Solar Eclipse in Kansas

It is happening now and quite exciting. Unfortunately, it is cloudy. :unamused: At a break in the clouds, I took a picture through a welding lens. When the clouds thinned a bit, I was able to take a picture direct.

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Here it was totally underwhelming: it was a cloudy day and while it was darker than usual, it just looked like a grim day in North Yorkshire from my childhood. :slight_smile:

Mind you, where we are, it was not the best place for watching the eclipse.

A Full solar eclipse is a fantastic sight if you are luck enough to get the clear sky to go with it I have been lucky enough to see this twice once in central Thailand and one in Cornwall in the UK.

Sorry you didnā€™t get the weather guys and as you say @jonobacon if you live where I think you do you are too far away to have seen it at its best even if you had got perfect weather.

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It was over 90% covered here, but I was amazed of how much light less than 10% gives. It was like a gloomy winter day.

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Just talked to my wife, who was at home. She said how all the birds quieted down as if it was time to roost.

So the traffic took a while, then ā€¦

apparently it was endless :relieved:

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My boss has a brother that lives in North Platte, NE, right along where the total eclipseā€™s path was. He said there are around 1200 rooms there. They filled up fast, and as they filled up, the price kept going up to the point they were going at $800. All the camp grounds were full and farmers were renting out fields for campers. Have to be pretty desperate to shell out $800 for a room just for two hours of an event!

I saw a total solar eclipse in June 2001. It was awesome. Somebody organised a music festival on some farm land right in the middle of the path of totality, which was nice.
It wasnā€™t the most convenient location, with it being in Zambia and me living in Britain, but as I was an undergraduate at the time me and my mate made the most of it. We spent the whole summer on a pretty memorable road trip across southern Africa.
Suffice to say there wasnā€™t a cloud in the Zambian sky that day.
Having grown accustomed to the hot weather I do remember it getting really rather chilly when it went dark and the stars came out in the middle of the day.

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Where in Zambia were you? The nearest Iā€™ve been is Kenya and the dark sky with the sight of a cloudless sky looking up at the universe with my telescope and spending the day looking at the wildlife was wonderful.

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It was properly in the middle of nowhere. About 50 miles north of Lusaka, if remember correctly.

The festival was called Solipse. Their thing was organising festivals under eclipses. They did a few of them in various places. Thereā€™s bits and pieces of info about it online.

Google image search ā€œSolipse Zambia 2001ā€ for various images of wasted hippies.

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That sounds So. Freakinā€™. Cool !

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Here in Kansas City area I had like 99% coverage and saw a good bit of it, until the clouds rolled in just as it was at itā€™s peakā€¦

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