So About That Total Eclipse

about 6 months ago a funny thing

happened we caught it right as it's

happen as it's doing the ring the Moon

is just in

position yeah yeah oh my

gosh in technical terms this was the

view from under the path of totality for

an annular or Ring of Fire solar eclipse

and in layman's terms it was pretty

[ __ ] cool for those of you who'd like

a quick debrief on what exactly an

eclipse is allow me to briefly explain

with the aid of my lovely assistant Cleo

a solar eclipse is not like a lunar

eclipse with a lunar eclipse you have

okay you have the Sun and you have the

Earth and you have the moon and in a

lunar eclipse the shadow of the earth is

cast on the face of the Moon anywhere in

the world that can see the full moon at

that point will see the moon darken

under the Earth's Shadow cu the sun is

just casting that shadow lunar eclipses

happen pretty commonly and because

anywhere on the nighttime side of Cleo

Cleo

no okay great what was I talking about

uh right eclipses so with a lar eclipse

the shadow of the earth is cast on the

oh no oh

god with the lunar eclipse the shadow of

the earth is cast on the uh on the Moon

by the Sun so anywhere in the world that

can see the moon sees it go dark a solar

eclipse is a much more precise affair

because the moon could cast a girl what

are you doing cast a comparatively much

smaller shadow on the earth so if you

aren't in the path of that shadow you

are only going to see a partial Eclipse

which is when the moon only slides a

little bit over the Sun so the reason

why solar eclipses feel a lot rarer than

lunar eclipses is that a solar eclipse

is a local Affair

so she's

sharp y oh you are so stinking cute ow

so a lunar

eclipse happens roughly every 6 months

and uh as long as you're on the

nighttime side of the earth which is a

solid 50/50 shot most of the time ah

you'll be able to see it happen it's

very ow yeah no get comfy what else am I

here for baby girl so if you want to see

a total solar eclipse usually you need

to travel under the path of totality to

be able to see it because otherwise

you'll you'll see a partial eclipse this

one that we're getting uh this year

people are calling the Great American

Eclipse uh because it's going to be

visible from all all of North America

but the path of totality is still

correspondingly pretty small and that it

is going to basically carve little

diagonal line starting in the southwest

and going up Northeast what what you

doing what you doing girl oh okay she's

getting comfy she's

getting so uh for the purposes of this

Eclipse we are traveling under the path

of

totality uh because because one of the

places it's going to be visible

is Upstate New York so we're traveling

to Lake Placid ah she's making biscuits

out of my

fles

H I love you dearly Cleo but I am

slightly allergic to you nothing

Personnel kid now while the path of

totality is the only place where an

observer can see a total eclipse and a

gradient around the path of totality

observers will see a partial eclipse

where the moon only partially covers the

sun dimming it somewhat but leaving a

burning Crescent still clearly visible

so while only a small sliver of the

planet will experience the unique

unsettling of totality and the rare view

of the sun's Corona a lot of people are

going to see the Sun get weird when I

think about what it must have been like

to experience a solar eclipse you know

at any point in history when it wasn't

fully known or understood or when you

know Joe average random farmer is

unlikely to know exactly what's going on

like obviously you know the narrative is

like oh the Wrath of the Gods the Sun

God has been devoured by a snake you

know something like that but I almost

wonder if it would have been like if you

take into account the fact that cloudy

days happen and stuff like that like

imagine you're just minding your

business and the Sun

comes out from behind the

clouds and there's a bite taken out of

it and you're

like does it normally do that and then

it's like clouds go back in front of it

and you're like okay and it gets a

little bit darker gets a little bit

darker uh and then it it starts getting

brighter again the clouds part and the

sun's back to normal and you're

like I don't

know okay and then like like imagine

like try to bring that up in casual

conversation later like so did you guys

see the sun earlier no I mean like was

it was it like normal shaped for you

guys like did you when it when it was a

shape right it was its usual Circle I

would assume like a normal person

like you're all right man decades down

the line you hear like yes the celestial

alignment of the heavens the moon shall

pass her face before the sun and cast us

briefly into artificial night before

