rant, and check out the
maps so you can see how close to your home the
eclipse path comes. Let me explain. The basics of a
total eclipse are that the moon goes in between the sun
and the earth, and as the moon 'moves' across the face
of the sun, its very thin shadow passes along a "path"
on the ground. You have to be in that path
in order to see the "total" eclipse. If you're outside
it, you'll only get to see a partial eclipse (boring!)
-- and if you're just barely outside the path,
you'll see a very deep partial eclipse -- but even that
is not anything you'd necessarily want to leave your
desk at work to see! Go here to see an animation program we put together that shows what you can expect to see from various locations in the US. We cannot stress this enough - if you're in the path, you see what is perhaps one of the most phenomenal sights that human eyes can convey to a brain! If you're not in the path, even by only a mile or so (!!!!!), you will come away wondering what in the heck we even bothered to make this site for! And you will have completely missed the whole show. People fly to the remotest deserts, jungles, islands -- frozen, desolate, and mosquito-infested places - just to be in the path of a total eclipse. So please, please, please: walk, run, fly, drive, hike, roll, thumb, or cycle yourself into the path on eclipse day, and you will not regret it! Miss it, and you'll have to wait till the next one in the USA (not till 2024). Take it from us - do not think that you're "close enough" to the path to see something cool. Look at the maps, and if where you are isn't in the dark band (and as close to the blue centerline as possible), please please get yourself there by whatever means are necessary! Even if it's 1,000 miles or more! People will come from all over the world to see this grand spectacle, and you already live right here! You will thank us thousands of times over for having talked you into it, and you will thank whatever it is you believe in that you got to see what you saw while standing in the shadow. Please take a look at this amazing video from the 2016 eclipse in Indonesia, this amazing video from the 2015 eclipse in Svalbard, and this amazing video of the 2010 eclipse in Patagonia, to know that you NEED to be in the path of totality to see this most amazing spectacle! WARNING - these videos are spectacular, but they are NOTHING, compared to what you see with your own eyes during totality!! Please take it from your humble host - I've kissed the Blarney Stone, and seen the Grand Canyon, Victoria Falls, Ayers Rock, the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, the West Edmonton Mall, the Pyramids in Egypt, the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Stonehenge, the giant Sequoia Trees, Victoria Falls, Death Valley, the Panama Canal, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Meteor Crater, Yellowstone, the North Pole, the Midnight Sun over the Arctic Ocean, Shakespeare's grave, the Alps in Switzerland, the Grand Mosque in Istanbul, the geysers in Iceland, the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel tower, the CN tower, Sydney Tower, Shanghai Tower, Auckland Tower, Berlin tower (hey, I like towers!), the Ring at Bayreuth and the Met, the Berlin Philharmonic playing Mahler (five times!), and my kids being born -- and I'm not kidding: A total eclipse is a spectacle to rival them all! Get thee to the path.... |