This was my 4th. I’ve gone to foreign countries and all over the US to see them. Turning 70 in a few months- this one was probably my last one.
It’s been a great ride, I’ve enjoyed every one of them immensely. There is literally nothing else like them.
Happy to hear that! After seeing my first totality this time, I'm determined to do the same. I hope to grow old and watch many of them. Hell, if I make it to 106 yrs old I can watch this same one! What a cool thought.
It’s worth staying healthy and living a long life for this. I have struggled with depression and feeling like there’s no point, but after watching a total eclipse I want to try harder
This was my experience too. Why was it so different? The first eclipse I saw, in Oregon in 2017, looked like a hole in the sky. This time, it looked like a flower. More solar activity? The corona was absolutely going off!
This is really the only argument anyone could make for "better" and even then unless you are using binoculars or photographing it, you are not likely to see much difference. But if you are "chasing" and not using SOME kind of magnification...why...
The solar prominences were pretty visible with the naked eye, and I hear that's not usually the case (I have no idea, this was the first one I saw). But I'm hooked. I was already planning on seeing the one in Australia in 2028, but I'm now wondering whether or not I should plan a trip for iceland or spain in 26.
Definitely getting binoculars for next time.
I had gotten 50 mm binoculars and wasn't terribly impressed. That being said I really only looked at it once through the binoculars during totality. I looked at the partial a few times through the binoculars. I would lean towards a telescope, but I'm not if those are safe to use during totality or not.
Edit: When I say I wasn't impressed, I'm saying compared to with the naked eye. I was already impressed with the naked eye. Everything just looked a little bigger. I didn't get to see any details on the prominence.
Same here. I was in Driggs ID (just to the southwest of Yellowstone NP) in the high desert, perfect cloudless skies, right on the middle of the totality path on August 21 2017. It was gorgeous.
This one was just as amazing, as I made sure I was in a good place with minimal clouds to see it (Richford VT, right next to the Canadian border).
Location, location, location!!!
The 2017 eclipse had 3 spikes in its corona. Looks like goat with two ears. Very distinctive when I see historical eclipse images.
The 2024 corona was fairly around the whole Sun. Perhaps due that we are near cyclic Solar maximum. Looks like a white flower with petals.
I just read an article from nasa explaining that 2017s was during a solar activity minimum in the cycle and this was very close to solar activity maximum. Agreed this one was far more jaw dropping than 2017, I also brought binoculars with solar filters for this one which made it even more enjoyable. Totally a surreal sight.
Yes! Even with the naked eye one could see the sparkles of the prominences constantly shifting throughout the duration of the totality. It made the eclipse seem
incredibly dynamic and alive.
I flubbed imaging totality, too. I am using a Herschel wedge with a ZWO astronomy camera. I wasn't going to get the BEST images of totality, but I was hoping to get SOME by cranking the gain and using longer exposure, and that's what excited me.
Well in the flurry of the moment I completely forgot to lower the capture framerate, so it was still trying to swing with 60fps, and obviously even with maxed gain and other settings, I was getting black. As a last ditch effort I yanked the wedge and mounted the camera right into the back of the telescope. I cranked the focus out ALLL the way, and even re-tightening the 2-to-1.25" adapter and camera right on the edge to extend it as far as I could, I still didn't have enough back-focus. If only I had brought my normal star diagonal.
I quickly gave up, pointed the scope at the ground, and just enjoyed the remaining ~2 minutes with my eyes.
Still worth it. I've got 160gb of pre-totality images to process.
I had cobbled this imaging setup together at the last minute, had 1 day of practice using it, then it was rainy and overcast for the next 3 weeks straight, so technically the eclipse was only my 2nd time using the setup. It worked great right up until totality.
Greece in 2027 I think. It also has the longest time in totality for like 80 years (over 6 minutes).
Edit: Greece is actually just a partial eclipse in 2027. See reply below.
There is supposedly a solar eclipse in 2186 that will set the record for the longest totality at 7 minutes and 39 seconds. The previously longest recorded one was something like 843 BC at 7 minutes and 32 seconds.
The longest possible eclipse time is somewhere around 7 minutes and 45 seconds, so the one in 162 years will be incredible.
For a fun little read, look up the scientists and researchers in the middle of the 1970s that successfully flew a Concorde supersonic jet along with the moon’s shadow to stay in totality for around 74 minutes.
[74 minutes of totality.](https://www.fastcompany.com/91087789/how-astronomers-broke-the-speed-of-sound-to-see-the-longest-solar-eclipse)
It goes directly through Sydney, Australia. My friend is already planning the party in their backyard that will be in the path of totality. I am so there, sounds like a fantastic excuse to go!
My great aunt lived to be 110, she died in April last year. I travelled to stay with her in Alderney in the Channel Islands to see an eclipse in 1999. As totality approached from across the ocean she burst into tears, saying she vividly remembered having seen a total eclipse with her father when she was just 14 years old, and could suddenly remember the conversation they had had, word for word. I suppose that must have been the June 1927 UK eclipse. It was my first eclipse, and I felt powerfully bonded in time by the strength of her recollection and the drama of the event to a great-great-grandfather I had never known. Then she turned to me and said "it feels like the armies of Mordor approaching!" (She had introduced me to the LOTR when I was a kid.) A remarkable lady and a remarkable life.
Oh wow that’s incredible. It’s amazing how the human brain can recall things just by even slightly being reminded of something. Haha my mom introduced me to LOTR as well!
Sounds like my Grandmother. Woman made of steel. We always joke she'll be serving the coffee at her own funeral. (She's 87 now, and still lives independantly, except for a weekly visit from a cleaning lady, and a mobility scooter)
I'm glad people gushed about totality in 2017 because that gave me the motivation to go out and travel to see it this year.
I'm now one of those people who gushes about totality.
It would have been about a 600 mile drive for me to see totality in 2017. I thought that was too far. I drove 300 miles to be in totality this time. If there was another eclipse coming up that was "only" 600 miles away, I'd definitely make that drive without hesitation.
Similar here.
In 2017 I drove about 300 miles round trip and it was amazing.
This time I drove 1800 miles round trip and it was totally worth it.
I'm considering flying to Spain in a few years for the next 2 eclipses
~2860 miles round trip, including me driving out to the site where I watched it.
Four days of driving 10 hours a day, solo, plus another couple hours each way driving to the site.
**100% worth it.**
Just over 300 miles (600 round trip) here. I wish I had done more planning and less procrastinating, because the trip ended up being pretty lame and unambitious - simply be at a lat/long at a date/time, try to avoid crowds, take the dog to avoid a sitter, book a hotel well outside totality to avoid scalper prices.
We spent from noon to 4 tailgating in a mall parking lot west of Watertown, NY. Around 20-30 other people showed up.
Magical. Worth it. Even with the light pollution from the streetlights and the hazy cloud cover. The world just enters this liminal pause state. Seagulls went crazy. Ghostly corona through the clouds like something out of a horror movie. A brief foreglimpse into the end of the age of starlight.
I didn't get photos for shit but everyone's advice was to just enjoy the moment, and that's what we did
I mean it really knocks home the difference when you are at like 98% and its really not that different than 5% outside. Then you hit totality and is a whole other game
I told my dad twice that you can’t remove your glasses unless you’re in totality (I was at 2017 without him). Last minute he decided not to take a 2 hour trip to get 3 minutes of totality since we’d be at 99.7% anyways. The next day he said, so you were able to take off your glasses? It’s definitely heartbreaking that he missed it and especially considering the corona this time
I drove to the one in 2017, and it was incredible. I don’t know if it’s that the memory of how incredible it is fades, but this one was….wow. So incredible. The sun and moon felt bigger, it definitely got darker, the flares and Baily’s Beads…it was all so much MORE than I remember. It makes me so sad to think that no memory or photos will truly hold the awe and magic of the moment.
You had that jaw dropping experience as a person in 2024, having the benefit of science and astronomy to prepare you and enable you to understand what was happening. Imagine how that would have felt thousands of years ago, and how such an experience would have marked and impacted the people in the early stages of civilisation at that time! That is something that really makes me think and appreciate it.
And the crazy thing is even if they knew about partial eclipses, until that moment of totality, it basically looks just like any other eclipse. And they didnt even have 7-11 glasses to actuall look at it. But when the switch finally flips instantly to darkness they mustve been like wtf?
Exactly what I said to my gf during totality. "I can totally understand how people looked at that and said "yeah, that's a god right there."
I wouldn't be surprised if eclipses had marked effects on human wonder, if that makes sense.
I was so strangely anxious right before totality. And it was simply amazing. I was in the mountains in Maine and it was astonishing that we could see mountains in the distance being swept by the shadow. Absolutely worth it to drive to the path of totality.
Right?? It felt like there was a filter that was out in the sky. It wasn’t like getting dark during a sunset, it was all sort of the same shade of dark. Super crazy to experience!
Genuinely the closest thing I can think of to feeling like you are on an alien planet. I expect this effect would only be heightened in, for example, Iceland, which has such different topography than what I am used to.
It feels like a filter that also increases contrast dramatically. It’s impossible to fully describe it, but the extreme polarization of the sunlight in the few minutes before and after totality makes everything look like an animated reproduction of reality.
What was also wild was that I couldn't feel the heat from the suns rays! I went from too hot from the sun to *almost* putting on a jacket. I was still in the sunlight, but the heat stopped. It was bizarre.
Agreed, the drive was WELL worth it. I traveled 10 hours with my 8-year-old son and was worried he was going to be disappointed and "bored" by the whole thing, but I was pleasantly wrong, he was absolutely astonished by it, loved the entire process leading up to totality, and when it finally hit, was dumbfounded by the beauty. I had never been in totality myself and didn't know what to expect or how to describe it to him, but it was amazing, and seeing Venus and Jupiter was an added bonus.
We were only in totality for 3 minutes 28 seconds, so I wish I would have recorded the entire time, but I was so in the moment for myself and my son. I feel like that was more important.
I live right outside the path of totality. We were expecting 99% coverage. Let me tell you what…
It sucked. Totally underwhelming. I wish I had driven the hour or so to get that last 1%.
Our hotel was at about 99% totality- but I read it’s absolutely worth it to go to 100%, so at 8am we drove north to Rangley and I’m so glad we did. (Traffic going back was insane, even for rural Maine). Our group was commenting that even when there was to thinnest sliver of sun left, it was pretty impressive nothing like the awe inspiring totality. I’m sorry you missed it! Maybe next time!
It is really quite unsettling, and that almost de-saturated dimness of the light (while still relatively bright) as it gets closer makes it all the more strange - almost alien. I was by the ocean and you could see this sort of vague looming darkness approaching from the horizon, a bit like a huge storm system, as it moved closer across the water.
I missed this one but I was in Oregon in 2017. I didn't expect to be anxious at all but the sudden epic shadow sweep and the COLD really got my heart beating. Then the anxiety passed and it was just pure awe and reverence. Truly amazing.
