Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Total Eclipse 2017 - South Carolina

It almost seemed like a dream- the hours and hours on the road, the visiting of relatives, observing the Total Eclipse of the Sun, the terribly backed-up traffic upon our return.  It would appear that some of the southern expressways require perpetual construction. 

We used the proper ISO-approved filtering viewing glasses through which everything appeared black except for the sun. 

At the beginning of this event, the temperature in South Carolina was102' Fahrenheit and swiftly dropped twelve degrees within a half hour.  It actually felt cooler!  The black crescent of moon shadow crept slowly across the sun's image.  Comprehending its progress was impossible except by checking it every few minutes.  

The sky stayed bright until the Totality, but there was a metallic glint around us, or the effect of looking at everything through a very fine screen, for want of a better description.  I was amazed that when most of the sun was covered and just an orange thumbnail of light was visible, the sky above us was still blue.  It doesn't take much sun to light up the whole Earth!  

Just before Totality, the horizon turned orange like a sunset and a street light flickered, beginning to come on.  Chickens headed for their coop, then changed their minds. 

Someone saw the anticipated wavy shadows that look like black snakes slithering across the ground, but I missed that phenomenon. We could see planets overhead, but not stars.  I would say it was more like twilight or dusk, not a complete black-out.

My digital camera was unable to get good shots, but here are some pictures from one of our group who had an approved camera filter:
by JC 8/21/17

By JC 8/21/17

By JC 8/21/17

By JC 8/21/17

By JC 8/21/17


By JC 8/21/17


By JC 8/21/17


By JC 8/21/17 - TOTALITY - Ahhhhhhh... BEAUTIFUL!!!

1 comment:

Iryna Barysava said...

Thanks for the beautiful first-hand description.