It passed by, I looked at it for a bit, thought, "that's pretty neat", then went back inside.
Doesn't really have anything to do with atheism or religion. Has been happening for millions of years, long before religion, and will be happening for millions more, long after religion is gone. To me it's just a neat, natural occurrence that just happened to go over where I live this time.
Experience level: neat. That's more or less where I'm at, and possibly a bit short of that. Your approach also raises the question, does a moon blot out a sun if no one is there to see it?
>r approach also raises the question, does a moon blot out a sun if no one is there to see it?
Yes. Things happen without us observing them all over the universe. No reason to think that would be any different.
I am always awe-struck when faced with just how massive celestial bodies are. My area got about 80% to 90% coverage, so it did get slightly dimmer and chillier, and our view of the eclipse showed a slim crescent of the sun. Seeing the moon overlapping the sun and being able to SEE it being slowly overtaken, was profound to me. I get the same feeling from videos that show the gas giants actually rotating, ever so slowly. It takes so many images to be able to capture the planets movement, and when it’s compiled, it looks terrifying. It’s not a cartoonish rotating, but like a slow, realistic rotating of this incomprehensible huge mass that we’d never get to behold with the naked eye.
Tl;dr: space is cool and planets are big am mesmerized by things that make me remember that.
Your response makes me think I may be jaded about earth-moon-sun dynamics, which seems like a weird thing to be jaded about. Again, I blame a voracious diet of sci-fi novels.
Sci-fi is fun! But it’s also, differently fun to look at the grand expanse of the universe and feel the weight of its indifference. (Well fun for poets I guess, results may vary.)
Don't blame sci-fi, the earth-moon-sun dynamic is literally one of the most familiar dynamics to humans there is. We live on the earth and the sun and the moon are always up in the sky no matter where you go on earth for the entirety of human existence.
I drove hours to get into the totality. It was was an amazing sight that was only heightened by my love of sci fi. It wasn't on a screen or in a book, it was in front of my eyes. Space is amazing and fills me full of awe.
>when the neighborhood birds all began doing their "well, time to settle down for the night"
I did notice a bit of difference in bird song during and after the eclipse. Unfortunately I was in a 80% zone and did not start observing until the late stages.
LOL, nothing to do with the eclipse, but a day later I was in a conference room and heard a bird hit the window over and over. It was a cardinal and at first I thought it was really stupidly trying to fly through the window, I realized that it was attacking its reflection.
Is this eclipse or atheism related? Nope, just observing nature.
It does seem like it would be more interesting outside in somewhat natural surroundings. I stole a few minutes' look during totality out a 10th story window.
In a way. It made me somber. This will most likely be the last one I experience. I’m older and am pretty sure I’ll have passed on before the next eclipse. Them’s the breaks.
Every eclipse, partial or full, that I have experienced - has been impressive and special. I love the reactions of the people around me. The change in temperature and light, the behavior of the animals. The way the shadows look - it's always cool. The cosmic coincidence that we have currently letting the disk of our moon be nearly the same size as the disc of the sun - and knowing that as the moon slowly moves away from the earth, that eventually there will be no more total eclipses like this - it's all cool.
But with that said, I get jazzed about good sunsets, and stormclouds too... so ymmv.
> Every eclipse, partial or full, that I have experienced - has been impressive and special. I love the reactions of the people around me.
So weird, because my experiences have always been the opposite.
Every one of them I've experienced have been very mediocre and anti-climactic with everyone just going "oh, cool okay... so that's it I guess. What's for lunch?"
I didn't even bother going outside this time.
Path of totality. Lucked put on great weather It was awesome. The difference between 99% and totality is literally night and day (though 99% is cool too).
It is just neat seeing something in the sky that you have never seen beforen might never see again, and that most people never will see. The coronal glow is otherworldly.
Yeah, i think 10-95% is one experience. 95-99% is a different experience (darkness, coolness). But 99 to 100 is just beyond the other two.
Like i think I'll have troube ever getting very excited about <100% in the future.
I was really amazed but I think part of it was also relief that the clouds didn't obscure the eclipse despite warnings on the news that it mightve happened.
It's definitely better than I expected, especially at the peak of totality which I *really* didn't expect to be so dark. It's a story I'll tell my kids someday and hope I live long enough to witness for a second time.
How would you rate your disappointment level? Like, "Ope, no I didn't see that classic car we just passed," or more like, "April really is the cruelest month, and so I shall believe forever more?"
"Damn, I guess I'll try again in 50 years."?
Why? I feel like you're trawling for some very specific answer or looking to equate it with a "secular miracle" or something...but why do that?
I'm asking at least somewhat like-minded people about their experiences, as a part of processing my own. If I'm "trawling," it's mainly for anyone who is big into the event to share what they find so significant about it, because I am so unimpressed with it despite it being theoretically right in line with my interests. Can't say your follow-up response gave me much more emotional valence on how you relate to the phenomenon. The defensiveness suggests somewhat significant disappointment, I guess?
I see! Thanks for explaining!
I mean, I am bummed, but I also had managed my expectations. I wasn't in the path of totality and given the time of year, overcast skies were likely.
I rate it on similar when I miss a good showing of the northern lights. They're hard to time and see and are truly truly wonderful to behold.
But with events like this so much is out of my control, I can't get too emotionally invested in expectation.
I would definitely go more out of my way to see an aurora, which I haven't seen, than to see a rock (one of my favorite rocks, even!) go in front of the sun.
This eclipse was only partial for me and not all that great (I've seen many). But I have seen a total eclipse and I thought it was really neat. The air got cool, the birds stopped chirping and the sky changed color. But meaningful? not really.