continuing their perfect Celestial dance

you're like I [ __ ] told you guys it

was a weird shape partial eclipses are

already very strange things to

experience Even in our enlightened

Modern Age where we know exactly what an

eclipse is and that nobody's gods are

getting devoured anytime soon but even

knowing that there's still something

weird about seeing the sunrise with a

bite taken out of it I almost feel like

a partial eclipse is actually weirder to

see than a total eclipse because total

eclipses have this like Aura of Glorious

Cosmic Perfection you know the moon

perfectly sliding in front of the sun

it's exactly the right size to perfectly

cover only the disc so that the corona

becomes visible for the first time H but

like a partial eclipse it feels like a

mistake it's like an elder god 200,000

miles away has noticed you're in a zoom

call and is like belly flopped on the

ground trying to slide through shot to

not get in the way it just feels weird

and there's also just the fact that like

the moon and the sun are two extremely

familiar things you know we see them

basically every day but we don't see

them interact in this way so you end up

with this feeling of of strangeness of

unfamiliarity in the familiar that the

sun is is interacting with the moon in a

way that you normally never see and I

feel like that's what helps create this

odd feeling around partial eclipses that

they're they're somehow Stranger Than

total eclipses that they're like almost

more unsettling then again I've never

seen a total eclipse that time of

recording

so maybe it'll be weirder who knows and

Eclipse makes you really feel the

realization that space is not static

everything is just really big and really

far apart so you can't really perceive

the rate at which it's moving most of

the time and when two things in space

get close enough that you can actually

see how they're moving it really clicks

what kind of overwhelming vastness we're

just not keyed into most of the time the

moon is always moving that fast but when

we don't have the sun to compare it to

we don't notice when I traveled to

Eugene Oregon back in October to see the

annular Eclipse it was the first solar

eclipse I'd ever been in the path of

totality for but it wasn't exactly

totality annular eclipses happen when

the moon is at a comparatively Far Point

in its slightly elliptical orbit and the

very slight variation in its distance

from the earth is enough to not

completely cover the Sun and instead

leave a thin Burning Ring of Fire

visible around the edges of the Moon

experiencing the annular Eclipse got me

appreciating the vastness of space as

usual but it also made me start thinking

of the solar system as a strangely

fragile imprecise thing here we had the

perfect conditions for a total solar

eclipse but because of a barely visible

Distortion in the near perfect circle of

the moon's orbit we weren't going to get

one and eclipses themselves are only as

rare as they are because the moon's

orbit is tilted 5° off the Earth's

orbital plane everything looks so clean

and precise when viewed from the top

down there's a reason some historical

models of the cosmos viewed it as a

great mechanism of Wheels within Wheels

set in motion by some ineffable and

infallible prime mover but if the

Clockwork was really that good we'd be

getting perfect solar eclipses every 4

weeks instead of eclipes feeling like a

beautifully perfect cosmic alignment the

fact that I'd never really gotten to see

one was starting to feel like a cosmic

joke at my expense so I really really

didn't want to miss this

one the path of totality for the 2024

April Eclipse starts off the West Coast

of Mexico and curves Northeast across a

good slice of North America including

some of Upstate New York which is where

we decided to try and catch it and yes

this time it was a Wei situation I flew

solo to catch the 2023 Ring of Fire

eclipse from the West Coast but the

total eclipse garnered a little more

interest in part because the 2024 April

Eclipse was the last one that would be

visible from the contiguous us until

2044 which is a year none of us wanted

to think about so in the interest of

catching a potentially once in

a-lifetime spectacle from the comfort of

our own country we squatted up to put

together a nice little road trip into

the path of totality that said my

experience with the October Eclipse

taught me that even if every other chunk

of cosmic Clockwork slides into place to

produce a perfect eclipse the weather

can never be trusted to cooperate day of

so it's kind of important to make sure

the trip Tri itself is going to be fun

even if the heavens don't deliver that

once in a-lifetime experience we're all

hoping for so in the interests of having

