Who has travel plans for the August 21 Total Solar Eclipse?

[DandyDon]

It's going to run across the entire US - "From Sea to Shining Sea," with almost 2 minutes of totality on the west coast to two & half on the east coast. From NASA - Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 Aug 21

We enjoyed the Annual Eclipse we got here in the West in 2012, but this is my first Total Eclipse - as well as my last I guess. I've been playing with the idea of traveling to Yellowstone, then viewing from Grand Teton, for a couple of years now - planning in more detail since last summer. I got my kids & grandkids interested, and they wanted to include Mount Rushmore & Little Bighorn, so I started watching tickets to Rapid City with a return flight from Idaho Falls. We were all set to buy $400 tickets as soon as available, but we were put back by the prices demanded when they finally opened for booking! I don't remember all of the history, as I've been checking fares daily for months, but they're currently over $800!

We finally decided to spend $474 each flying into Rapid City August 15 and returning from Bozeman several hours after the event on the 21st. My daughter the vice-principal and the kids will be missing some school for this so we have to come home no later than that day. I currently have a 7 passenger van reserved with their huge fee for dropping off in a different state, along with hotel rooms reserved in Keystone SD, Billings MT, then 4 nights in Yellowstone. I thought I was a little premature trying to book those in June, 14 months in advance, but the cheaper lodges were almost sold out! Glad I got what I could. *

Subject to last minute changes, I think we'll leave Yellowstone that morning to be around Thornton ID for the event, the closest on the centerline to our departure airport. We'll get 2 minutes 18 seconds of totality there, with that phase over at 17:35:27 Universal Time or 11:35am MDT and the show pretty much over by noon. It looks like a 3 hour drive from there to our airport so they should work well if we don't run into problems - and of course, we're hoping for good viewing weather. I'd rather watch from Grand Teton, but I don't think we could make our 5:20pm plane from there.

You're going to need solar viewers wherever you are, even if you settle for a partial show away from the centerline. I got mine at Eclipse Glasses | Solar Viewers | Shop Rainbow Symphony and there are other sites. Also available on Ebay, like 10 for $10, etc.

* By the way, I do have an extra cabin at Old Faithful Lodge. I reserved an extra just in case, knowing I could release it later for full refund. It's for August 17-21 @ $101/night including taxes. I can just release it, but if a diver wants it and we could handle the transfer easily, I'd be glad to help someone out.

 

[bcaderunr]

Wife and I will be in Douglas, Wyoming. Plan is to get out of town as close to centerline as possible. I've seen 2 in my lifetime and don't plan to ever miss another. Bucket list opportunity for ANYONE who has never seen a TOTAL eclipse of the sun. Western US should be clear and dry that time of day and time of year.

Stars come out, birds/creatures go nuts, disk of sun is encircled by a ring of fire that is mesmerizing. OK to stare right at it while it's total -- no brighter than a full moon. 360 degree horizon around you looks like it's 30 minutes after sunset everywhere. Difference between full and 99% Partial (or Annular) IS literally the difference between night and day. You'll never want to miss another.

Finally, major tip from one who has been there. Get away from town and streetlights -- since sensors will turn them on and invade the darkness once the sun's disk is covered. Last place you wanna be is in the Motel Parking Lot.

 

[doctormike]

I have to be at a family wedding on August 19th in Indianapolis. Gonna drive to St. Louis afterwards (3 hours). Saw one in Aruba in 1998 and it was awesome!

Now what to do on Sunday, the 20th? Well, there is this: Bonne Terre Mine

A few planning issues but have been speaking with the owner, hope to work it out ... looks like a fun dive!

 

[DandyDon]

this is my first Total Eclipse - as well as my last I guess.

Well, maybe not my last if I take care of myself. It looks like we get an Annular in West Texas in October 2023 and a Total in Texas in April 2024. For now tho, my focus is on this one!

Difference between full and 99% Partial (or Annular) IS literally the difference between night and day. You'll never want to miss another.

Looking forward to this one, and hopefully those other two.

 

[doctormike]

Just to be clear, being in the path of totality during a total solar eclipse is an amazing, once in a lifetime experience. It is a lucky accident that the relatives sizes and distances of the sun and the moon are precisely right to give us that. If the moon was a little smaller or a little further, we would only have annular eclipses. If the moon was a little larger or a little closer, it would get dark, but you wouldn't have the actual eclipse experience with the corona, which is directly viewable with no eye protection.