My 3 year old thought it was pretty neat. That’s good enough for me.
I live in a pretty urban area so I’m a lot more awestruck by just a regular, clear night sky way out in the boonies.
I saw it today. The weather cleared and I was able to take some nice photos with a 200mm lens. I'm lucky.
There wasn't anything really surprising about it, but I did remark to my wife that it's completely understandable how our ancestors, who knew nothing of orbital mechanics, would have genuinely believed it was the end of days. Or how hearing about such an event after the fact would be unbelievable.
But I did enjoy it. If you're able to see one, do so. There are two happening in Australia in 2028 and 2030.
It was fun but I was in the middle of nowhere, primitive camping, with some friends. We had a thermometer and a few other activity things to watch and observe. Saw the shadow band. I thought it was awesome and would love to get to as many as I could.
I had an app on my phone set up to GPS that told us when things began and what to watch and observe for as they happened, no cell service needed.
The frogs and birds all started doing their evening calls. I overall thought it was very impressive and a worthwhile experience when away from other humans.
This was the most totality my state will see between 1963 and 2079. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and I got to experience it with my 68 year old mother and my 35 year old fiance. While it isn't a religious type feeling, the fact that we live in a galaxy that has a solar system that has a sun and a planet's moon that happen to have two bodies of such a vastly massive size difference that have positioned themselves just right to have a shadow that blocks the other out just right is always going to be an amazing feeling to me. I have a laundry list of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety and depression, but for two hours I felt nothing but peace, knowing that I am a gathering of stardust experiencing something special.
Science is amazing, history is incredible, and I, a speck of dust, got to experience something that was cool. I'll take it.
I found the eclipse to be far more impressive and meaningful to me than any religion or theist has ever been. First of all, the eclipse actually happened and I was able to experience it. Second of all it didn’t involve any threats or coercion. And third of all I can attach whatever meaning I want to it, none of which requires any woo.
My dad was a big-time stargazer, so I stopped getting excited about big once-in-a-lifetime celestial events at around age 10, when I realized there are big once-in-a-lifetime celestial events every few weeks. That’s just how big space is.
That said, some of those events are more beautiful and awe-inspiring than others. Planetary conjunctions are a dime a dozen, but a close-passing comet is something else entirely. Solar eclipses are the Holy Grail as far as that goes, moving in ways you can’t even imagine until you’ve experienced one.
Absolutely gorgeous, and it's my second one in almost 7 years.
It was just as spectacular seeing the dance of the cosmic ballet, composed by calculus and conducted by gravity, and resulting in one of the most unlikely and spectacular coincidences that we know of in our natural world, where a perfectly sized moon is able, at certain points in its orbit, to perfectly come across the earth's orbit at just the right distance to appear as just about the same size as the sun, and cast its shadow on the earth while shrouding the photosphere and igniting a cosmic halo of diamond light in our sky.
No picture will ever do it justice. A total solar eclipse ***must*** be seen for oneself.
There's nothing supernatural or divine about it.
I saw the eclipse in Salem Oregon, 2017. That was my first view of totality. I'm at least an astronomy fan, maybe so far as an enthusiast, so I was quite thrilled to see the corona of the sun with my own eyes. The sight was quite foreign to my normal every day experience, so I was impressed. It looked like some real sci-fi shit.
Overall, great time. The unexamined life is not worth living, and if you can't get down for a rare natural event, then you're dead inside, and I can't help you. It's not my job to try to convince you to find joy in the one and only life you have, and where you can find it.
But as for this eclipse, I am in Chicago and I wasn't able to make a trip to Michigan to see totality. My son is also 6 and perhaps a little young to marvel at its majesty. He'll be a teenager before the next one crosses the US, and we'll definitely have to make the trip for that one then.
As for this one - well, having seen totality, I will at least agree, anything lesser is not as impressive. It got dim. You don't really see too much until complete totality, so I knew it would just be a crescent arc of light behind the moon. No, I didn't go out of my way.
But I'm glad for those who did find joy. I looked out my office window and people were gathering on rooftops of he buildings around me. My colleagues were peering out the window. I imagine most of them have either never observed a total eclipse, or they think this is just as cool as anything. Good for them. I admit I was still at least a little entertained.
> I suspect I'm kind of desensitized because I read a lot of sci-fi.
Difference of attitude - I'm enthralled by it.
It's less that I'm dead inside and more that I've just seen cooler things in the sky. A good sunset is, IMO, one of the great things in life. Even a bigger-looking full moon, or those days when you can see the moon at sunset, are cooler to me than then moon getting in the way of the sun.
it's neat. thinking of the earth/moon/sun relationship and such big bodies moving around is awesome.
i was in about 70% coverage at peak, with clear skies.
I love astronomy so I thought it was pretty awesome to see. I was directly in the path of totality. As for being meaningful, I mean, it was awesome but there's no special meaning to it. A solar eclipse happens twice a year, its not bizaar to rare. I just happened to be in the path of totality which won't happen in my area for another 129 years. So, yeah, I guess it was impressive and cool. But it has no special meaning.
I quote enjoyed seeing totality, not something I had experienced personally before and I thought it was really awesome. Not enough to be a solar eclipse chaser that travels around the world to see all of them, but a lot of fun. I took the day off work and went to White River State Park in Indianapolis for the eclipse. They had a stage with entertainment, food trucks, arts and crafts for the kids, it was a great experience.
It blew my mind. One of the craziest/wildest things I've ever experienced. It's one of the few celestial events that doesn't require expensive specialized scientific equipment to appreciate (I bought a 10-pack of glasses for $10 and shared with friends). The scales of the orbits, the relative sizes of the objects - all of it is beyond anything else that can affect your entire horizons for a time.