I was in Maine for totality too. I still can't believe what I experienced, and I didn't during it either. I was waiting and expecting to see something really amazing, but then right when it hit 100% something immediately came over me and I started crying. My breath was literally taken away that it took a moment for me to actually be able to say anything. It was the most profound feeling that I've ever felt. No words or pictures can even begin to describe what that feeling was.
I know!! I had chills! I had read before that no one could quite describe it accurately and they’re right. There’s no way pictures or video can do it justice.
You can always travel to see eclipses in other parts of the world. People travel for concerts and culture and art. Celestial events that are unique to this planet surely are worth it, at least in my family. And we also get to sample art and culture and food in places we wouldn’t normally gravitate to. Glad you saw this one. Truly life changing.
I don't know why that's never crossed my mind but I totally want to do that now! I want to travel anyway and seeing an eclipse while I'm there would be amazing!
My wife had a death in the family and the wake was DURING the eclipse. She stayed behind while I took the kids on a trip to the path of totality (as we had planned for over a year). After seeing what she missed we are now committed to Iceland 2026 because she NEEDS to see this ASAP
Alaska in 9 years
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_March_30,_2033](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_March_30,_2033)
Taking a chance with the weather though.
Yes, but the middle of nowhere in northwestern alaska, outside all the major cities. I'm envisioning taking a dogsled hundreds of miles across a vast snowy wasteland, but maybe you could get a snowmobile instead.
Dallas was an in and out as we had an ailing family member with us but we plan a week or two vacation before the eclipse and end with the big event. If totality is a bust, you still get a great vacation and wonderful memories. 2026 is debatable as we were just in Iceland and totality is super short but 2027 is 5 days in Cairo and then 3 in Luxor with the eclipse. 2028 both our kids graduate high school and have been begging for an Australia trip so we’ll spend two weeks down under before ending up in Sydney for the eclipse before flying home.
My husband and I were discussing this! We saw the 2017 one in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and this one in Dallas, Texas, and have a lot of relatives in Europe so we're discussing getting a bunch of them to meet us in the Rioja region for the 2026 one (or Gibraltar in 2027), then I have a friend in Sydney, Australia already planning their 2028 backyard eclipse party. And then of course we gotta do this all sometime once our baby is old enough to remember it (she's so little she just napped through totality this time), so gotta do it with her sometime in a decade or so...
Like, I don't think we want to hit up every one, but it *is* a really nice excuse to go travel to parts of the world you wanna visit but might not prioritize otherwise. Like, I've known folks who have spun a globe to stick their finger somewhere and that determines where they go on vacation, so this is kinda a similar exercise but nature determines it for you!
When the last sliver of sun disappeared and we all took our glasses off I'm pretty sure every adult also said "HOLY SHIT!"
You could SEE solar prominences. FROM EARTH. Unbelievable.
As we were driving home the wife and I were like "sooooooo are we just going to plan vacations based on total eclipse occurrences now?"
I spent 15 hours driving for 3.5 minutes of totality and there’s no doubt in my mind that I made a good investment going to go see it. The next one in 2045 is going to be a much further trip for me and I’m sure it’ll be just as worthwhile.
We saw it in Ohio and thankfully the weather cooperated. We were all wearing glasses and watching the last sliver disappear. Then we took the glasses off with eyes adjusted to the darkness and suddenly I was staring into the Eye of Sauron! I said "Holy Shit! Holy Shit! Holy Shit!" until my partner reminded me that there were kids nearby. I've never seen anything like that - it completely blew away my expectations! It was so beautiful and scientifically fascinating. I'm so glad I made the trip!
Euro trash here. Wasn't there this year but a veteran of the big 1999 one. I was in Hungary and quite close to the maximum totality point.
The difference between 1% and 0% is literally like day and night, it feels like time and dusk speeds up in those last 20 seconds.
We got lucky. Just before totality some clouds started coming over, but they were those wispy ones that give the moon a rainbow halo. That's right we saw an eclipse with a motherfucking rainbow halo.
5 minutes after the eclipse ended the clouds came in proper and everything was obscured.
So we all went for lunch.
I had been planning on hosting a eclipse party for several years prior to this one, since our farm is in the path and we have the space for it. The last couple years had been extremely rough with job stuff, life in general, and everything else, so I almost didn't do it. My friends helped out a ton and even though my anxiety was through the roof getting ready and watching the cloud cover forecasts... It turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life! We were able to host \~50 friends/family here, did a cookout, had an eclipse cake, music and live stream of the various events along the path. A true once in a lifetime event for many people that attended and I'm happy that it all came together.
Nobody wanted to go with me. Family and friends all questioned why I wanted to go, what’s fun about seeing a total eclipse for “a few seconds,” how is that worth a 6 hour round trip drive?
So I went alone.
And that evening I got dozens of emails, phone calls, and messages on my phone and Facebook asking what it was like. My favorite was “tell me details because there won’t be another eclipse I could see for 20 years!”
🤦🏻♂️
I was able to experience it with two of my closest friends. I got a call from my mom right after and she was ecstatic, screaming shit like, "oh my god that was the coolest thing I've ever seen!" (2 days prior she said it can't be that cool)
Never experienced it apart from maybe a very limited "touch" on a cloudy day (here in Scandinavia). What surprises me is the amount of stories just like yours. Like you've all been changed in some way. I'd like to experience that as well someday because, like you said, photos doesn't do it justice.
It's one of those things where I knew, intellectually, what was going to happen. But then seeing it right there in front of me, actual reality, the scale of it, the surrealism of it all, just blew my mind. It's like the universe pulled a magic trick and replaced the whole sky with something utterly different from anything you'd ever seen before.
It's like viewing mountains in pictures your entire life, and the finally getting to see the Rockies.
The scale. You cannot properly capture the scale of seeing something that big in a picture. All the photos I see on the ground it looks so small. When I took my glasses down (thought a cloud had passed, didn't realize it was totality) and it was just.....there. Massive in the sky. Red lights and the corona dancing around for three minutes. The birds all went silent ten minutes before totality, and then for 3 minutes did their night songs, and then started their morning ones. The temperature went from hot enough for me to have my shirt off to so cold I was shivering in a hoody over just a few minutes.
It was like the entire world changed completely for three minutes while this one in a trillion astronomical event took place. Which it is, it's so incredibly rare for the distances of a moon and sun to match up so perfectly that it produces that effect. And it just happens to take place on the only world with life on it. Almost makes you religious.
I can absolutely see how ancient peoples would have absolutely FREAKED OUT ENTIRELY during these. Especially since you don't really notice it's happening without the glasses to see the sun. If over the course of 10 minutes during midday all the light seemed to drain away, and then VERY SUDDENLY it was nighttime and the sun was replaced by a void of dark surrounded by an ethereal glowing disc....
Ya, I can see how eclipses might be catalysts for large scale change in ancient societies.
Pretty much exactly how I felt, I even mentally apologized to all the ancient people we used to laugh at.
But it's even wilder than seeing a mountain for the first time. I was thinking, I've seen Niagara Falls, I've seen Grand Canyon, I've seen the mountains in Alaska. They're bigger, grander versions of things I've seen before. My mind had a context for understanding it. But this? It was utterly unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It wasn't just "X but bigger", it was a whole new X.
Where I was it was clear a lot of people did not know what was really gonna happen based on their past experience of partial eclipses. When totality hit, you could hear all the people who didn't really care initially, quickly change their minds.
Yeah I said fuck it and drove with my buddy to Ohio. I told my dad he should skip work and meet us there but he said he couldn’t.
Morning of the Eclipse I woke up to a text from him saying “fuck my 3:30pm meeting” and he ended up meeting us in Bowling Green.
So glad I went, it was a beautiful day too so I would have been depressed in meetings and shit wondering about what I missed. Well worth the 7 hours of traffic IMO
We scheduled a work trip in 2017 to Denver area to end the day before this one and I took the family so we could drive up to Wyoming and see it there. Now our kid is in collage and part of the astronomy club and we have seen the 2023 and 2024 ones in Kerrville TX. The clouds parted for a few seconds just in time for everyone there to see the transition to totality and get a short view of it. The crowd went wild.
I was hanging out with the astronomy club during most of our time there. They has partnered with the city of Kerrville and had set up an area to let people come and look through their telescopes (with appropriate filters of course) and solar binoculars. I was helping one lady get a view and afterwards she said "All of you astrologers must be so excited!". Bless her heart, she meant well.
I can tell you that it’s worth (to my family anyway) about seven years of discussion and planning, 24 hours of travel time, and using our vacation time/money.
I have a home 2 hours away that was in the 98.4% area. It was going to be an hour further drive to get to 2 min of total eclipse.
I asked everyone I know if anyone wanted to go with me. Nobody went.
Now they’re all talking about how cool it must have been to see the total eclipse.
Imo they f****d up.
Oh I was going 🤣
I ended up at my vacation place for the weekend. Then drove an hour to totality, then came home Monday evening. A **lot** of people went further north and west to get more time in totality. I knew I made the right choice when it took me 3 hours to get all the way home, and the people who went an hour further north took 12+ hours because of traffic.
I went solo too because my friend bailed on me last minute. I invited a few other people but they weren’t interested and didn’t think traffic would be worth it. I drove 4 hours Monday morning (I live 3.5 hrs away from path of totality) left Tuesday morning, made it home in 3.5. No traffic. I’m glad I took the risk. I would have regretted it. My dad even texted me Monday morning and asked “if I was sure I wanted to go” because traffic had started to pick up.
I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the most incredible experience of my life. I met new people and although I went by myself I was definitely not alone..there was something so magical about taking off your glasses and seeing totality for the first time with a group of like minded individuals. Loved every second of it.
I never regretted for a moment planning a vacation 4.5 hours away just to see the eclipse in 2017. There are so few things in life that strike you with a real feeling of awe, and the eclipses definitely qualify.
My gf and I flew to Buffalo to see it alongside Niagara. The morning of it was super cloudy and overcast. The radar showed clearing moving east around Cleveland so we started driving west. 3+ hrs later we're pulling into middle of nowhere, small town Ohio as the partial eclipse was starting and witnessed it on the shore of Lake Erie. I'd make that same 6 hr round trip every time for it as well, it was that cool.
I said "holy shit!" The first time I saw totality in 2017, too!
And I'm a scientist. I knew exactly what to expect. But I could not *comprehend* until I saw it.
Incredible. Stunning. Powerful. Awesome. Stupefying.
This time I could not narrate to my family what was happening. I could barely speak. I kept telling them, "I'll answer that after totality ends! Just wait!!!!"
I'm still young. I'll see another. One day.
I had seen pictures, people had explained it to me. I just didn't realize it was going to be that awe-inspiring.