a generally nice time regardless of the

will of the Stars we kicked things off

with a tasty appetizer by having a grand

old time at PAX East and then I swung

through beautiful New York City famously

the most chill and relaxing vacation

destination in the world I hung out with

some friends and family finally saw

Wicked and got rained on next I took the

train down to Albany which is New York's

state capital a fun fact you would never

guess from The Vibes of New York City or

frankly even from The Vibes of Albany

I've visited a couple museums took a

wrong turn and had to go through a mini

TSA checkpoint because it turns out

state capitals have a lot of government

buildings in them and got rained on

again oh yeah this bod's well I was

particularly excited to stop in Albany

because compared to everywhere else I'd

been recently it had remarkably low

levels of light pollution which would

make stargazing a much more rewarding

experience is what I would say if it

hadn't been cloudy the whole time so

instead of beholding the vastness of

space I Tor a big boat saw a big bird

and completely missed the April 5th

earthquake everyone was talking about

because I guess Albany was too far way

to feel it man New York City really is

the center of the universe my time in

Albany ended on April 6th when the rest

of the gang rocked up and after a brief

jaunt around the square that contained

all five of Alban skyscrapers and an

unexpected question that would haunt us

for the rest of our days hey Twitter

fans what's up with the big

hole chai hulud the road trip began it

was a fun 2 and 1 half hour Jaun North

to our final destination of Lake Placid

a beautiful Village tucked up in the

Adera and perfectly positioned under the

projected path of totality and if the

snow was any indication it was also was

still kneee in Winter which was a fun

little surprise for those of us who had

spent the last handful of months down in

climate change jet stream hell we spent

our first full day in Lake plaid

exploring hiking around Mirror Lake

nervously eyeing the dwindling prospects

of the weather forecast and scouting out

a few promising sites to view the

eclipse

from okay yeah yeah maybe this is a

little bit less than

ideal so has the suspension on this

thing pretty damn

good it's like we're filming a

Transformers fight

seen movies bam it's like when we were

in Iceland and there were those signs

that were like hey buddy if you have a

civilian vehicle please

don't just don't if you have a civilian

vehicle you're going to die and the old

gods of Asgard are going to laugh at you

the whole time you're falling through

that River narrowly we escape the jaws

of death this day oh boy wait I spoke

too

soon okay red I'm going to need another

five exertions for you driving down a

weird hill we ended up settling on Mount

van Hoven BG one of four Lake Placid

Legacy sites that had been explicitly

set aside by the town for the eclipse

viewing while not as isolated or private

as some potential spots and thus likely

to involve a certain volume of bustling

crowds it had the tremendous advantage

of bathrooms which automatically bumped

it up hugely in the rankings also since

it had trails that went all the way up

the mountain we figured if the crowds

got too dense inside we could always

just climb up a bit like overflow

parking but for people I only

see reasons that this would be a really

smart play yeah I think that this it

certainly has the most things we can do

if things aren't looking good yeah uh

we've got the most space to play we know

it's going to be open cuz it's one of

the four Legacy sites yeah and so the

sun's there now few hours later it's

basically going to be here fine yeah

perfectly fine as long as we don't get

taken out by a truck or something we're

going to be fine and we can see the Bob

[ __ ] go by on their daily commute I

assume that's how Bob [ __ ] work we

spent the whole day marveling at the

gorgeously clear skies and frustrated

that the predictions for the actual day

of the eclipse were still cloudy as hell

over almost the entire us but right

around dusk it finally clicked in my

brain that oh hey really clear skies in

a really small town with really low

light pollution meant we could do some

really good stargazing so the night

before the eclipse blue Noir and I

struck out along the highway found a

nice little parking spot and settle in

for an hour or so to experience a taste

of The Wonder of the cosmos about 14

hours ahead of schedule one thing we

noticed is that absolutely no planets

were visible they all happened to be on

the other side of the Sun at the time

which meant we didn't see any the night

we went stargazing but if we were very

lucky and the cloud cover cooperated we