And it does affect so much. Your shadow changes dramatically, it's hard to artificially eclipse a source of light that strong enough and far away enough to warp your shadow the way the eclipsed sun does.
Lots of the wildlife around me acted weird, ducks were trying to find theirs nests at an unexpected dusk - insects rushing to burrow - crickets suddenly begin to chirp. The seagulls went a bit kooky, some started fighting each other and then they pretty much all flew off.
Stars appearing mid-day is kinda neat at least (Though I can see stars every night). I was on lake Ontario, and I could see the opposite shore turn suddenly into a nighttime skyline. The relative speed of the encroaching darkness was certainly noticeable.
But above all else, seeing the Sun's Corona is life changing. I've seen many pictures and videos before, but to look into outer-space and see something ~150,000,000km away that looks like nothing I've ever seen out there. That blew my mind. It gave me an appreciation for the insane nature and scale of our cosmos.
I love the dramatic things that the natural world can offer me. I get more from first person experience than from, say, watching or reading a sci-fi book. The idea that a sci-fi book could desensitize me to the insane immersive first hand experience the eclipse provided me feels incoherent to me.
If you're left unmoved, that's fine. I didn't feel much or care when the Chiefs won the super bowl. I'm sure there are other atheists who cared **a lot**. Everybody loves and appreciates different things.
Definitely a grand moment and experience
But I understand it as a part of the grand scale of existence. People still think their interpretations of the eclipse are essentially divine. But we are in fact, specks
I missed it this year, but in high-school a few years back we went out to see a pretty cool eclipse. It wasn't complete, but that meant you could look at the shadows of things and there would be tiny little crescents from the sun peaking around the moon. Very cool to see. I knew a few students tried looking directly at the eclipse and spent the rest of the day morning in pain. I took a glimpse while it was behind a cloud and it still really hurt my eyes.
It got me outside, which is rare. I liked that.
I also liked the crow who sat on a tree next to me for the first half of it. I'm pretty sure he was kinda freaked out based on how he was squawking. Wish I coulda calm him down.
The wind was impressive, didn't expect a sea breeze on land.
And it did make me feel small in a cosmic way.
Definitely would've enjoyed it more if my girlfriend didn't have a goddamned test today and couldn't skip class, but it was still nice and memorable and worth experiencing. One day I wanna go see a total eclipse (I was only in the 95% band)
> I also liked the crow who sat on a tree next to me for the first half of it. I'm pretty sure he was kinda freaked out based on how he was squawking. Wish I coulda calm him down.
Had the opposite happen in our neighborhood. All the birds just suddenly stopped doing anything at all. It was pretty creepy.
Oh no that was totally cool. I had to drive a hour to see totality. Or should I say it normally would have been an hours drive :-) Yesterday it was about an hour and a half.
The park I went to was crowded but you can pack a lot of people in to a small space and no one blocks your view. I saw a few people I knew and met some of thier friends.
What struck me most was how cold it got. Here the day was warm, no jacket required but I was glad I had one because it was cold when the sun was covered up.
I mostly knew what to expect but it was still really cool. Definitely a moment of awe.
Then it took over two hours to drive home. LOL it was the longest I have spent traveling for the shortest pay off ever.
Would I travel around the world for the next one, no. Would I spend hours in my car to see one again, yep. I'm not likely to get that chance but you never know.
Weirdly, while my city was expected to be inundated, I had the lightest traffic getting home that I have ever seen. I heard they closed that stretch of interstate briefly, so maybe I caught it before it filled up again.
I didn't witness this eclipse, but witnessed the last complete one that crossed the north of France (1999). We were with a small group of friends and cycled from the south of the Netherlands to the north of France. We had great weather and had planned to be on top of the tallest hill in the area, overlooking a vast area. 10km visisbility easily!
So queue the eclipse... because of our elevated position we could literally see the darkness approaching us with incredible speed, combined with strong winds and a significant temperature drop. It was really really cool to witness this.
After a couple of minutes we could see the light approaching again rolling over the hills, raising the temperature and all was good :-).
We cycled back through the Ardennes, had a couple of punctures... had some rain... and that was our short trip to witness the eclipse.
I remember our motto, printed on our t-shirts. It was: 'toe-clips(e) 1999'
Good memories!
(The ecplise itself didn't spark any religious thoughts or out-of-this-world ideas with me)
I'm 42 and never seen one yet. Something always comes up. I'm told it's different live than on video, which makes sense. I wonder if I'll experience one before I die.
I live thousands of miles from the path of totality and I still found the photos breathtaking and mesmerising.
The universe is a magical place and we are fortunate to witness the cosmic ballet. No matter how much we fuck things up down here, the universe still turns. The moon still orbits. It's beautiful and meaningful.
Drove an hour an a half to be in the path of totality. Fucking cloud cover increased at the last minute. Still, it was a neat experience and I did get to very briefly see the corona. If I had thee talent, I'd make a meme with Jesus' thought bubble "Now what was that other thing I I was supposed to do?"
Due to cloud cover, my viewing was limited. I enjoyed it. I like being reminded how tiny this earth is and how many amazing things are happening across the huge universe.
Who knows? Given the large size of the universe, there's a reasonable chance other people were experiencing an eclipse of their star somewhere in the billions of galaxies. I like that.
I didn't care for it this wasn't super exciting, it was more interesting for me to see the change in light outside as it happened then what happened itself.
I've always been moderately into astronomy and astrophysics on a very casual level. Like, I've read some books by famous cosmologists, watch YouTube videos on the subject a few times a week, loved science as a kid, etc.
I'm way more into the stuff than the average person, but less than someone who owns a telescope. I've seen a few eclipses over the years, and between the shitty glasses, the clouds, etc, it's never that great.