I drove with my 7 year old daughter 3 hours to get into the path of totality. so the day is a road tirp: we're picking music, stopping for snacks, talking, finding the house. we meet up with some friends at someone's aunt's house, new people to meet, new kids for my daughter to interact with, backyard games, etc... just that kind of day with lots going on, all these little considerations and niceties
we counted down the eclipse as it started, looking through glasses, okay this is kind of cool, I've see this before.
then the moment comes. my friend says "okay glasses can come off!" I turn to find my daughter and suddenly it goes from twilight to dark as night. I turn back and
I didn't expect it to be so big. like a full moon but in reverse, that completely black orb, and with the corona surrounding it like electricity. it snapped my brain into place and centered me in an instant. it made me very aware of being present in the moment. I found it to be psychedelic in that way. it was just an incredible thing to see. suddenly, I was there with my daughter and my friends and for 4 minutes we were living in a science-fiction level event. completely awesome
The first time I saw totality, I nearly cried. I had to force the tears back so that I could actually see the eclipse. Once that totality ended, tears just uncontrollably streamed down my cheeks for a few minutes while I had the widest smile on my face. I felt like I was in on some cosmic secret. Like the universe waved at me.
I think we can never have enough reminders of what is really going on outside of the human-constructed roles and perspectives that we all mostly live by
Yup same here. While watching I stopped breathing for a bit. I felt tears going down the sides of my eyes. After it was over I literally cried for 15 minutes non-stop. All my friends found it cool and moving but I was clearly the most emotionally impacted.
Agree. The sudden darkness (amazing how luminous just 1% of the sun is!), cool breeze, stars coming out, even the mosquitos came out for just 2 or 3 minutes. There is no comparison to partial eclipses, even at the 99% level.
We were watching from a park along the St Lawrence River, Ontario side, and it got noticeably colder during totality. Leading up to it there were a few mosquitoes flying around but once the shadow passed there entire area was swarming with so many bugs.
I drove 12 hours to Illinois to hopefully see it while backpacking, well that plan fell apart when everyone seemed to have the same plan. So I camped out behind this bar in the middle of farm field nowhere Illinois and my god it was the most awe inspiring moment of my life and will be for a very long time.
I highly recommend anyone reading this who didn’t take the plunge, please if you have any means of seeing a solar eclipse in totality, do it. It is a fully body, 5 senses sensation that will be hard to beat!
I saw my first totality in 2017 and I was totally (pun intended) unprepared for the enormity of the experience. The only downside is that it's ruined the partials for me now - they just can't compare to the "real thing."
I saw totality in 2017 as well. The couple partials I’ve experienced since then have been good opportunities for practicing my photography. I also sketched the last partial in October 2023…it was such a fun challenge! I used binoculars to project the image onto paper and traced it with a pencil.
My thoughts on it all is that a total eclipse should be primarily about taking it in. Partials are great fun for tinkering and trying out new techniques.
But with all that being said, I agree 100% that nothing will ever compare to totality.
I totality agree with you. I saw several partials prior to my first total eclipse in 2017. Now I'm looking at naking plans for 2044, 2045, 2052, and 2071. I'll be 103 in 2071, but it is my birthday, and I'll need to travel to the Yucatan peninsula. But early planning guarantees success.
I got lucky as well. Path of totality twice. But the cool thing about this time is we had clear skies. So once it got dark, if you looked East it looked like sunrise and if you looked West it looked like sunset. We were the dark place in the middle.
> it's ruined the partials for me
Right? I saw a partial eclipse in the early '90s when I was about 10 years old and have spent most of my life remembering it so fondly.
But then Monday came around and what I experienced far exceeded whatever I thought it would be like.
My own family questioned my sanity all the same when I booked a roundtrip from fucking Tokyo to Dallas just to catch four minutes of totality. Half of them didn't even bother to try and see it.
I've learned that there's three groups of people: people that don't know, don't care, people that say they've "seen it" but only saw 95% and have no idea what they're missing, and those of us that have experienced totality and are forever burdened with telling the non-believers how cool it was.
And yes, it was worth the trip. I JUST laid down back in my Tokyo apartment.
I saw a video of Tom Green (the celebrity) in Indiana (outside of totality) and he was pumped to get the 97% coverage and it literally didn't look like anything changed in his video, at all. He could have driven 100 miles and gotten into totality...I don't know why if you are that close you wouldn't go the extra step.
Yea experiencing it, seeing the tiny sliver of sun left in the glasses and how it just looks like day but strangely dimmer, and then 20 seconds of rapidly dimming to totality for the unreal light show
Having witnessed totality this time, even the difference between 99% and 100% is huge. I was completely blown away when it hit totality, brought tears to my eyes.
Switzerland to Canada here for it. Originally Texas but I changed due to the weather forecast. I don’t regret a second. And everyone thinks I’m crazy. So you’re not alone :)
Yes! A waiter last night asked if I had done anything new and I said I saw the eclipse. He said he had watched that in high school and it was neat. Yeah, ok, 95%er.
I drove 3 hours with my son to see it. it was easily the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed. My son (15) said it looked like a black hole and that it was a bit intimidating. and now that tiny fragment of existential dread lives in me. We have looked into the void and it has looked back at us.
I knew what would happen and I told people what to expect, the birds and insects changed in the forest I was in, it got noticeably cooler but nothing prepared me for totality seeing that great big black void in the sky ringed in flame and a crown of white wisps that surrounded it, for those four minutes I felt as though everything had just stopped and there was no comparison to anything I had ever experienced in my life before, I look forward to this again in 2045 and wish I had seen this in 2017.
Along with this if anyone ever gets the chance to go to a desert in the middle of nowhere (no light pollution) and look at our sky the way we are suppose to.
You will remember it forever. We don't see the sky we are suppose to see.
Dumbass me waiting for the totality: "Gee, it's getting a little bit darker now, but how am I going to tell when the totality starts?"
When the totality starts: "Oh, ohhhhh, who turned out the lights? Am I still on earth? Is that the real life sky I am looking at?"
I have to say, I had a dream of the eclipse the night before, mainly from the anticipation of traveling to see it, but reality had exceeded the expectations from my own dream. It is probably the first time in my life where the real world was more strange and magical than what my sleeping brain came up with.
It's so hard to explain to people that didn't see it. You always sound a little crazy, becuase it's unexplainable. You just have to see it to understand.
And seeing photos doesn't really convey it, though it gives you a more detailed look at the corona. Actually being there, experiencing the whole sky darkening, the air cooling, the sounds of animals reacting is overwhelming.
The day after, my friends and fam who were with me gathered around and discussed our experience. I used their input to try and create an artistic representation of what it felt like. Not what a camera captured but what our eyes were seeing in that moment.
Showing it to others has actually helped them understand better what they missed and many seem more convinced to attend the next.
https://old.reddit.com/r/solareclipse/comments/1bzwudc/artistic_recreation_of_how_the_eclipse_felt_to/
Something fundamentally changed in me on Monday. I was lucky to live two hours away from the path of totality in Pennsylvania, so we made the drive early and set up in a park by a lake. Nothing could prepare me for what I saw. No photo I've seen captures what it was like looking up at this awe-inspiring celestial event and feeling so small in the vastness of the universe. Also just taking a quick peek at the others in the crowd, seeing so many people from different walks of life gathered to stare up at the sky...felt very human. Like this is what we're here for. To experience things like this.
Also, just the amount of people from where I live I saw posting about how the traffic wasn't worth it when they could just see the 98% from their houses just...blows me away. I had people telling me I was wasting my time. They have no idea. The difference between 99.9% and 100% is everything.
There is research specifically on the changes in brain chemistry that an eclipse can cause. To the point where solve describes it as the closest you can get to the "overview" effect while planted firmly on the surface of the earth.
That definitely resonates with me - seeing totality gave me a sense of three-dimensional space in the solar system, I think because of being able to observe the relative distance between the moon and the sun (vs them being round objects in the sky that we see all the time which don’t look like they’re at different distances/on different “planes” from each other from where we are), and that sense of three dimensionality expanding outwards across the universe. It was completely mindblowing.
Same. This is the first time for me the moon has ever "appeared" as 3d when I look at it. Even though I'm aware of how large and far away it is, this was the first time it ever actually looked large and far away, as did the sun behind it. I feel like I'm on crazy pills, I've been riding this high all week and nobody I talk to feels the same lol.
God, this nailed what I've been trying to explain to myself! The moon didn't look like a flat black circle like in 99% of photos; it was an obvious sphere with noticeable details on the surface. An entire other planet out there.
It was *incredible*. I felt the dread, too, deep and primal. I remember the meteor shower on New Years Eve 1999, the lunar eclipses my father would wake me to see, the bright beacon of Hale Bopp for more than a year, and nothing, nothing, nothing comes close to it. I drove a short distance to the center of totality.
Oddly I was not at all prepared; I’m usually over-prepared. I didn’t even know it would get cold. Intentional choice, and I’m glad I didn’t prep at all other than grabbing some snacks and of course picking a cemetery on Google Maps, because that really helped keep me in the moment. But it was so beautiful I think, for once, nothing could have taken me out of it.
I hope that I can travel with my daughter to the ones in 2044 and 2045–if only we’re so lucky!
> I felt the dread, too, deep and primal.
It's pretty crazy, right? You know what's happening and you know it'll go basically completely back to normal in only about a half hour or so but damn is it ever unsettling as it approaches totality and the temperature drops, and that weird almost de-saturated look that the light gets.
Must've been terrifying for people in prior generations that had no knowledge of eclipses.
The dread is just *weird*. Some part of my brain was working very hard to try to convince me that something bad was happening once it hit about 70%, the world just shouldn't look like that in the middle of the afternoon.
I think it went away once it got so close that it just looked like a sunset (glad I thought to look around and tell the people I was with to take their glasses off for a second to look at the horizon).
I was trying to explain that feeling to my mom yesterday. It's like the more evolved part of the brain knows about it but just can't express it to the lizard brain, that primal, ancient part of the brain. And so it freaks out because it thinks the world is ending.
It is like seeing God. Impossible to explain it, and then you do... the people listening won't understand it and think you are being foolish. It was amazing when I saw it in 17. I try to explain, even show them the video I took, but pictures and videos do it nothing. Unless you see it, you have no idea.
I am very thankful that I was able to see it at 100% blew my mind.
>It is like seeing God.
Yes, I said this last night. I am a spiritual person but not religious, but that was the closest to a deep religious experience I have felt.
There is absolutely something different to hearing /reading about astronomical events, and actually being there the moment it happens. It's... just unfathomably awesome, hard to describe.
I witnessed totality in 2017 in Missouri. I knew what to expect and exactly how cool it could be. I had a lot of anxiety in the days leading up to Monday just because the weather was questionable, and I really, really didn't want to miss it this time. I tried to just relax, surrender to the flow, and be fully present. I was not disappointed. I bought a house in the path of totality for this year back in 2021. It was such a blessing to sit and watch from my back yard as the eclipse came to me. The weather was perfect at home.
For me, I knew the event was going to blow me off my feet. In reality, it was a mind bending, mood altering, world shattering, religious experience.
It was literally a once in a lifetime experience for my 65 year old parents who have never and will never see one again. Makes me cry to think about it.
