Here, from NASA, is the path of the total eclipse that will take place on Monday, April 8, so you have about six weeks to prepare. (You did know there would be an eclipse, right?) And that means making sure you’re in a place you can see it AND that you have special dark eclipse-viewing glasses. I was excited to see that it’s coming near Chicago, though I should really go to Indianapolis, where I lived as a child.
Below is a map from the NASA site giving all the details you need to know, including the path of totality and when totality is reached. You can download the map in larger format here (see “download” at the lower right of the map on the page) or watch the video at bottom, which goes over the path of totality. My favorite part of such an eclipse, besides the darkness at noon, is that the birds go nuts and start singing because they think it’s twilight.
From NASA:
The Monday, April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The total solar eclipse will begin over the South Pacific Ocean. Weather permitting, the first location in continental North America that will experience totality is Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT.
The total solar eclipse will be visible along a narrow track stretching from Texas to Maine on April 8, 2024. A partial eclipse will be visible throughout all 48 contiguous U.S. states.
Want to download this map and view other versions? Visit NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
The path of the eclipse continues from Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Small parts of Tennessee and Michigan will also experience the total solar eclipse. The eclipse will enter Canada in Southern Ontario, and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton. The eclipse will exit continental North America on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NDT.
The site also has a table about when the eclipse starts and ends in major cities in the U.S.
Shameless plug: We public libraries in and around the path of totality have programs about the eclipse and most of us supply the viewing goggles free of charge, while supplies last, of course.
And we are already planning to do the same for the next solar eclipse on March 29, 2025.
For reference: https://eclipse.aas.org/sites/eclipse.aas.org/files/AAS-Chou-Solar-Eclipse-Eye-Safety.pdf
Short summary: use the proper protection. The proper viewing glasses protect from visible, UV, and IR. A welding shield shade 12 or higher is acceptable, but the color will be off. A 13 is more comfortable.
In my opinion, the best viewing is with a sextant (4X telescope) with the proper sunshades and a H-alpha filter. The other year (August 2017) I was on a welding job, and actually had to warn the welders not to look without at least a shade 12. You’d think they would get it without being told, but….
This guide is chock full of really helpful info about this eclipse.
https://www.amazon.com/Total-Solar-Eclipse-2024-Complete/dp/B0BXNHCM2B/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2BB1ANQMB1AF4&keywords=total+solar+eclipse+2024+marc+nussbaum&qid=1708295691&sprefix=Nussbaum+ecli%2Caps%2C224&sr=8-1
To see the 1991 total solar eclipse — my first — I went on a road trip with a half-dozen companions from the San Francisco Bay Area to the border of Mexico. Once in Mexico we took a slow train into the heart of the country, drinking cervezas from a large cooler that a couple of generous Mexican guys shared with us. That part of the trip took a long time, but we had “liquid suspension” and laughter to keep us in good spirits.
Closer to our destination we rented a VW bus to take us toward, and up, the mountain from which we were planning to watch the eclipse. I had read about how dramatic a fast-approaching eclipse shadow on the ground looks from a mountain top, so I had pinpointed the destination for our group. I had high hopes.
Much to our dismay, however, a tropical storm moved in before we reached our destination at the top. And we were among tall trees, densely packed. What to do? What to do? We had no choice but to barrel down the mountain back to the lowland plains and search for an opening in the clouds. Finding one seemed unlikely.
For an amazingly long time a black vulture flew directly in front of our VW bus through a long tunnel of overhanging trees, and we giddily joked that it was showing us “the way.”
Close to the time of the eclipse, and much to our delight, the clouds (and trees) above us finally did part to expose a large swath of clear blue sky, with the still only partially eclipsed Sun in the middle.
Amazed by our good luck, we got out of the bus along an empty stretch of railroad tracks with randomly stacked railroad ties to view the longest total solar eclipse — about 7 minutes — that humans on Earth would witness for at least several hundred years.
I had researched welders’ glasses, and I had brought some beveled rectangles to share for viewing the Sun before and after the eclipse. The thing I still remember most about the minutes before the eclipse was the inexorable movement of a two-thousand-mile-wide celestial body in front of a star almost a million miles in diameter and some 90 million miles from Earth. I truly felt part of a cosmic event.
But it was the naked-eye view of the Sun’s suddenly exposed silvery butterfly-like corona during the eclipse that took everyone’s breath away. A few stars — and a couple planets — became visible in a dark sky that was framed by now-distant thunderheads at the periphery of our vision, their 360-degree-circle of clouds around us lit like a faux sunset.