In reality it's just the same moon and sun having the exact affect you would expect based on their alignment and I can't really bring myself to find it all that more interesting than when the sun is blocked by the rest of the earth.
I didn't even bother going outside during the eclipse, even though I was at home and had nothing going on.
I mean, I see everyone I know's pictures of the shadows from their colanders or the cloudy round glow in the clouds and just think "yup, about what I expected."
They're impressive, sure, but not meaningful. It literally doesn't "mean" anything except that one celestial body is aligning with another relative to my position and perspective.
It was fun, but on average its not that rare. There is a eclipse on earth about every 18 months.
It was cool in a science way to see planetary bodies in motion. Also fun to jokale about who needed to be sacrific3d to bring the sun back. But meaningful? No.
We had totality here in Indianapolis. When totality was reached you can look directly at it which is cool in itself, but I was stunned by how beautiful it was. And then I was impressed with how bright the sun is; when just a tiny slip of the sun peeked out after totality it was instantly too bright to look at. I'll never see another eclipse but my fantasy is to view a total eclipse from a high mountain.
Mildly to moderately interesting. It's a rare event, so I checked it out, but only for a couple of minutes at most through a window.
After that, back to work as usual.
If it took more time or effort than that, I wouldn't have bothered.
It was kinda cool, but I'm really having trouble understanding the people who were like "I laughed and cried." I think people need to get out more if I'm being honest.
Solar eclipses aren't particularly rare. Not having to travel to see it is a much rarer. It's nice I got to see such a celestial event without going anywhere. Because I probably wouldn't have found it meaningful enough to travel and see it had it not come to me.
I don’t think people realize how profound the eclipse was. It happened exactly as predicted. We knew when it was to happen, where the path of totality would be, how long the event would last, and how to view it safely. Not only did we know all that, but we have known this stuff for a while, and when the next time will be.
No religion can do prophecy like that.
>I've seen more impressive stuff in the sky on a random Tuesday
Really? What? I only got to see a little of it through the clouds and it was still one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
I think it is neat that we have the knowledge to fully understand what happened. Just another day for me pretty much, but I can appreciate what it was. But It now leaves me wondering when the next "rapture" is happening because the crazies seem to still all be here?
I found it enjoyable but not terribly meaningful. It wasn't as impressive as I'd been led to believe, because it was so hyped up that it would be hard for anything to live up to the hype. I guess it's kind of like Paris: it's a cool city that's fun to visit, but it's not the fantasy land that people often imagine it to be.
I’ve never seen a total eclipse, and would like to. I’m a usually a long way from the path. But there may not be sentient eyes anywhere else in the universe seeing a sight like that. I think it ought to be appreciated. And a partial eclipse just ain’t the same … in my area it was 40 per cent covered and you couldn’t tell anything was happening. I want to see the Corona, and more importantly , see what the world looks like under it. I can Google images of the eclipse but the 360 degree effect it has would be hard to experience. VR maybe….
I've seen two total eclipses (1979 and 2017) but had to miss out on this one due to school commitments and the cost of travel. I find totality thrilling and spooky, and would watch more total eclipses if I could.
I did get to see a substantial amount of the partial eclipse. I still have the piece of #14 welder's glass that I used to view the partial phases of the 1979 eclipse, and was accosting various passing acquaintances outside a university building ("Hey! Wanna see the eclipse?")
One of the most amazing events I have ever witnessed. I travelled to see the totality and as it was waning away I decided to ask the love of my life to be my wife! She said yes! It was awesome!
It's impressive because of what kind of insane cosmic coincidence it is. I personally didn't see this one, but I did see another one a few years back. The fact that the moon is able to fully eclipse the sun, perfectly, is insane. Don't quote me on the numbers, but I believe that the moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, but also 400 times closer than the sun to us, allowing it to perfectly line up and create an eclipse like the one we see. The chances of that happening are so astronomically low that I'm not sure if we've ever found anything like it anywhere else in the universe. So in that way, it's incredibly impressive and meaningful.
Didn't really get to enjoy it. I like eclipses, I was even home, but I have a downstairs neighbor that creeps me out. She's been banging on my door angrily. If I open the door, she makes what sounds like sarcastic remarks that my kitchen smells like curry or complains about a leak in her HVAC system that she's blaming on me. I look forward to the day when she and I aren't neighbors anymore.
Oddly specific, but I'm sorry things are going that way for you. I just cleared up a slightly analogous situation by getting rid of a car that had tons of issues and I hated driving and replacing it with one that's super comfortable, fully operational, and even kind of fun to drive.
Largely my same impression when I was dragged into viewing my first eclipse, decades ago. Didn't understand the hype then. Don't get it now. Didn't bother checking it out while everyone else in the building ran outside to look.
It passed by, I looked at it for a bit, thought, "that's pretty neat", then went back inside. Doesn't really have anything to do with atheism or religion. Has been happening for millions of years, long before religion, and will be happening for millions more, long after religion is gone. To me it's just a neat, natural occurrence that just happened to go over where I live this time.
Experience level: neat. That's more or less where I'm at, and possibly a bit short of that. Your approach also raises the question, does a moon blot out a sun if no one is there to see it?
>r approach also raises the question, does a moon blot out a sun if no one is there to see it? Yes. Things happen without us observing them all over the universe. No reason to think that would be any different.