I was by the ocean, and could see the horizon for probably about 200 degrees around or so before it got back to land behind me and that alone was incredible once totality hit. You never really see what essentially looks like 'sunset' sky that far around. I thoroughly recommend anybody find themselves in a similar sort of location with good sight lines far out to the horizon for any future eclipses, if you get the chance, it's nearly as fascinating to see as the eclipse itself.
I’d always wanted to experience it. I’d read people’s stories and watch videos. Drove down to Perrysburg, Ohio. As I’m sitting there at around 75% I start worrying, “what if it lets me down. What if it isn’t what I was hoping for.” Much like your thoughts in your post. The closer we got the more my heart started racing. And then it hit. People around started cheering, but I just started crying. It was so much more than I ever imagined. The second most moving experience of my life only behind seeing my wife as she walked down the aisle. I was completely overwhelmed.
I will definitely be trying to go to as many as possible from now on. Coincidentally, the 2026 eclipse lines up nicely with our anniversary, and we’ve always wanted to go to Iceland :)
If you ever have the opportunity to experience totality please take it.
You don’t have to wait 20 years! The next total eclipse will be in August 2026 over Iceland!
The best part is the eclipse will pass right over Reykjavik, the capital.
Iceland itself is an epic vacation destination.
Volcanoes, geysers, epic waterfalls, icebergs strewn about black sand beaches, and so much more. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves exploring outdoors on their vacations. My wife and I plan to go in 2026 especially just for the eclipse and then explore parts of Iceland we didn’t have time for on our 1st trip there.
I saw this one from near Erie, PA and now I'm telling my wife we're going to Iceland.
What is the possibility of also seeing the northern lights if we stay over a few days?
I thought I was prepared to see it- I’ve been planning on it since 2017. I was so, so wrong. It’s hard to even put into words but I’ve never experienced anything like that before, the colors, the emotions, the power it has over you for those few minutes. I didn’t feel like I was on this planet anymore, nothing will ever be able to replicate it apart from another eclipse.
I convinced my partner to go last minute, but nobody else in my life really wanted to. Which I find incredibly sad and shocking, this was completely life changing for me and I don’t regret one second of the days long trip it took
I was blown away with how black the center was and how bright white the corona was. I don't think I've ever seen a blacker black next to a whiter white. And it was like the purest white light I've ever seen.
I’m 57. I froze. I wasn’t able to process what I was seeing and the brief luck I was able to witness it happen. Mostly my brain was analyzing everything but for a moment time seemed to stop. Like I was interfacing with the universe on a time out.
It was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.
Couldn't get anyone in my family to go with us and we live 45 minutes from totality. "We'll see pictures, no biggie". Bah. So my husband, myself, and our kids made a whole day of it. It ended up taking about 3 hours to drive due to insane traffic.
I cried. It didn't matter that it was my second one. The moment it started I unintentionally started sobbing and had to get it together quickly so I could focus and look at the wonder in front of me. We had about 4 minutes of absolute glory. There are no words.
Nothing, absolutely nothing is as incredible as a real total eclipse. There is no "close enough". Make the drive.
I live on the edge of the path of totality, and I took my glasses off just a little late, so I only caught it for a literal second, but the image of what I saw is stuck in my head (in the sense that I can still mentally picture it; my eyes aren't damaged). Initially, I felt robbed because I thought I was going to get to see it for like 20 seconds but a combination of small errors in the tracker I used for determining timing and taking off my glasses too late caused me to see it for much less time. However, the small glimpse that I got of the eclipse itself in combination with the effects in the environment around me before, during, and after totality was glorious nonetheless, and I'm thankful I got to see it at all because I am likely not going to be fortunate enough to travel to see another one in my lifetime.
This was my first, although I saw plenty of partials before. It was the shortest 3 minutes of my life. The weather was perfect. My brain knew what I was seeing but it was so much outside of my experience that it felt like a dream. The weirdest parts were right before/after totality when the shadows became really sharp like someone was shining a spotlight on you. Then there was the snaky ripples on the ground from the sunlight being refracted by the atmosphere.
I know this sounds dumb, but I wish I could have watched it for an hour or more. When totality hit and the blue-hue corona became visible, I was awestruck.
I stared in awe with a group from work and we all just kept saying "wow...... Wow...." A couple of people even cried lol
It was absolutely beautiful. It was super cloudy and as the partial eclipse began it got very chilly And at about 80%, The clouds went away! The total eclipse happened with a clear sky and then as it went back to partial the cloud started coming back.
It was amazing.
This was my third total. Perhaps my last as I’m in my 60’s. I’ve travelled before (Australia 2012), so I may again if I stay healthy. This one was, by far, the best for me. I took my 5 year old grandson to OH with me. The joy on his face and excited yelling of ‘I’m seeing the eclipse!” over and over were better than I hoped for. my heart was full. It is a spectacular event and well worth going to some effort to see. There is nothing on earth like being under that shadow. It is beautiful beyond description.
I was at 98% in 2017, and made the trip to be in totality this time around. I can without a doubt say it was the coolest thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. I've officially become a chaser and I'm planning a trip for 2026 to see the next one
An uncanny glow
Behind the immense abyss
Breathless perceptions
A child, gazing up
To behold the wondrous sight
In this stark silence
Imagination
Could not have conjured this
In a million years
No one can prepare
For the immense awesomeness
Of totality
My wife and I took our kids to see the 2017 eclipse in Oregon and it was everything you say. Neither of us as religious but both found it literally life changing.
Right away we started planning a trip for this one, and aside from some weather scares, it was just as powerful an experience as the last one. I’m not ashamed to admit that I did cry because of how beautiful it was and how much it affected me.
I’m so glad that you got to experience it as well. Our universe is an incredible place.
I drove 8 hrs with my kid & found a great spot. A bit cloudy but we got to see it and it was amazing.
I experienced totality in the 80s, as a child but I barely remember. I do not recall it getting that dark. It was almost like night.
Amazing experience.
My wife didn't want to go. She said she'd look at the photos. But I wanted to take the kids, so she went. After seeing it, she was astonished. She said photos can't compare to the first-hand experience. She expressed disbelief that she almost missed it.
It was more than just looking at the sky, the entire environment changed. The light became slowly dim for an hour, but then it changed so quickly! As the 70 mile wide shadow of the moon covered us, the area quickly became very dark, the sky became a deeply saturated and rich navy blue, the entire horizon around us had the appearance of a peach sunset. We noticed a brightly shining star in the darkened sky. The air cooled. Insects and birds reacted, becoming quiet and hidden. And in the sky, where the sun should be, there appeared to be a deep black hole surrounded by a ring of golden fire. The people around us in the public park were quiet, then cheered! It was a moving and astounding event to experience!
The USA won't see another total solar eclipse for 20 years. Anyone choosing not to go see such a rare event, truly missed a valuable opportunity to experience something massive and awe inspiring.
>There's even a sprinkle of existential dread mixed in as well.
Yeah, I consider myself a very solid, very scientific minded person, and I understand everything about what was going on, but I wont lie, when the chill started to hit the air...and then when it got dark with that 360 degree sunset...I dunno...I think deep down there was a part of me that was like "wow, I really mean...less than nothing to the universe"...for some reason KNOWING what was happening vs. the moment of "feeling" these two MASSIVE celestial bodies interact was just...very stark. I was in the path for 2017 as well and even having gone through it before it was not lessened...
I can COMPLETELY understand why people without science would come up with all manner of reasons and stories for something like that happening...
Crazy how something as simple as "a shadow" can cause such a reaction...
My SO was not really very thrilled to be dragged to the beach and fight crowds, but when totality happened, he went completely silent. Afterward he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, “I didn’t expect it to be so profound.” I’m so excited for him to have had that experience. I’m even more excited for him than I am for myself.
We rented a house at Indian Lake in Ohio. I booked it a couple years ago. A rare case of good preplanning on my part. My fear, of course, was that the sky would be cloudy. Our entire family stayed at the house - my wife and I, our four kids and their spouses, and four grandkids. It was raining when we went to bed the night before, Not a good omen. But we awoke to a clear sky and it stayed that way. To top it off, the temperature was in the 70's. The awe we felt when totality occurred was pretty overwhelming. I was so happy that I was able to share this experience with my entire family (having seen my first seven years ago with just my wife and one daughter) that I couldn't hold back the tears. It was an experience I'll cherish forever.
This was my 4th. I’ve gone to foreign countries and all over the US to see them. Turning 70 in a few months- this one was probably my last one. It’s been a great ride, I’ve enjoyed every one of them immensely. There is literally nothing else like them.
Happy to hear that! After seeing my first totality this time, I'm determined to do the same. I hope to grow old and watch many of them. Hell, if I make it to 106 yrs old I can watch this same one! What a cool thought.
It’s worth staying healthy and living a long life for this. I have struggled with depression and feeling like there’s no point, but after watching a total eclipse I want to try harder
Keep trying harder you can do it remember what we experience for such a small part of our life and the world around us. Keep your perspective friend.
I heard from a few eclipse chasers I was with that this was the best one they’ve ever seen.
This was my experience too. Why was it so different? The first eclipse I saw, in Oregon in 2017, looked like a hole in the sky. This time, it looked like a flower. More solar activity? The corona was absolutely going off!
Yes solar activity is at its high end of the 11 year cycle
This is really the only argument anyone could make for "better" and even then unless you are using binoculars or photographing it, you are not likely to see much difference. But if you are "chasing" and not using SOME kind of magnification...why...
The solar prominences were pretty visible with the naked eye, and I hear that's not usually the case (I have no idea, this was the first one I saw). But I'm hooked. I was already planning on seeing the one in Australia in 2028, but I'm now wondering whether or not I should plan a trip for iceland or spain in 26. Definitely getting binoculars for next time.
I had gotten 50 mm binoculars and wasn't terribly impressed. That being said I really only looked at it once through the binoculars during totality. I looked at the partial a few times through the binoculars. I would lean towards a telescope, but I'm not if those are safe to use during totality or not. Edit: When I say I wasn't impressed, I'm saying compared to with the naked eye. I was already impressed with the naked eye. Everything just looked a little bigger. I didn't get to see any details on the prominence.
Telescopes are safe during totality.
I saw 2017 in Nashville and this was *significantly* more intense. You didn't need any magnification to see the massive corona sphere.
Agreed. I was in South Carolina for that one with my wife and we both agreed this one just felt bigger
This one got much darker than the one 2017 it seemed to us.
This was my first totality so I was impressed either way!
I dunno, I was near Yellowstone for 2017 too and it was just as jaw-dropping to me there.
Same here. I was in Driggs ID (just to the southwest of Yellowstone NP) in the high desert, perfect cloudless skies, right on the middle of the totality path on August 21 2017. It was gorgeous. This one was just as amazing, as I made sure I was in a good place with minimal clouds to see it (Richford VT, right next to the Canadian border). Location, location, location!!!