could potentially see them during the

eclipse the day of the eclipse dawned

promisingly clear and we bundled up and

headed to Mount vanoven BG around 10:00

a.m. 4 hours before the partial eclipse

was due to start While Lake Placid was

already starting to bustle with Mondo

tourist activity van Hoven Burg was

actually less busy than it had been when

we checked it out the previous day and

in defiance of the forecast the partly

to most ly cloudy weather was thus far

failing to materialize with our spots

set and the cosmic convergence on the

horizon there was nothing to do but wait

same as last time I brought my Celestron

travel scope fitted with a solar filter

which is mandatory for pointing

magnifying devices at the sun if you

don't use a solar filter when you point

a magnifying device at the sun you

quickly turn that magnifying device into

a deadly laser so don't do that after

spending a handful of eternities in ADHD

Crystal time prison the appointed hour

was finally upon us and it was time to

post up the partial eclipse began around

two 10ish with just the smallest dimple

into the bottom right edge of the sun

there's like a little little nibble I

think I see it I see it it's it's

definitely not quite as round as it was

a minute ago would you care to reiterate

what you just said about uh what you

thought the moon was at this brief

moment less now that you're filming me

but sure uh I looked at it and there's

currently a tiny little bit of the sun

taken out just a little bit can't even

see it and I thought wow the moon's

tiny good job dude I saw what I said the

Dent slowly grew as the moon gradually

slid into position transforming The

Familiar Sun into a grotesque Pac-Man is

abomination thanks to a conveniently

placed Sunspot that made the whole image

very funny to me as totality approached

the sun shrank to the narrowest sliver

but even as a bare fingernail of light

it was still startlingly bright the

daylight started to take on an odd cast

like dusk was approaching but it still

felt solidly like daylight I also

noticed this back in the October annular

Eclipse even when the moon was

completely Central in the disc the ring

of fire was still so bright that we

didn't experience any of the effects of

totality and even when the only sunlight

left was a fraction of that ring of fire

it was still basically full daylight I

risked taking off my solar filter and

immediately regretted it but managed not

to melt my phone totality had not quite

hit yet and we knew when it did ooh it's

getting

dim look oh look behind look behind look

behind wa full 360

sunset here weing go gang the sun almost

entirely vanished and its final burst of

light produced a perfect diamond ring

effect in the moments before totality

the ground itself rippled with strange

Shadow snakes like a heat Haze cast from

the Sun itself the light dwindled

vanished in a sudden burst and was

replaced by the exposed Corona of the

sun no longer obscured by the

overwhelming brightness of the disc

itself this is so

wild hell yeah come on come on come on

what we can look at yes that's the

corona wow oh see the diamonds yeah yeah

you

doph I'd seen pictures of the corona but

I was genuinely very surprised that it

really was a sort of oddly pale gray I

was expecting the sun's Corona to be the

same pale gold as the sun itself but

instead it was this ghostly washed out

aura that looked like a bad photocopy of

itself studded around the edge with some

very small bursts of bright pinkish red

which turned out to be solar prominences

structures of plasma in the sun's

magnetic field that honestly mostly

looked like my camera was [ __ ] up as

it turns out this particular s solar

eclipse happened near the maximum of the

sun's 11-year activity cycle so the

Corona and the solar prominences were

much more visible this time than they

have been in previous eclipses this is

so weird part of the chromosphere I

think that's just solar plasma looks a

little red it looks like the

magnetosphere and if you tilt your head

oh yeah there's a little you fing see

that like there's a little red like

objection yeah that's the chromosphere

you're so oh my gosh and outside of the

telescope Zone the effective total was

immediately striking the temperature had

dropped steadily as the sun shrank and

when the first diamond ring appeared

just before the sun was completely

covered by the disc of the Moon the air

got full-on cold The Horizon turned

Sunset yellow in every direction and the

sky overhead darkened to a Dusky purple

blue but instead of setting the sun hung

almost directly overhead like a burning

hole in the sky with the disc of the sun

dimmed the five classical planets that

we had failed to see the night before

were all visible in the daytime sky can