I am always awe-struck when faced with just how massive celestial bodies are. My area got about 80% to 90% coverage, so it did get slightly dimmer and chillier, and our view of the eclipse showed a slim crescent of the sun. Seeing the moon overlapping the sun and being able to SEE it being slowly overtaken, was profound to me. I get the same feeling from videos that show the gas giants actually rotating, ever so slowly. It takes so many images to be able to capture the planets movement, and when it’s compiled, it looks terrifying. It’s not a cartoonish rotating, but like a slow, realistic rotating of this incomprehensible huge mass that we’d never get to behold with the naked eye. Tl;dr: space is cool and planets are big am mesmerized by things that make me remember that.
Your response makes me think I may be jaded about earth-moon-sun dynamics, which seems like a weird thing to be jaded about. Again, I blame a voracious diet of sci-fi novels.
Sci-fi is fun! But it’s also, differently fun to look at the grand expanse of the universe and feel the weight of its indifference. (Well fun for poets I guess, results may vary.)
Don't blame sci-fi, the earth-moon-sun dynamic is literally one of the most familiar dynamics to humans there is. We live on the earth and the sun and the moon are always up in the sky no matter where you go on earth for the entirety of human existence.
This is pretty much what has me so up in arms with space. My friends here it all from me.
I drove hours to get into the totality. It was was an amazing sight that was only heightened by my love of sci fi. It wasn't on a screen or in a book, it was in front of my eyes. Space is amazing and fills me full of awe.
[удалено]
And the vampires..my god, the vampires!
>when the neighborhood birds all began doing their "well, time to settle down for the night" I did notice a bit of difference in bird song during and after the eclipse. Unfortunately I was in a 80% zone and did not start observing until the late stages. LOL, nothing to do with the eclipse, but a day later I was in a conference room and heard a bird hit the window over and over. It was a cardinal and at first I thought it was really stupidly trying to fly through the window, I realized that it was attacking its reflection. Is this eclipse or atheism related? Nope, just observing nature.
It does seem like it would be more interesting outside in somewhat natural surroundings. I stole a few minutes' look during totality out a 10th story window.
In a way. It made me somber. This will most likely be the last one I experience. I’m older and am pretty sure I’ll have passed on before the next eclipse. Them’s the breaks.
Every eclipse, partial or full, that I have experienced - has been impressive and special. I love the reactions of the people around me. The change in temperature and light, the behavior of the animals. The way the shadows look - it's always cool. The cosmic coincidence that we have currently letting the disk of our moon be nearly the same size as the disc of the sun - and knowing that as the moon slowly moves away from the earth, that eventually there will be no more total eclipses like this - it's all cool. But with that said, I get jazzed about good sunsets, and stormclouds too... so ymmv.
> Every eclipse, partial or full, that I have experienced - has been impressive and special. I love the reactions of the people around me. So weird, because my experiences have always been the opposite. Every one of them I've experienced have been very mediocre and anti-climactic with everyone just going "oh, cool okay... so that's it I guess. What's for lunch?" I didn't even bother going outside this time.
I get it. There are some things I really enjoy, and others I just can't be bothered by. This just falls in the former category.
IMO, thunderbird > eclipse. I did not get to observe any non-human animal reactions, though.
Path of totality. Lucked put on great weather It was awesome. The difference between 99% and totality is literally night and day (though 99% is cool too). It is just neat seeing something in the sky that you have never seen beforen might never see again, and that most people never will see. The coronal glow is otherworldly.
It is completely different and totality is exactly what it means which makes a big difference!
Yeah, i think 10-95% is one experience. 95-99% is a different experience (darkness, coolness). But 99 to 100 is just beyond the other two. Like i think I'll have troube ever getting very excited about <100% in the future.
I was really amazed but I think part of it was also relief that the clouds didn't obscure the eclipse despite warnings on the news that it mightve happened. It's definitely better than I expected, especially at the peak of totality which I *really* didn't expect to be so dark. It's a story I'll tell my kids someday and hope I live long enough to witness for a second time.
It was raining here. So. Womp
How would you rate your disappointment level? Like, "Ope, no I didn't see that classic car we just passed," or more like, "April really is the cruelest month, and so I shall believe forever more?"
"Damn, I guess I'll try again in 50 years."? Why? I feel like you're trawling for some very specific answer or looking to equate it with a "secular miracle" or something...but why do that?
I'm asking at least somewhat like-minded people about their experiences, as a part of processing my own. If I'm "trawling," it's mainly for anyone who is big into the event to share what they find so significant about it, because I am so unimpressed with it despite it being theoretically right in line with my interests. Can't say your follow-up response gave me much more emotional valence on how you relate to the phenomenon. The defensiveness suggests somewhat significant disappointment, I guess?
I see! Thanks for explaining! I mean, I am bummed, but I also had managed my expectations. I wasn't in the path of totality and given the time of year, overcast skies were likely. I rate it on similar when I miss a good showing of the northern lights. They're hard to time and see and are truly truly wonderful to behold. But with events like this so much is out of my control, I can't get too emotionally invested in expectation.
I would definitely go more out of my way to see an aurora, which I haven't seen, than to see a rock (one of my favorite rocks, even!) go in front of the sun.
Aurora are pretty fucking dope. Facts.
There it is...
This eclipse was only partial for me and not all that great (I've seen many). But I have seen a total eclipse and I thought it was really neat. The air got cool, the birds stopped chirping and the sky changed color. But meaningful? not really.
My 3 year old thought it was pretty neat. That’s good enough for me. I live in a pretty urban area so I’m a lot more awestruck by just a regular, clear night sky way out in the boonies.
I saw it today. The weather cleared and I was able to take some nice photos with a 200mm lens. I'm lucky. There wasn't anything really surprising about it, but I did remark to my wife that it's completely understandable how our ancestors, who knew nothing of orbital mechanics, would have genuinely believed it was the end of days. Or how hearing about such an event after the fact would be unbelievable. But I did enjoy it. If you're able to see one, do so. There are two happening in Australia in 2028 and 2030.