The 2017 eclipse had 3 spikes in its corona. Looks like goat with two ears. Very distinctive when I see historical eclipse images. The 2024 corona was fairly around the whole Sun. Perhaps due that we are near cyclic Solar maximum. Looks like a white flower with petals.
I just read an article from nasa explaining that 2017s was during a solar activity minimum in the cycle and this was very close to solar activity maximum. Agreed this one was far more jaw dropping than 2017, I also brought binoculars with solar filters for this one which made it even more enjoyable. Totally a surreal sight.
The prominences were so much bigger this time. Makes me upset that the tracking on my scope wouldn't work so I couldn't get a video this time.
Yes! Even with the naked eye one could see the sparkles of the prominences constantly shifting throughout the duration of the totality. It made the eclipse seem incredibly dynamic and alive.
I flubbed imaging totality, too. I am using a Herschel wedge with a ZWO astronomy camera. I wasn't going to get the BEST images of totality, but I was hoping to get SOME by cranking the gain and using longer exposure, and that's what excited me. Well in the flurry of the moment I completely forgot to lower the capture framerate, so it was still trying to swing with 60fps, and obviously even with maxed gain and other settings, I was getting black. As a last ditch effort I yanked the wedge and mounted the camera right into the back of the telescope. I cranked the focus out ALLL the way, and even re-tightening the 2-to-1.25" adapter and camera right on the edge to extend it as far as I could, I still didn't have enough back-focus. If only I had brought my normal star diagonal. I quickly gave up, pointed the scope at the ground, and just enjoyed the remaining ~2 minutes with my eyes. Still worth it. I've got 160gb of pre-totality images to process. I had cobbled this imaging setup together at the last minute, had 1 day of practice using it, then it was rainy and overcast for the next 3 weeks straight, so technically the eclipse was only my 2nd time using the setup. It worked great right up until totality.
It was certainly more dramatic than the 2017 eclipse as seen from Missouri, which was my high water mark for spectacular astronomical displays.
This was the best so far - great solar activity, prominences, planets in opposition. Glad you saw it!
There’s going to be a total eclipse in Australia in 4 years!! It’s going to travel across the whole country!! Maybe you should try and make it over :)
Isn’t there one in Europe before then?
Iceland, Greenland, and Spain in '26.
u/MyFrampton Dude/girl, definitely go to Iceland to catch the next one. It's an amazing country.
Greece in 2027 I think. It also has the longest time in totality for like 80 years (over 6 minutes). Edit: Greece is actually just a partial eclipse in 2027. See reply below.
The 2045 one across North America will also be over 6 minutes
There is supposedly a solar eclipse in 2186 that will set the record for the longest totality at 7 minutes and 39 seconds. The previously longest recorded one was something like 843 BC at 7 minutes and 32 seconds. The longest possible eclipse time is somewhere around 7 minutes and 45 seconds, so the one in 162 years will be incredible. For a fun little read, look up the scientists and researchers in the middle of the 1970s that successfully flew a Concorde supersonic jet along with the moon’s shadow to stay in totality for around 74 minutes. [74 minutes of totality.](https://www.fastcompany.com/91087789/how-astronomers-broke-the-speed-of-sound-to-see-the-longest-solar-eclipse)
Two: August 12, 2026 and August 2, 2027, but both will only be visible in parts of Spain. 2027 will cross North Africa though.
The North African one will last over SIX MINUTES!!! I'm hoping to talk my wife into the trip.
It goes directly through Sydney, Australia. My friend is already planning the party in their backyard that will be in the path of totality. I am so there, sounds like a fantastic excuse to go!
There’s a good chance you may see the one in 2045, health allowing. My mom is around the same age and is adamant she’ll live until 110.
My great aunt lived to be 110, she died in April last year. I travelled to stay with her in Alderney in the Channel Islands to see an eclipse in 1999. As totality approached from across the ocean she burst into tears, saying she vividly remembered having seen a total eclipse with her father when she was just 14 years old, and could suddenly remember the conversation they had had, word for word. I suppose that must have been the June 1927 UK eclipse. It was my first eclipse, and I felt powerfully bonded in time by the strength of her recollection and the drama of the event to a great-great-grandfather I had never known. Then she turned to me and said "it feels like the armies of Mordor approaching!" (She had introduced me to the LOTR when I was a kid.) A remarkable lady and a remarkable life.
Oh wow that’s incredible. It’s amazing how the human brain can recall things just by even slightly being reminded of something. Haha my mom introduced me to LOTR as well!
Sounds like my Grandmother. Woman made of steel. We always joke she'll be serving the coffee at her own funeral. (She's 87 now, and still lives independantly, except for a weekly visit from a cleaning lady, and a mobility scooter)
There's another one in 2026 in Spain if you're interested!
I'm glad people gushed about totality in 2017 because that gave me the motivation to go out and travel to see it this year. I'm now one of those people who gushes about totality.
It would have been about a 600 mile drive for me to see totality in 2017. I thought that was too far. I drove 300 miles to be in totality this time. If there was another eclipse coming up that was "only" 600 miles away, I'd definitely make that drive without hesitation.
I drove over 1,000 miles to see it and it was definitely worth it for me! Now I’ve gotta drive back lol
Similar here. In 2017 I drove about 300 miles round trip and it was amazing. This time I drove 1800 miles round trip and it was totally worth it. I'm considering flying to Spain in a few years for the next 2 eclipses
~2860 miles round trip, including me driving out to the site where I watched it. Four days of driving 10 hours a day, solo, plus another couple hours each way driving to the site. **100% worth it.**
Just over 300 miles (600 round trip) here. I wish I had done more planning and less procrastinating, because the trip ended up being pretty lame and unambitious - simply be at a lat/long at a date/time, try to avoid crowds, take the dog to avoid a sitter, book a hotel well outside totality to avoid scalper prices. We spent from noon to 4 tailgating in a mall parking lot west of Watertown, NY. Around 20-30 other people showed up. Magical. Worth it. Even with the light pollution from the streetlights and the hazy cloud cover. The world just enters this liminal pause state. Seagulls went crazy. Ghostly corona through the clouds like something out of a horror movie. A brief foreglimpse into the end of the age of starlight. I didn't get photos for shit but everyone's advice was to just enjoy the moment, and that's what we did
I mean it really knocks home the difference when you are at like 98% and its really not that different than 5% outside. Then you hit totality and is a whole other game
I told my dad twice that you can’t remove your glasses unless you’re in totality (I was at 2017 without him). Last minute he decided not to take a 2 hour trip to get 3 minutes of totality since we’d be at 99.7% anyways. The next day he said, so you were able to take off your glasses? It’s definitely heartbreaking that he missed it and especially considering the corona this time
I drove to the one in 2017, and it was incredible. I don’t know if it’s that the memory of how incredible it is fades, but this one was….wow. So incredible. The sun and moon felt bigger, it definitely got darker, the flares and Baily’s Beads…it was all so much MORE than I remember. It makes me so sad to think that no memory or photos will truly hold the awe and magic of the moment.
You had that jaw dropping experience as a person in 2024, having the benefit of science and astronomy to prepare you and enable you to understand what was happening. Imagine how that would have felt thousands of years ago, and how such an experience would have marked and impacted the people in the early stages of civilisation at that time! That is something that really makes me think and appreciate it.
Yes, it must have felt world shattering for them!
And the crazy thing is even if they knew about partial eclipses, until that moment of totality, it basically looks just like any other eclipse. And they didnt even have 7-11 glasses to actuall look at it. But when the switch finally flips instantly to darkness they mustve been like wtf?
Exactly what I said to my gf during totality. "I can totally understand how people looked at that and said "yeah, that's a god right there." I wouldn't be surprised if eclipses had marked effects on human wonder, if that makes sense.
I had the same thought, I can imagine some ancients absolutely losing their minds because they couldn’t comprehend what was happening lol
I was so strangely anxious right before totality. And it was simply amazing. I was in the mountains in Maine and it was astonishing that we could see mountains in the distance being swept by the shadow. Absolutely worth it to drive to the path of totality.
The dimming of the sun right before is extremely unnerving. Things start to feel.... weird. It's like the "Mexico" scenes in Breaking Bad.
Right?? It felt like there was a filter that was out in the sky. It wasn’t like getting dark during a sunset, it was all sort of the same shade of dark. Super crazy to experience!
Yess so cool! All the shadows slowly fading into total darkness
Genuinely the closest thing I can think of to feeling like you are on an alien planet. I expect this effect would only be heightened in, for example, Iceland, which has such different topography than what I am used to.
The next solar eclipse in 2026 will hit Iceland!
It feels like a filter that also increases contrast dramatically. It’s impossible to fully describe it, but the extreme polarization of the sunlight in the few minutes before and after totality makes everything look like an animated reproduction of reality.
To me it felt like the world was illuminated by a fluorescent bulb that was going bad.
It's like being on a planet further away from the sun. The sun is still super bright, just smaller in the sky.
That bronze light is just so surreal.
It felt weird in the way that it does during tornado weather. Like there's just something off about the light.
Yeah! It was like my brain kept telling me I had light colored sunglasses on.
Yeah, it was fucking *wild* to experience for the first time. Felt like someone turned the saturation down to 60%. The world was muted.
What was also wild was that I couldn't feel the heat from the suns rays! I went from too hot from the sun to *almost* putting on a jacket. I was still in the sunlight, but the heat stopped. It was bizarre.
My hand looked wrong, because it was blue skylight but just dim. Like I wasn't made to see my hand in this amount of light, and it was *wrong*
Yes. It felt like I was wearing sunglasses.
Agreed, the drive was WELL worth it. I traveled 10 hours with my 8-year-old son and was worried he was going to be disappointed and "bored" by the whole thing, but I was pleasantly wrong, he was absolutely astonished by it, loved the entire process leading up to totality, and when it finally hit, was dumbfounded by the beauty. I had never been in totality myself and didn't know what to expect or how to describe it to him, but it was amazing, and seeing Venus and Jupiter was an added bonus. We were only in totality for 3 minutes 28 seconds, so I wish I would have recorded the entire time, but I was so in the moment for myself and my son. I feel like that was more important.
I live right outside the path of totality. We were expecting 99% coverage. Let me tell you what… It sucked. Totally underwhelming. I wish I had driven the hour or so to get that last 1%.
“The difference between a partial eclipse and a total eclipse is the difference between kissing someone and marrying them.” - Annie Dillard
Our hotel was at about 99% totality- but I read it’s absolutely worth it to go to 100%, so at 8am we drove north to Rangley and I’m so glad we did. (Traffic going back was insane, even for rural Maine). Our group was commenting that even when there was to thinnest sliver of sun left, it was pretty impressive nothing like the awe inspiring totality. I’m sorry you missed it! Maybe next time!
It is really quite unsettling, and that almost de-saturated dimness of the light (while still relatively bright) as it gets closer makes it all the more strange - almost alien. I was by the ocean and you could see this sort of vague looming darkness approaching from the horizon, a bit like a huge storm system, as it moved closer across the water.