you see yeah

I don't remember the ordering but all

five major planets are visible right now

bing bang yeah that's what the that's

what the bright stars are you can

definitely see the oh hold on we're

about to need to put our things back on

diamond ring diamond

R it did not feel like 3 minutes later

when the moon slid just far enough out

of alignment that the second diamond

ring formed signaling the end of

totality the disc of the sun lit

everything back up into daylight the

planets vanished and the the world went

back to normal you see the thing about

the eclipse is first it went M and then

it went M and then it went

M correct yeah all right now start

reassembling allow me to indulge in my

uh inner video essayist YouTuber for a

minute and use my real actual face for

this part for maximum efficiency I don't

know if you guys can tell I did in fact

manage to get sunburned by a solar

Eclipse an eclipse is a strangely

unifying thing the whole time the

partial eclipse was happening I was

getting pinged by friends and family

across the US sending pictures of what

the eclipse looked like from their

location or clouds if the weather was

being uncooperative and asking how

things were looking on our end outside

the path of totality things were pretty

normal honestly if you weren't looking

at the sun with you know standard issue

eclipse glasses so you could actually

make out the shape of it you might not

even notice anything was weird under the

path of totality the story was

completely different you got to

understand I've seen pictures of total

eclipes I've seen drawings from the

1800s time lapses highres NASA

photography much better than I could

ever get with my analog telescope that I

have to point by hand and my phone

camera I've seen the highest quality

images you can get of eclipses and long

before totality I knew every stage of

the process down to the shadow snakes

the the two diamond rings the

omnidirectional Sunset the visible

planets the Twilight dusk effect during

the day I knew what everything was going

to look like the only surprise that the

eclipse held for me was how emotionally

impactful it was to see it in real life

there are a lot of things I've never

seen in real life and a lot of things

I've seen but been frustratingly

unimpressed by and there's this feeling

I get sometimes when I'm experiencing

something I've wanted for a while it's

not a good feeling it's sort of like

this simultaneous awareness of the

inexorable passage of time and an

inability to feel engaged with the

present moment so I'll be experiencing

something that's unique and special and

potentially once in a lifetime but I'll

just feel like a thing is happening it

won't feel momentous or magical and I

won't be able to make myself feel the

gravity I wish I could but I can feel

the seconds of that experience ticking

away and then it'll be over and life is

moving along and I've done the thing I

wanted and felt nothing and now I'm back

in normal status quo and I can't go back

to try again I'll see a painting I've

seen pictures of in books and it'll be

beautiful but not more beautiful than

the pictures I've already seen it won't

make me feel more just because I'm

seeing it bigger and this is a part of

myself that frustrates me because I know

that there's joy and Beauty in these

things I see other people experiencing

them it just feels like I can't crack

the code to get it out in time that's

part of why I didn't seek out the 2017

Great American Eclipse I could have I

didn't really have anything stopping me

I mean I think I was in school but like

whatever right you can skip days of

college it's fine teachers students I'm

I'm joking

uh but you can uh call in absences it's

fine college is not like high school you

can ask to walk out and sometimes

they'll let you I didn't have anything

specifically stopping me I just

didn't and I regretted it later

especially when the weather wasn't

cooperating or when the annular Eclipse

reached totality but it wasn't like

totality totality and there was still

enough Sun that it was basically

daylight and it was so overcast we

wouldn't have been able to see anything

else anyway i' missed out on a total

eclipse just because I hadn't bothered

to put myself under it and why would I

it's not really doing anything weird the

Sun the moon so they go in a line so we

see a part of the sun we don't normally

see how striking could that really be it

is no secret that I love space in fact

it's kind of the opposite of a secret on

account of how I never shut up about it

I've always loved space and one of the

very first existential crises I had to

Wrangle with when I was very young was

this sudden realization that there were

these beautiful Vistas out in the cosmos