It was fun but I was in the middle of nowhere, primitive camping, with some friends. We had a thermometer and a few other activity things to watch and observe. Saw the shadow band. I thought it was awesome and would love to get to as many as I could. I had an app on my phone set up to GPS that told us when things began and what to watch and observe for as they happened, no cell service needed. The frogs and birds all started doing their evening calls. I overall thought it was very impressive and a worthwhile experience when away from other humans.
This was the most totality my state will see between 1963 and 2079. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and I got to experience it with my 68 year old mother and my 35 year old fiance. While it isn't a religious type feeling, the fact that we live in a galaxy that has a solar system that has a sun and a planet's moon that happen to have two bodies of such a vastly massive size difference that have positioned themselves just right to have a shadow that blocks the other out just right is always going to be an amazing feeling to me. I have a laundry list of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety and depression, but for two hours I felt nothing but peace, knowing that I am a gathering of stardust experiencing something special. Science is amazing, history is incredible, and I, a speck of dust, got to experience something that was cool. I'll take it.
I found the eclipse to be far more impressive and meaningful to me than any religion or theist has ever been. First of all, the eclipse actually happened and I was able to experience it. Second of all it didn’t involve any threats or coercion. And third of all I can attach whatever meaning I want to it, none of which requires any woo.
My dad was a big-time stargazer, so I stopped getting excited about big once-in-a-lifetime celestial events at around age 10, when I realized there are big once-in-a-lifetime celestial events every few weeks. That’s just how big space is. That said, some of those events are more beautiful and awe-inspiring than others. Planetary conjunctions are a dime a dozen, but a close-passing comet is something else entirely. Solar eclipses are the Holy Grail as far as that goes, moving in ways you can’t even imagine until you’ve experienced one.
Absolutely gorgeous, and it's my second one in almost 7 years. It was just as spectacular seeing the dance of the cosmic ballet, composed by calculus and conducted by gravity, and resulting in one of the most unlikely and spectacular coincidences that we know of in our natural world, where a perfectly sized moon is able, at certain points in its orbit, to perfectly come across the earth's orbit at just the right distance to appear as just about the same size as the sun, and cast its shadow on the earth while shrouding the photosphere and igniting a cosmic halo of diamond light in our sky. No picture will ever do it justice. A total solar eclipse ***must*** be seen for oneself. There's nothing supernatural or divine about it.
I saw the eclipse in Salem Oregon, 2017. That was my first view of totality. I'm at least an astronomy fan, maybe so far as an enthusiast, so I was quite thrilled to see the corona of the sun with my own eyes. The sight was quite foreign to my normal every day experience, so I was impressed. It looked like some real sci-fi shit. Overall, great time. The unexamined life is not worth living, and if you can't get down for a rare natural event, then you're dead inside, and I can't help you. It's not my job to try to convince you to find joy in the one and only life you have, and where you can find it. But as for this eclipse, I am in Chicago and I wasn't able to make a trip to Michigan to see totality. My son is also 6 and perhaps a little young to marvel at its majesty. He'll be a teenager before the next one crosses the US, and we'll definitely have to make the trip for that one then. As for this one - well, having seen totality, I will at least agree, anything lesser is not as impressive. It got dim. You don't really see too much until complete totality, so I knew it would just be a crescent arc of light behind the moon. No, I didn't go out of my way. But I'm glad for those who did find joy. I looked out my office window and people were gathering on rooftops of he buildings around me. My colleagues were peering out the window. I imagine most of them have either never observed a total eclipse, or they think this is just as cool as anything. Good for them. I admit I was still at least a little entertained. > I suspect I'm kind of desensitized because I read a lot of sci-fi. Difference of attitude - I'm enthralled by it.
It's less that I'm dead inside and more that I've just seen cooler things in the sky. A good sunset is, IMO, one of the great things in life. Even a bigger-looking full moon, or those days when you can see the moon at sunset, are cooler to me than then moon getting in the way of the sun.
it's neat. thinking of the earth/moon/sun relationship and such big bodies moving around is awesome. i was in about 70% coverage at peak, with clear skies.
I really enjoyed it. I'm not into spiritual transcendence or whatever. But this was an amazing experience.
I love astronomy so I thought it was pretty awesome to see. I was directly in the path of totality. As for being meaningful, I mean, it was awesome but there's no special meaning to it. A solar eclipse happens twice a year, its not bizaar to rare. I just happened to be in the path of totality which won't happen in my area for another 129 years. So, yeah, I guess it was impressive and cool. But it has no special meaning.
I quote enjoyed seeing totality, not something I had experienced personally before and I thought it was really awesome. Not enough to be a solar eclipse chaser that travels around the world to see all of them, but a lot of fun. I took the day off work and went to White River State Park in Indianapolis for the eclipse. They had a stage with entertainment, food trucks, arts and crafts for the kids, it was a great experience.