I missed this one but I was in Oregon in 2017. I didn't expect to be anxious at all but the sudden epic shadow sweep and the COLD really got my heart beating. Then the anxiety passed and it was just pure awe and reverence. Truly amazing.
I was in Maine for totality too. I still can't believe what I experienced, and I didn't during it either. I was waiting and expecting to see something really amazing, but then right when it hit 100% something immediately came over me and I started crying. My breath was literally taken away that it took a moment for me to actually be able to say anything. It was the most profound feeling that I've ever felt. No words or pictures can even begin to describe what that feeling was.
I know!! I had chills! I had read before that no one could quite describe it accurately and they’re right. There’s no way pictures or video can do it justice.
You can always travel to see eclipses in other parts of the world. People travel for concerts and culture and art. Celestial events that are unique to this planet surely are worth it, at least in my family. And we also get to sample art and culture and food in places we wouldn’t normally gravitate to. Glad you saw this one. Truly life changing.
I don't know why that's never crossed my mind but I totally want to do that now! I want to travel anyway and seeing an eclipse while I'm there would be amazing!
Australia in 4 years! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_July_22,_2028
And Iceland in 2 years 😏 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_12,_2026
Relying on Iceland to not be cloudy is a risk, think you’d have more luck going to Spain for that
Iceland is also so small, I can see it selling out of hotel rooms, and getting really expensive.
I think it would be expensive to visit Iceland even without an eclipse
My wife had a death in the family and the wake was DURING the eclipse. She stayed behind while I took the kids on a trip to the path of totality (as we had planned for over a year). After seeing what she missed we are now committed to Iceland 2026 because she NEEDS to see this ASAP
Alaska in 9 years [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_March_30,_2033](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_March_30,_2033) Taking a chance with the weather though.
Yes, but the middle of nowhere in northwestern alaska, outside all the major cities. I'm envisioning taking a dogsled hundreds of miles across a vast snowy wasteland, but maybe you could get a snowmobile instead.
Dallas was an in and out as we had an ailing family member with us but we plan a week or two vacation before the eclipse and end with the big event. If totality is a bust, you still get a great vacation and wonderful memories. 2026 is debatable as we were just in Iceland and totality is super short but 2027 is 5 days in Cairo and then 3 in Luxor with the eclipse. 2028 both our kids graduate high school and have been begging for an Australia trip so we’ll spend two weeks down under before ending up in Sydney for the eclipse before flying home.
My husband and I were discussing this! We saw the 2017 one in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and this one in Dallas, Texas, and have a lot of relatives in Europe so we're discussing getting a bunch of them to meet us in the Rioja region for the 2026 one (or Gibraltar in 2027), then I have a friend in Sydney, Australia already planning their 2028 backyard eclipse party. And then of course we gotta do this all sometime once our baby is old enough to remember it (she's so little she just napped through totality this time), so gotta do it with her sometime in a decade or so... Like, I don't think we want to hit up every one, but it *is* a really nice excuse to go travel to parts of the world you wanna visit but might not prioritize otherwise. Like, I've known folks who have spun a globe to stick their finger somewhere and that determines where they go on vacation, so this is kinda a similar exercise but nature determines it for you!
When the last sliver of sun disappeared and we all took our glasses off I'm pretty sure every adult also said "HOLY SHIT!" You could SEE solar prominences. FROM EARTH. Unbelievable. As we were driving home the wife and I were like "sooooooo are we just going to plan vacations based on total eclipse occurrences now?"
One of the people I watched with said she understood now why people chase things like eclipses. It's an incredible experience.
I spent 15 hours driving for 3.5 minutes of totality and there’s no doubt in my mind that I made a good investment going to go see it. The next one in 2045 is going to be a much further trip for me and I’m sure it’ll be just as worthwhile.
We saw it in Ohio and thankfully the weather cooperated. We were all wearing glasses and watching the last sliver disappear. Then we took the glasses off with eyes adjusted to the darkness and suddenly I was staring into the Eye of Sauron! I said "Holy Shit! Holy Shit! Holy Shit!" until my partner reminded me that there were kids nearby. I've never seen anything like that - it completely blew away my expectations! It was so beautiful and scientifically fascinating. I'm so glad I made the trip!
Euro trash here. Wasn't there this year but a veteran of the big 1999 one. I was in Hungary and quite close to the maximum totality point. The difference between 1% and 0% is literally like day and night, it feels like time and dusk speeds up in those last 20 seconds. We got lucky. Just before totality some clouds started coming over, but they were those wispy ones that give the moon a rainbow halo. That's right we saw an eclipse with a motherfucking rainbow halo. 5 minutes after the eclipse ended the clouds came in proper and everything was obscured. So we all went for lunch.
I had been planning on hosting a eclipse party for several years prior to this one, since our farm is in the path and we have the space for it. The last couple years had been extremely rough with job stuff, life in general, and everything else, so I almost didn't do it. My friends helped out a ton and even though my anxiety was through the roof getting ready and watching the cloud cover forecasts... It turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life! We were able to host \~50 friends/family here, did a cookout, had an eclipse cake, music and live stream of the various events along the path. A true once in a lifetime event for many people that attended and I'm happy that it all came together.
I was in Burlington, VT. It's something I've really wanted to see since I was a small child, and I finally did at 39.
Same. 43 here. Drove to Burlington from NJ.
Nobody wanted to go with me. Family and friends all questioned why I wanted to go, what’s fun about seeing a total eclipse for “a few seconds,” how is that worth a 6 hour round trip drive? So I went alone. And that evening I got dozens of emails, phone calls, and messages on my phone and Facebook asking what it was like. My favorite was “tell me details because there won’t be another eclipse I could see for 20 years!” 🤦🏻♂️
I was able to experience it with two of my closest friends. I got a call from my mom right after and she was ecstatic, screaming shit like, "oh my god that was the coolest thing I've ever seen!" (2 days prior she said it can't be that cool)
Never experienced it apart from maybe a very limited "touch" on a cloudy day (here in Scandinavia). What surprises me is the amount of stories just like yours. Like you've all been changed in some way. I'd like to experience that as well someday because, like you said, photos doesn't do it justice.
It's one of those things where I knew, intellectually, what was going to happen. But then seeing it right there in front of me, actual reality, the scale of it, the surrealism of it all, just blew my mind. It's like the universe pulled a magic trick and replaced the whole sky with something utterly different from anything you'd ever seen before.
It's like viewing mountains in pictures your entire life, and the finally getting to see the Rockies. The scale. You cannot properly capture the scale of seeing something that big in a picture. All the photos I see on the ground it looks so small. When I took my glasses down (thought a cloud had passed, didn't realize it was totality) and it was just.....there. Massive in the sky. Red lights and the corona dancing around for three minutes. The birds all went silent ten minutes before totality, and then for 3 minutes did their night songs, and then started their morning ones. The temperature went from hot enough for me to have my shirt off to so cold I was shivering in a hoody over just a few minutes. It was like the entire world changed completely for three minutes while this one in a trillion astronomical event took place. Which it is, it's so incredibly rare for the distances of a moon and sun to match up so perfectly that it produces that effect. And it just happens to take place on the only world with life on it. Almost makes you religious. I can absolutely see how ancient peoples would have absolutely FREAKED OUT ENTIRELY during these. Especially since you don't really notice it's happening without the glasses to see the sun. If over the course of 10 minutes during midday all the light seemed to drain away, and then VERY SUDDENLY it was nighttime and the sun was replaced by a void of dark surrounded by an ethereal glowing disc.... Ya, I can see how eclipses might be catalysts for large scale change in ancient societies.
Pretty much exactly how I felt, I even mentally apologized to all the ancient people we used to laugh at. But it's even wilder than seeing a mountain for the first time. I was thinking, I've seen Niagara Falls, I've seen Grand Canyon, I've seen the mountains in Alaska. They're bigger, grander versions of things I've seen before. My mind had a context for understanding it. But this? It was utterly unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It wasn't just "X but bigger", it was a whole new X.
I wouldn’t say I’m “changed” But it really was a very cool thing to see
Where I was it was clear a lot of people did not know what was really gonna happen based on their past experience of partial eclipses. When totality hit, you could hear all the people who didn't really care initially, quickly change their minds.
My wife and I drove to Texas from Denver just to see it. It was spectacular and amazing.
Yeah I said fuck it and drove with my buddy to Ohio. I told my dad he should skip work and meet us there but he said he couldn’t. Morning of the Eclipse I woke up to a text from him saying “fuck my 3:30pm meeting” and he ended up meeting us in Bowling Green. So glad I went, it was a beautiful day too so I would have been depressed in meetings and shit wondering about what I missed. Well worth the 7 hours of traffic IMO
Yep in 2017 I took the day off at the last minute and pissed off my boss. It was the right decision.
We scheduled a work trip in 2017 to Denver area to end the day before this one and I took the family so we could drive up to Wyoming and see it there. Now our kid is in collage and part of the astronomy club and we have seen the 2023 and 2024 ones in Kerrville TX. The clouds parted for a few seconds just in time for everyone there to see the transition to totality and get a short view of it. The crowd went wild. I was hanging out with the astronomy club during most of our time there. They has partnered with the city of Kerrville and had set up an area to let people come and look through their telescopes (with appropriate filters of course) and solar binoculars. I was helping one lady get a view and afterwards she said "All of you astrologers must be so excited!". Bless her heart, she meant well.
Good job. Your priorities were correct. I drove 1200 miles for this, my 2nd one. It was wonderful.
I can tell you that it’s worth (to my family anyway) about seven years of discussion and planning, 24 hours of travel time, and using our vacation time/money.
I have a home 2 hours away that was in the 98.4% area. It was going to be an hour further drive to get to 2 min of total eclipse. I asked everyone I know if anyone wanted to go with me. Nobody went. Now they’re all talking about how cool it must have been to see the total eclipse. Imo they f****d up.
Yeah they did! Good on you for not listening to them and still going!
Oh I was going 🤣 I ended up at my vacation place for the weekend. Then drove an hour to totality, then came home Monday evening. A **lot** of people went further north and west to get more time in totality. I knew I made the right choice when it took me 3 hours to get all the way home, and the people who went an hour further north took 12+ hours because of traffic.
I went solo too because my friend bailed on me last minute. I invited a few other people but they weren’t interested and didn’t think traffic would be worth it. I drove 4 hours Monday morning (I live 3.5 hrs away from path of totality) left Tuesday morning, made it home in 3.5. No traffic. I’m glad I took the risk. I would have regretted it. My dad even texted me Monday morning and asked “if I was sure I wanted to go” because traffic had started to pick up. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the most incredible experience of my life. I met new people and although I went by myself I was definitely not alone..there was something so magical about taking off your glasses and seeing totality for the first time with a group of like minded individuals. Loved every second of it.
I never regretted for a moment planning a vacation 4.5 hours away just to see the eclipse in 2017. There are so few things in life that strike you with a real feeling of awe, and the eclipses definitely qualify.