After the eclipse some kids from a small nearby town (“Yago”) took us “eclipse scientists” to their local swimming hole, which we enjoyed diving into even when a fierce rainstorm with thunder and lighting returned. Who cares about the danger of lightning when we just saw a cosmic event?
To top off our experience, on the beginning of our VW road trip back home, we noticed a small, well-kept church, with brilliant, white-painted stucco, shiny gold trim, and a shiny gold cross. We stopped to visit and were thoroughly astonished to see the name plaque: “La Iglesia del Sol y la Luna” — “The church of the Sun and the Moon.” (!) For a believer this would have seemed proof of the divine. For me, an atheist, I thought “How fun!”
• • •
After I married, I was determined that my wife would see the 2017 total solar eclipse. She had never seen one. I arranged for us to be on a week-long bus trip (two buses) arranged partly by The Planetary Society and accompanied by then-president of the organization, Jim Bell, professor of astronomy at Arizona State University. (Very nice guy.) As it happened, the site of viewing, near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, would be on top of Rendezvous Mountain at about 10,000 feet — just what I had hoped for in Mexico!
Needless to say, I was rewarded with another cosmic experience, which my wife was thrilled to share with me this time. But I’ve already taken up a lot of word space here — hopefully Jerry won’t mind — so I’ll just end to say that practically any effort is worthwhile to see at least one total solar eclipse. So do it.
Inspiring stories! Thank you very much for writing them down for us.
Why thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed the story. I certainly enjoyed it in real life.
I work that day, with a class that gets out a bit after 1pm, a couple hours ahead of it. Totality passes about 2.5 hours from work, and that probably won’t be quite enough time to drive like hell to see it. So I will likely see a partial eclipse where I work. Unless I cancel class, which I shouldn’t do. Anyway, what if it’s cloudy?
I’ve seen an annular eclipse many years ago, and that and seeing a bit of this one will have to do.
There is the mega cicada emergence later this summer, though. And I will be driving out to immerse myself in that one!
The difference between a partial eclipse (or annular eclipse) and a total solar eclipse is like foreplay and climax. No amount of foreplay is anything like the climax. Maybe you can bring your class with you?
A mega cicada emergence combined with a total solar eclipse would make for an interesting fictional event in an apocalyptic movie of some kind. Separately, I wonder if the shadow of a total solar eclipse would affect the chorusing song of cicadas…
The refinement of the umbra track since this was last in the news in 2017 now puts us right under it between the south shore of Lake Ontario and the north shore of Lake Erie, with Niagara Falls having the longest totality locally.
Fingers crossed that it’s not overcast, not a good bet for April here in Ontario. We’ve hardly seen the sun since December.
I’ve seen two total eclipses, one very cool, one much less so. The first and cool one was at Virginia Beach, maybe Feb 1970, with a group of W&M students. (Well, actually I saw both with a group of W&M students or grads.) It was cool because as the sun was covered what looked like waves or a wave came flying over the ocean and onto the land; one saw the eclipse coming. The second, July 1972 Nova Scotia eclipse did not repeat the wave coolness. Why the difference I don’t know.
Wow, Steve. A day late here but wanted to comment to you that I was similarly amazed at the (it was) March 1970 eclipse at VA Beach. I watched on the beach (around 60th street I think) with a large group of faculty and grad students from the William and Mary Physics Dept.
While I can’t say where on the beach I was, at the end of the sunless, dark eclipse period, someone with large stereo played…timed? lucky? “Let the Sunshine,” if that’s the song title, which refrain let loose at just the right-bright moment. To my nineteen year old stoned mind, this took the experience even higher. Not a thought of the physics, just awesome joy for this voyager.
I witnessed the August 2017 eclipse from a ski chalet in central Idaho with my wife and her family. The last minute or so before totality was an eerie experience, as all the local wildlife fell silent, the temperature dropped noticeably, and the light took on a very peculiar character. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to PCC(E) that he should try to see the total eclipse if he possibly can.
Jealous! Do see it if you can. I travelled to Penzance, Cornwall in 1999 to be in the path of total eclipse. It took my breath away. We stood on the beach and, as it got dark, masses of birds swooped out to sea in the late morning.
I saw my first annular eclipse from a ship in the Singapore Strait in 2019. Amazing to see the ‘ring of fire’.
Be safe. Don’t be like Trump and look at the sun without the right protection.
Now now tRUMP is a “jawnyiss”. He was just trying to double up by seeing the eclipse and getting some good Covid killing rays into his body at the same time.
His son, had more sense, he used glasses.
Didn’t Rump suggent killing covid by injecting everyone with bleach? That was a press conference from hell. He should have been the first to try it.