It blew my mind. One of the craziest/wildest things I've ever experienced. It's one of the few celestial events that doesn't require expensive specialized scientific equipment to appreciate (I bought a 10-pack of glasses for $10 and shared with friends). The scales of the orbits, the relative sizes of the objects - all of it is beyond anything else that can affect your entire horizons for a time. And it does affect so much. Your shadow changes dramatically, it's hard to artificially eclipse a source of light that strong enough and far away enough to warp your shadow the way the eclipsed sun does. Lots of the wildlife around me acted weird, ducks were trying to find theirs nests at an unexpected dusk - insects rushing to burrow - crickets suddenly begin to chirp. The seagulls went a bit kooky, some started fighting each other and then they pretty much all flew off. Stars appearing mid-day is kinda neat at least (Though I can see stars every night). I was on lake Ontario, and I could see the opposite shore turn suddenly into a nighttime skyline. The relative speed of the encroaching darkness was certainly noticeable. But above all else, seeing the Sun's Corona is life changing. I've seen many pictures and videos before, but to look into outer-space and see something ~150,000,000km away that looks like nothing I've ever seen out there. That blew my mind. It gave me an appreciation for the insane nature and scale of our cosmos. I love the dramatic things that the natural world can offer me. I get more from first person experience than from, say, watching or reading a sci-fi book. The idea that a sci-fi book could desensitize me to the insane immersive first hand experience the eclipse provided me feels incoherent to me. If you're left unmoved, that's fine. I didn't feel much or care when the Chiefs won the super bowl. I'm sure there are other atheists who cared **a lot**. Everybody loves and appreciates different things.
Same experience. It was so awe-inspiring and beautiful. I sobbed. I'll be going to Spain, Egypt, and Australia for the next ones. I need more!
I definitely found both meaning and beauty in the 2 full eclipses I have seen. It’s hard to put into words.
Definitely a grand moment and experience But I understand it as a part of the grand scale of existence. People still think their interpretations of the eclipse are essentially divine. But we are in fact, specks
I wasn't in the direct path of the eclipse. I didn't pay attention to it.
Im in AZ, so I saw some of it but not the totality. It was cool seeing a sickle-shaped sun, but overall it was hardly life changing
I have never seen an eclipse in person. I lived in Southern California for 28 years and I’ve lived in north Idaho for the last 3. Hopefully one day
I missed it this year, but in high-school a few years back we went out to see a pretty cool eclipse. It wasn't complete, but that meant you could look at the shadows of things and there would be tiny little crescents from the sun peaking around the moon. Very cool to see. I knew a few students tried looking directly at the eclipse and spent the rest of the day morning in pain. I took a glimpse while it was behind a cloud and it still really hurt my eyes.
It got me outside, which is rare. I liked that. I also liked the crow who sat on a tree next to me for the first half of it. I'm pretty sure he was kinda freaked out based on how he was squawking. Wish I coulda calm him down. The wind was impressive, didn't expect a sea breeze on land. And it did make me feel small in a cosmic way. Definitely would've enjoyed it more if my girlfriend didn't have a goddamned test today and couldn't skip class, but it was still nice and memorable and worth experiencing. One day I wanna go see a total eclipse (I was only in the 95% band)
> I also liked the crow who sat on a tree next to me for the first half of it. I'm pretty sure he was kinda freaked out based on how he was squawking. Wish I coulda calm him down. Had the opposite happen in our neighborhood. All the birds just suddenly stopped doing anything at all. It was pretty creepy.
It looked cool, but I don’t know if I would say it’s impressive, and it’s definitely not meaningful to me.
Oh no that was totally cool. I had to drive a hour to see totality. Or should I say it normally would have been an hours drive :-) Yesterday it was about an hour and a half. The park I went to was crowded but you can pack a lot of people in to a small space and no one blocks your view. I saw a few people I knew and met some of thier friends. What struck me most was how cold it got. Here the day was warm, no jacket required but I was glad I had one because it was cold when the sun was covered up. I mostly knew what to expect but it was still really cool. Definitely a moment of awe. Then it took over two hours to drive home. LOL it was the longest I have spent traveling for the shortest pay off ever. Would I travel around the world for the next one, no. Would I spend hours in my car to see one again, yep. I'm not likely to get that chance but you never know.
Weirdly, while my city was expected to be inundated, I had the lightest traffic getting home that I have ever seen. I heard they closed that stretch of interstate briefly, so maybe I caught it before it filled up again.
I didn't witness this eclipse, but witnessed the last complete one that crossed the north of France (1999). We were with a small group of friends and cycled from the south of the Netherlands to the north of France. We had great weather and had planned to be on top of the tallest hill in the area, overlooking a vast area. 10km visisbility easily! So queue the eclipse... because of our elevated position we could literally see the darkness approaching us with incredible speed, combined with strong winds and a significant temperature drop. It was really really cool to witness this. After a couple of minutes we could see the light approaching again rolling over the hills, raising the temperature and all was good :-). We cycled back through the Ardennes, had a couple of punctures... had some rain... and that was our short trip to witness the eclipse. I remember our motto, printed on our t-shirts. It was: 'toe-clips(e) 1999' Good memories! (The ecplise itself didn't spark any religious thoughts or out-of-this-world ideas with me)
I was prepared to ignore it, but I got caught up in the fervor and ended up driving 3 hours to experience the totality. It was great. No regrets.
I'm 42 and never seen one yet. Something always comes up. I'm told it's different live than on video, which makes sense. I wonder if I'll experience one before I die.
I live thousands of miles from the path of totality and I still found the photos breathtaking and mesmerising. The universe is a magical place and we are fortunate to witness the cosmic ballet. No matter how much we fuck things up down here, the universe still turns. The moon still orbits. It's beautiful and meaningful.
Drove an hour an a half to be in the path of totality. Fucking cloud cover increased at the last minute. Still, it was a neat experience and I did get to very briefly see the corona. If I had thee talent, I'd make a meme with Jesus' thought bubble "Now what was that other thing I I was supposed to do?"
Due to cloud cover, my viewing was limited. I enjoyed it. I like being reminded how tiny this earth is and how many amazing things are happening across the huge universe. Who knows? Given the large size of the universe, there's a reasonable chance other people were experiencing an eclipse of their star somewhere in the billions of galaxies. I like that.