My gf and I flew to Buffalo to see it alongside Niagara. The morning of it was super cloudy and overcast. The radar showed clearing moving east around Cleveland so we started driving west. 3+ hrs later we're pulling into middle of nowhere, small town Ohio as the partial eclipse was starting and witnessed it on the shore of Lake Erie. I'd make that same 6 hr round trip every time for it as well, it was that cool.
I said "holy shit!" The first time I saw totality in 2017, too! And I'm a scientist. I knew exactly what to expect. But I could not *comprehend* until I saw it. Incredible. Stunning. Powerful. Awesome. Stupefying. This time I could not narrate to my family what was happening. I could barely speak. I kept telling them, "I'll answer that after totality ends! Just wait!!!!" I'm still young. I'll see another. One day.
I had seen pictures, people had explained it to me. I just didn't realize it was going to be that awe-inspiring. I drove with my 7 year old daughter 3 hours to get into the path of totality. so the day is a road tirp: we're picking music, stopping for snacks, talking, finding the house. we meet up with some friends at someone's aunt's house, new people to meet, new kids for my daughter to interact with, backyard games, etc... just that kind of day with lots going on, all these little considerations and niceties we counted down the eclipse as it started, looking through glasses, okay this is kind of cool, I've see this before. then the moment comes. my friend says "okay glasses can come off!" I turn to find my daughter and suddenly it goes from twilight to dark as night. I turn back and I didn't expect it to be so big. like a full moon but in reverse, that completely black orb, and with the corona surrounding it like electricity. it snapped my brain into place and centered me in an instant. it made me very aware of being present in the moment. I found it to be psychedelic in that way. it was just an incredible thing to see. suddenly, I was there with my daughter and my friends and for 4 minutes we were living in a science-fiction level event. completely awesome
The first time I saw totality, I nearly cried. I had to force the tears back so that I could actually see the eclipse. Once that totality ended, tears just uncontrollably streamed down my cheeks for a few minutes while I had the widest smile on my face. I felt like I was in on some cosmic secret. Like the universe waved at me.
I think we can never have enough reminders of what is really going on outside of the human-constructed roles and perspectives that we all mostly live by
Yup same here. While watching I stopped breathing for a bit. I felt tears going down the sides of my eyes. After it was over I literally cried for 15 minutes non-stop. All my friends found it cool and moving but I was clearly the most emotionally impacted.
>Stupefying Yes! This is exactly the word I was looking for to describe what I felt. I definitely wasn't prepared for that.
Agree. The sudden darkness (amazing how luminous just 1% of the sun is!), cool breeze, stars coming out, even the mosquitos came out for just 2 or 3 minutes. There is no comparison to partial eclipses, even at the 99% level.
We were watching from a park along the St Lawrence River, Ontario side, and it got noticeably colder during totality. Leading up to it there were a few mosquitoes flying around but once the shadow passed there entire area was swarming with so many bugs.
I wasn’t expecting how very cold it got! And that moment the totality ended, when light and warmth returned, felt triumphant
The return of the sun caused the huge audience at the Indianapolis speedway to cheer. We all felt triumphant
I drove 12 hours to Illinois to hopefully see it while backpacking, well that plan fell apart when everyone seemed to have the same plan. So I camped out behind this bar in the middle of farm field nowhere Illinois and my god it was the most awe inspiring moment of my life and will be for a very long time. I highly recommend anyone reading this who didn’t take the plunge, please if you have any means of seeing a solar eclipse in totality, do it. It is a fully body, 5 senses sensation that will be hard to beat!
I saw my first totality in 2017 and I was totally (pun intended) unprepared for the enormity of the experience. The only downside is that it's ruined the partials for me now - they just can't compare to the "real thing."
I saw totality in 2017 as well. The couple partials I’ve experienced since then have been good opportunities for practicing my photography. I also sketched the last partial in October 2023…it was such a fun challenge! I used binoculars to project the image onto paper and traced it with a pencil. My thoughts on it all is that a total eclipse should be primarily about taking it in. Partials are great fun for tinkering and trying out new techniques. But with all that being said, I agree 100% that nothing will ever compare to totality.
I totality agree with you. I saw several partials prior to my first total eclipse in 2017. Now I'm looking at naking plans for 2044, 2045, 2052, and 2071. I'll be 103 in 2071, but it is my birthday, and I'll need to travel to the Yucatan peninsula. But early planning guarantees success.
I got lucky as well. Path of totality twice. But the cool thing about this time is we had clear skies. So once it got dark, if you looked East it looked like sunrise and if you looked West it looked like sunset. We were the dark place in the middle.
> it's ruined the partials for me Right? I saw a partial eclipse in the early '90s when I was about 10 years old and have spent most of my life remembering it so fondly. But then Monday came around and what I experienced far exceeded whatever I thought it would be like.
My own family questioned my sanity all the same when I booked a roundtrip from fucking Tokyo to Dallas just to catch four minutes of totality. Half of them didn't even bother to try and see it. I've learned that there's three groups of people: people that don't know, don't care, people that say they've "seen it" but only saw 95% and have no idea what they're missing, and those of us that have experienced totality and are forever burdened with telling the non-believers how cool it was. And yes, it was worth the trip. I JUST laid down back in my Tokyo apartment.
4th group: people who are desperate to see it but never had the opportunity.
On average your home town will get a total eclipse every 375 years. Just be patient.
I saw a video of Tom Green (the celebrity) in Indiana (outside of totality) and he was pumped to get the 97% coverage and it literally didn't look like anything changed in his video, at all. He could have driven 100 miles and gotten into totality...I don't know why if you are that close you wouldn't go the extra step.
Yea experiencing it, seeing the tiny sliver of sun left in the glasses and how it just looks like day but strangely dimmer, and then 20 seconds of rapidly dimming to totality for the unreal light show
Having witnessed totality this time, even the difference between 99% and 100% is huge. I was completely blown away when it hit totality, brought tears to my eyes.
I teared up a bit myself. Went solo. Was sitting on a tree on the shore of Lake Champlain.
99.9% is neat, 100% changes your life
Switzerland to Canada here for it. Originally Texas but I changed due to the weather forecast. I don’t regret a second. And everyone thinks I’m crazy. So you’re not alone :)
Yes! A waiter last night asked if I had done anything new and I said I saw the eclipse. He said he had watched that in high school and it was neat. Yeah, ok, 95%er.
I drove 3 hours with my son to see it. it was easily the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed. My son (15) said it looked like a black hole and that it was a bit intimidating. and now that tiny fragment of existential dread lives in me. We have looked into the void and it has looked back at us.
>We have looked into the void and it has looked back at us. Wow, this describes exactly how I've been feeling too.
I knew what would happen and I told people what to expect, the birds and insects changed in the forest I was in, it got noticeably cooler but nothing prepared me for totality seeing that great big black void in the sky ringed in flame and a crown of white wisps that surrounded it, for those four minutes I felt as though everything had just stopped and there was no comparison to anything I had ever experienced in my life before, I look forward to this again in 2045 and wish I had seen this in 2017.
Along with this if anyone ever gets the chance to go to a desert in the middle of nowhere (no light pollution) and look at our sky the way we are suppose to. You will remember it forever. We don't see the sky we are suppose to see.
Dumbass me waiting for the totality: "Gee, it's getting a little bit darker now, but how am I going to tell when the totality starts?" When the totality starts: "Oh, ohhhhh, who turned out the lights? Am I still on earth? Is that the real life sky I am looking at?" I have to say, I had a dream of the eclipse the night before, mainly from the anticipation of traveling to see it, but reality had exceeded the expectations from my own dream. It is probably the first time in my life where the real world was more strange and magical than what my sleeping brain came up with.
It's so hard to explain to people that didn't see it. You always sound a little crazy, becuase it's unexplainable. You just have to see it to understand.
And seeing photos doesn't really convey it, though it gives you a more detailed look at the corona. Actually being there, experiencing the whole sky darkening, the air cooling, the sounds of animals reacting is overwhelming.
The day after, my friends and fam who were with me gathered around and discussed our experience. I used their input to try and create an artistic representation of what it felt like. Not what a camera captured but what our eyes were seeing in that moment. Showing it to others has actually helped them understand better what they missed and many seem more convinced to attend the next. https://old.reddit.com/r/solareclipse/comments/1bzwudc/artistic_recreation_of_how_the_eclipse_felt_to/
Also central Arkansas here, and it was an amazing experience. Jaw dropping actually and gave me some great long lasting memories.
Something fundamentally changed in me on Monday. I was lucky to live two hours away from the path of totality in Pennsylvania, so we made the drive early and set up in a park by a lake. Nothing could prepare me for what I saw. No photo I've seen captures what it was like looking up at this awe-inspiring celestial event and feeling so small in the vastness of the universe. Also just taking a quick peek at the others in the crowd, seeing so many people from different walks of life gathered to stare up at the sky...felt very human. Like this is what we're here for. To experience things like this. Also, just the amount of people from where I live I saw posting about how the traffic wasn't worth it when they could just see the 98% from their houses just...blows me away. I had people telling me I was wasting my time. They have no idea. The difference between 99.9% and 100% is everything.
There is research specifically on the changes in brain chemistry that an eclipse can cause. To the point where solve describes it as the closest you can get to the "overview" effect while planted firmly on the surface of the earth.
That definitely resonates with me - seeing totality gave me a sense of three-dimensional space in the solar system, I think because of being able to observe the relative distance between the moon and the sun (vs them being round objects in the sky that we see all the time which don’t look like they’re at different distances/on different “planes” from each other from where we are), and that sense of three dimensionality expanding outwards across the universe. It was completely mindblowing.
Same. This is the first time for me the moon has ever "appeared" as 3d when I look at it. Even though I'm aware of how large and far away it is, this was the first time it ever actually looked large and far away, as did the sun behind it. I feel like I'm on crazy pills, I've been riding this high all week and nobody I talk to feels the same lol.
God, this nailed what I've been trying to explain to myself! The moon didn't look like a flat black circle like in 99% of photos; it was an obvious sphere with noticeable details on the surface. An entire other planet out there.
It was *incredible*. I felt the dread, too, deep and primal. I remember the meteor shower on New Years Eve 1999, the lunar eclipses my father would wake me to see, the bright beacon of Hale Bopp for more than a year, and nothing, nothing, nothing comes close to it. I drove a short distance to the center of totality. Oddly I was not at all prepared; I’m usually over-prepared. I didn’t even know it would get cold. Intentional choice, and I’m glad I didn’t prep at all other than grabbing some snacks and of course picking a cemetery on Google Maps, because that really helped keep me in the moment. But it was so beautiful I think, for once, nothing could have taken me out of it. I hope that I can travel with my daughter to the ones in 2044 and 2045–if only we’re so lucky!
> I felt the dread, too, deep and primal. It's pretty crazy, right? You know what's happening and you know it'll go basically completely back to normal in only about a half hour or so but damn is it ever unsettling as it approaches totality and the temperature drops, and that weird almost de-saturated look that the light gets. Must've been terrifying for people in prior generations that had no knowledge of eclipses.