Being in the path of an annular eclipse, or being off the path of totality (a partial eclipse) is undetectable. The only way that you can tell that it is happening is if you have eclipse glasses or if you project the sun's image and view it that way. If you do either of those things, you will see a "bite" taken out of the sun (partial) or the shadow of the moon over the sun (annular). If you don't do either of those things, you won't notice anything happening at all.

So not much point in traveling to see an annular or partial eclipse. If you want to see what the sun looks like with a "bite" taken out of it, you can google an image and see the same thing that you would see in person.

 

[DandyDon]

Just to be clear, being in the path of totality during a total solar eclipse is an amazing, once in a lifetime experience. It is a lucky accident that the relatives sizes and distances of the sun and the moon are precisely right to give us that. If the moon was a little smaller or a little further, we would only have annular eclipses. If the moon was a little larger or a little closer, it would get dark, but you wouldn't have the actual eclipse experience with the corona, which is directly viewable with no eye protection.

True. A few other tibits...

If the Moon were in a perfectly circular orbit, a little closer to the Earth, and in the same orbital plane, there would be total solar eclipses every month. However, the Moon's orbit is inclined (tilted) at more than 5 degrees to the Earth's orbit around the Sun, so its shadow at new moon usually misses Earth.

Total solar eclipses are seen on Earth because of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. Even on Earth, the diversity of eclipses familiar to people today is a temporary (on a geological time scale) phenomenon. Hundreds of millions of years in the past, the Moon was closer to the Earth and therefore apparently larger, so every solar eclipse was total and there were no annular eclipses. Over a billion years in the future, the Moon will be too far away to fully occlude the Sun, and no total eclipses will occur.

The last total solar eclipse on Earth will occur about six hundred million years from now.

 

[dorsal]

I plan to be about 10 miles from the max duration in southern Illinois. Not diving that monday but I plan to visit mermet springs that weekend for some dives.

 

[doctormike]

I plan to be about 10 miles from the max duration in southern Illinois. Not diving that monday but I plan to visit mermet springs that weekend for some dives.

One thing to keep in mind, the better viewing is not necessarily at the centerline (which is the line of maximum duration). You actually can get a better experience closer to the edge: https://www.astrosociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Espenak.pdf

 

[dorsal]

One thing to keep in mind, the better viewing is not necessarily at the centerline (which is the line of maximum duration). You actually can get a better experience closer to the edge: https://www.astrosociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Espenak.pdf[/QUOTE

@doctormike great article. I'll be visiting my brother in law so I'll have a place to stay for the weekend. Besides , the kiddo has never seen an eclipse before.

 

[DandyDon]

The link I gave in post #1 has changed. It now offers another link to jump to maps I do not like. Find the good map now at USA - 2017 August 21 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier

I started watching tickets to Rapid City with a return flight from Idaho Falls. We were all set to buy $400 tickets as soon as available, but we were put back by the prices demanded when they finally opened for booking! I don't remember all of the history, as I've been checking fares daily for months, but they're currently over $800!

We finally decided to spend $474 each flying into Rapid City August 15 and returning from Bozeman several hours after the event on the 21st.

And the game goes on...!!

I kept watching my tickets to see if I would have saved or lost if I had waited and discovered that United didn't offer my return flights anymore! They had changed the time of the last flight out of Bozeman, only 25 minutes later, but enough that it didn't connect in Denver to Lubbock that night! I checked my reservations at the airline site and sure enough, they wanted me to leave 4 hours earlier. I clicked "Do not accept" and was taken to a page of BS. So I phoned, about 5 tickets on two records, as we are using two different United Visa cards to get 4 bags checked for free.

We had a discussion about their changes after my purchases, as well as how disappointed I was in their treatment - as we had to leave after 5 and be home that night. The agent kept apologizing, but nothing could be done, asking me about leaving another day, etc. Nope!

After I drug that out for a while, I said we could leave out of Idaho Falls after 5 if they'd do that for the same fare, and they did it! They had to do it manually so the call took an hour, but we got the $850 tickets I had always wanted for $474! 115 miles less driving Yay...!!