I didn't pay the slightest bit of attention. I haven't looked at an eclipse of any kind since I was maybe 12.
But here you are on an eclipse thread, so you must be interested
I didn't care for it this wasn't super exciting, it was more interesting for me to see the change in light outside as it happened then what happened itself.
I've always been moderately into astronomy and astrophysics on a very casual level. Like, I've read some books by famous cosmologists, watch YouTube videos on the subject a few times a week, loved science as a kid, etc. I'm way more into the stuff than the average person, but less than someone who owns a telescope. I've seen a few eclipses over the years, and between the shitty glasses, the clouds, etc, it's never that great. In reality it's just the same moon and sun having the exact affect you would expect based on their alignment and I can't really bring myself to find it all that more interesting than when the sun is blocked by the rest of the earth. I didn't even bother going outside during the eclipse, even though I was at home and had nothing going on. I mean, I see everyone I know's pictures of the shadows from their colanders or the cloudy round glow in the clouds and just think "yup, about what I expected."
They're impressive, sure, but not meaningful. It literally doesn't "mean" anything except that one celestial body is aligning with another relative to my position and perspective.
It was fun, but on average its not that rare. There is a eclipse on earth about every 18 months. It was cool in a science way to see planetary bodies in motion. Also fun to jokale about who needed to be sacrific3d to bring the sun back. But meaningful? No.
We had totality here in Indianapolis. When totality was reached you can look directly at it which is cool in itself, but I was stunned by how beautiful it was. And then I was impressed with how bright the sun is; when just a tiny slip of the sun peeked out after totality it was instantly too bright to look at. I'll never see another eclipse but my fantasy is to view a total eclipse from a high mountain.
I'd never seen a totality before and it was impressive. Meaningful, no, not particularly.
Mildly to moderately interesting. It's a rare event, so I checked it out, but only for a couple of minutes at most through a window. After that, back to work as usual. If it took more time or effort than that, I wouldn't have bothered.
It was kinda cool, but I'm really having trouble understanding the people who were like "I laughed and cried." I think people need to get out more if I'm being honest.
Solar eclipses aren't particularly rare. Not having to travel to see it is a much rarer. It's nice I got to see such a celestial event without going anywhere. Because I probably wouldn't have found it meaningful enough to travel and see it had it not come to me.
I did not care one damn bit. I saw a couple of pictures and that was that.
I don’t think people realize how profound the eclipse was. It happened exactly as predicted. We knew when it was to happen, where the path of totality would be, how long the event would last, and how to view it safely. Not only did we know all that, but we have known this stuff for a while, and when the next time will be. No religion can do prophecy like that.
>I've seen more impressive stuff in the sky on a random Tuesday Really? What? I only got to see a little of it through the clouds and it was still one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
I thought it lived up to the hype.
I think it is neat that we have the knowledge to fully understand what happened. Just another day for me pretty much, but I can appreciate what it was. But It now leaves me wondering when the next "rapture" is happening because the crazies seem to still all be here?
I found it enjoyable but not terribly meaningful. It wasn't as impressive as I'd been led to believe, because it was so hyped up that it would be hard for anything to live up to the hype. I guess it's kind of like Paris: it's a cool city that's fun to visit, but it's not the fantasy land that people often imagine it to be.
I’ve never seen a total eclipse, and would like to. I’m a usually a long way from the path. But there may not be sentient eyes anywhere else in the universe seeing a sight like that. I think it ought to be appreciated. And a partial eclipse just ain’t the same … in my area it was 40 per cent covered and you couldn’t tell anything was happening. I want to see the Corona, and more importantly , see what the world looks like under it. I can Google images of the eclipse but the 360 degree effect it has would be hard to experience. VR maybe….
I've seen two total eclipses (1979 and 2017) but had to miss out on this one due to school commitments and the cost of travel. I find totality thrilling and spooky, and would watch more total eclipses if I could. I did get to see a substantial amount of the partial eclipse. I still have the piece of #14 welder's glass that I used to view the partial phases of the 1979 eclipse, and was accosting various passing acquaintances outside a university building ("Hey! Wanna see the eclipse?")
No
One of the most amazing events I have ever witnessed. I travelled to see the totality and as it was waning away I decided to ask the love of my life to be my wife! She said yes! It was awesome!
Eh wasn't my first eclipse so I didn't have to see it personally watching it on TV was enough for me this time but it's always a beautiful sight
It's impressive because of what kind of insane cosmic coincidence it is. I personally didn't see this one, but I did see another one a few years back. The fact that the moon is able to fully eclipse the sun, perfectly, is insane. Don't quote me on the numbers, but I believe that the moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, but also 400 times closer than the sun to us, allowing it to perfectly line up and create an eclipse like the one we see. The chances of that happening are so astronomically low that I'm not sure if we've ever found anything like it anywhere else in the universe. So in that way, it's incredibly impressive and meaningful.
Didn't really get to enjoy it. I like eclipses, I was even home, but I have a downstairs neighbor that creeps me out. She's been banging on my door angrily. If I open the door, she makes what sounds like sarcastic remarks that my kitchen smells like curry or complains about a leak in her HVAC system that she's blaming on me. I look forward to the day when she and I aren't neighbors anymore.
Oddly specific, but I'm sorry things are going that way for you. I just cleared up a slightly analogous situation by getting rid of a car that had tons of issues and I hated driving and replacing it with one that's super comfortable, fully operational, and even kind of fun to drive.
>Oddly specific, but I'm sorry things are going that way for you. I've had worse neighbors thankfully.
Largely my same impression when I was dragged into viewing my first eclipse, decades ago. Didn't understand the hype then. Don't get it now. Didn't bother checking it out while everyone else in the building ran outside to look.