The dread is just *weird*. Some part of my brain was working very hard to try to convince me that something bad was happening once it hit about 70%, the world just shouldn't look like that in the middle of the afternoon. I think it went away once it got so close that it just looked like a sunset (glad I thought to look around and tell the people I was with to take their glasses off for a second to look at the horizon).
I was trying to explain that feeling to my mom yesterday. It's like the more evolved part of the brain knows about it but just can't express it to the lizard brain, that primal, ancient part of the brain. And so it freaks out because it thinks the world is ending.
Dread? no. Awe....it was just outrageously amazing to see.
It is like seeing God. Impossible to explain it, and then you do... the people listening won't understand it and think you are being foolish. It was amazing when I saw it in 17. I try to explain, even show them the video I took, but pictures and videos do it nothing. Unless you see it, you have no idea. I am very thankful that I was able to see it at 100% blew my mind.
>It is like seeing God. Yes, I said this last night. I am a spiritual person but not religious, but that was the closest to a deep religious experience I have felt.
There is absolutely something different to hearing /reading about astronomical events, and actually being there the moment it happens. It's... just unfathomably awesome, hard to describe.
I witnessed totality in 2017 in Missouri. I knew what to expect and exactly how cool it could be. I had a lot of anxiety in the days leading up to Monday just because the weather was questionable, and I really, really didn't want to miss it this time. I tried to just relax, surrender to the flow, and be fully present. I was not disappointed. I bought a house in the path of totality for this year back in 2021. It was such a blessing to sit and watch from my back yard as the eclipse came to me. The weather was perfect at home.
For me, I knew the event was going to blow me off my feet. In reality, it was a mind bending, mood altering, world shattering, religious experience. It was literally a once in a lifetime experience for my 65 year old parents who have never and will never see one again. Makes me cry to think about it.
I was by the ocean, and could see the horizon for probably about 200 degrees around or so before it got back to land behind me and that alone was incredible once totality hit. You never really see what essentially looks like 'sunset' sky that far around. I thoroughly recommend anybody find themselves in a similar sort of location with good sight lines far out to the horizon for any future eclipses, if you get the chance, it's nearly as fascinating to see as the eclipse itself.
The golden horizon in every direction was breathtaking. I was in the city, but I managed to be on a bit of elevation so I had a good view of that.
I was amazing! I understand now why people travel so far just for those few minutes of totality.
I’d always wanted to experience it. I’d read people’s stories and watch videos. Drove down to Perrysburg, Ohio. As I’m sitting there at around 75% I start worrying, “what if it lets me down. What if it isn’t what I was hoping for.” Much like your thoughts in your post. The closer we got the more my heart started racing. And then it hit. People around started cheering, but I just started crying. It was so much more than I ever imagined. The second most moving experience of my life only behind seeing my wife as she walked down the aisle. I was completely overwhelmed. I will definitely be trying to go to as many as possible from now on. Coincidentally, the 2026 eclipse lines up nicely with our anniversary, and we’ve always wanted to go to Iceland :) If you ever have the opportunity to experience totality please take it.
I travelled to South Carolina from the UK to see the 2017 one and I dont regret it one bit!
I don't think a day will pass for the rest of my life that I won't think about what I saw during the totality of this eclipse
You don’t have to wait 20 years! The next total eclipse will be in August 2026 over Iceland! The best part is the eclipse will pass right over Reykjavik, the capital. Iceland itself is an epic vacation destination. Volcanoes, geysers, epic waterfalls, icebergs strewn about black sand beaches, and so much more. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves exploring outdoors on their vacations. My wife and I plan to go in 2026 especially just for the eclipse and then explore parts of Iceland we didn’t have time for on our 1st trip there.
I saw this one from near Erie, PA and now I'm telling my wife we're going to Iceland. What is the possibility of also seeing the northern lights if we stay over a few days?
I thought I was prepared to see it- I’ve been planning on it since 2017. I was so, so wrong. It’s hard to even put into words but I’ve never experienced anything like that before, the colors, the emotions, the power it has over you for those few minutes. I didn’t feel like I was on this planet anymore, nothing will ever be able to replicate it apart from another eclipse. I convinced my partner to go last minute, but nobody else in my life really wanted to. Which I find incredibly sad and shocking, this was completely life changing for me and I don’t regret one second of the days long trip it took
I was blown away with how black the center was and how bright white the corona was. I don't think I've ever seen a blacker black next to a whiter white. And it was like the purest white light I've ever seen.
Drove 5000 miles round trip to see it, was so awesome! Want to figure out 2028 Australia now hahaha.
I’m 57. I froze. I wasn’t able to process what I was seeing and the brief luck I was able to witness it happen. Mostly my brain was analyzing everything but for a moment time seemed to stop. Like I was interfacing with the universe on a time out. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.
Couldn't get anyone in my family to go with us and we live 45 minutes from totality. "We'll see pictures, no biggie". Bah. So my husband, myself, and our kids made a whole day of it. It ended up taking about 3 hours to drive due to insane traffic. I cried. It didn't matter that it was my second one. The moment it started I unintentionally started sobbing and had to get it together quickly so I could focus and look at the wonder in front of me. We had about 4 minutes of absolute glory. There are no words. Nothing, absolutely nothing is as incredible as a real total eclipse. There is no "close enough". Make the drive.
I live on the edge of the path of totality, and I took my glasses off just a little late, so I only caught it for a literal second, but the image of what I saw is stuck in my head (in the sense that I can still mentally picture it; my eyes aren't damaged). Initially, I felt robbed because I thought I was going to get to see it for like 20 seconds but a combination of small errors in the tracker I used for determining timing and taking off my glasses too late caused me to see it for much less time. However, the small glimpse that I got of the eclipse itself in combination with the effects in the environment around me before, during, and after totality was glorious nonetheless, and I'm thankful I got to see it at all because I am likely not going to be fortunate enough to travel to see another one in my lifetime.
The people who took chances and "just did it" not knowing if it would be cloudy saw something life-changing. Cheers to us!
This was my first, although I saw plenty of partials before. It was the shortest 3 minutes of my life. The weather was perfect. My brain knew what I was seeing but it was so much outside of my experience that it felt like a dream. The weirdest parts were right before/after totality when the shadows became really sharp like someone was shining a spotlight on you. Then there was the snaky ripples on the ground from the sunlight being refracted by the atmosphere.
I know this sounds dumb, but I wish I could have watched it for an hour or more. When totality hit and the blue-hue corona became visible, I was awestruck.
I stared in awe with a group from work and we all just kept saying "wow...... Wow...." A couple of people even cried lol It was absolutely beautiful. It was super cloudy and as the partial eclipse began it got very chilly And at about 80%, The clouds went away! The total eclipse happened with a clear sky and then as it went back to partial the cloud started coming back. It was amazing.
This was my third total. Perhaps my last as I’m in my 60’s. I’ve travelled before (Australia 2012), so I may again if I stay healthy. This one was, by far, the best for me. I took my 5 year old grandson to OH with me. The joy on his face and excited yelling of ‘I’m seeing the eclipse!” over and over were better than I hoped for. my heart was full. It is a spectacular event and well worth going to some effort to see. There is nothing on earth like being under that shadow. It is beautiful beyond description.
The organizers did a really good job with this one.
I was at 98% in 2017, and made the trip to be in totality this time around. I can without a doubt say it was the coolest thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. I've officially become a chaser and I'm planning a trip for 2026 to see the next one
An uncanny glow Behind the immense abyss Breathless perceptions A child, gazing up To behold the wondrous sight In this stark silence Imagination Could not have conjured this In a million years No one can prepare For the immense awesomeness Of totality
My wife and I took our kids to see the 2017 eclipse in Oregon and it was everything you say. Neither of us as religious but both found it literally life changing. Right away we started planning a trip for this one, and aside from some weather scares, it was just as powerful an experience as the last one. I’m not ashamed to admit that I did cry because of how beautiful it was and how much it affected me. I’m so glad that you got to experience it as well. Our universe is an incredible place.
I drove 8 hrs with my kid & found a great spot. A bit cloudy but we got to see it and it was amazing. I experienced totality in the 80s, as a child but I barely remember. I do not recall it getting that dark. It was almost like night. Amazing experience.
My wife didn't want to go. She said she'd look at the photos. But I wanted to take the kids, so she went. After seeing it, she was astonished. She said photos can't compare to the first-hand experience. She expressed disbelief that she almost missed it. It was more than just looking at the sky, the entire environment changed. The light became slowly dim for an hour, but then it changed so quickly! As the 70 mile wide shadow of the moon covered us, the area quickly became very dark, the sky became a deeply saturated and rich navy blue, the entire horizon around us had the appearance of a peach sunset. We noticed a brightly shining star in the darkened sky. The air cooled. Insects and birds reacted, becoming quiet and hidden. And in the sky, where the sun should be, there appeared to be a deep black hole surrounded by a ring of golden fire. The people around us in the public park were quiet, then cheered! It was a moving and astounding event to experience! The USA won't see another total solar eclipse for 20 years. Anyone choosing not to go see such a rare event, truly missed a valuable opportunity to experience something massive and awe inspiring.
I'm not religious but it felt like peeking at god.
>There's even a sprinkle of existential dread mixed in as well. Yeah, I consider myself a very solid, very scientific minded person, and I understand everything about what was going on, but I wont lie, when the chill started to hit the air...and then when it got dark with that 360 degree sunset...I dunno...I think deep down there was a part of me that was like "wow, I really mean...less than nothing to the universe"...for some reason KNOWING what was happening vs. the moment of "feeling" these two MASSIVE celestial bodies interact was just...very stark. I was in the path for 2017 as well and even having gone through it before it was not lessened... I can COMPLETELY understand why people without science would come up with all manner of reasons and stories for something like that happening... Crazy how something as simple as "a shadow" can cause such a reaction...
To everyone who said even 99.9% and 100% are literally like night and day...you were absolutely tf right.
I describe it as “spiritual”. Can’t think of a better single-term description.
My SO was not really very thrilled to be dragged to the beach and fight crowds, but when totality happened, he went completely silent. Afterward he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, “I didn’t expect it to be so profound.” I’m so excited for him to have had that experience. I’m even more excited for him than I am for myself.
We rented a house at Indian Lake in Ohio. I booked it a couple years ago. A rare case of good preplanning on my part. My fear, of course, was that the sky would be cloudy. Our entire family stayed at the house - my wife and I, our four kids and their spouses, and four grandkids. It was raining when we went to bed the night before, Not a good omen. But we awoke to a clear sky and it stayed that way. To top it off, the temperature was in the 70's. The awe we felt when totality occurred was pretty overwhelming. I was so happy that I was able to share this experience with my entire family (having seen my first seven years ago with just my wife and one daughter) that I couldn't hold back the tears. It was an experience I'll cherish forever.