Willoughby, Ohio: Solar Eclipse—2024 (Pt. 2)

(Continued from Willoughby, Ohio: Solar Eclipse—2024 (Pt. 1))

Featured Photo: “Total Solar Eclipse”  Willoughby, Ohio—2024

6. The Show Must Go On

In that moment of totality, sitting with my solar glasses on, I was momentarily disappointed. All I saw was blackness where light had been; the sun had disappeared. Then I glanced at my wife and saw she had removed her protective glasses. I wondered if I should do the same and realized in that instant, there was no direct sunlight reaching us. It seemed safe, so I also took off my glasses.

In the sky, the sun appeared like a glowing black orb: a ring of white light projecting outward all around the edge of the moon, which hid the face of the sun. While the eclipse was total, I took a few photos that were not spectacular; they did not really capture what we were seeing. The black moon disc was actually much larger, and the ring of light much narrower, than in the photo below.

As I often do, I zoomed in, reframing the shot to get a close-up view of the total eclipse: today’s Featured Photo. While better representing what we saw, the image is marred by the amplified digital noise, which diminished both the technical and visual quality of the picture.

Later, my wife showed me a couple of pictures she had taken during the brief period of totality. I readily admit her photos were far better than mine. She snapped the shot below, capturing the apartment gables and nearby trees to provide perspective. The distant eclipse was high in the sky, appearing brighter than what we saw, and there was a tiny spot of light to the lower right—about 5 o’clock (directionally)—from the eclipsed sun, on a direct line toward the treetops. This was a planet; I believe it was Venus.

During totality, the light-sensing streetlamps went on all around us; it was dusky-dark— about as bright as the night sky under a full moon. And it was chilly; it felt as if a cold breeze was blowing. All the birds became quiet. Nearby, a cricket chirped. My wife took another picture.

Although not apparent in the photo, we experienced the 360-degree sunset, but our view was largely obstructed by the surrounding buildings and trees. This unusual effect is caused by the light from the sun in areas outside the path of totality and only lasts as long as the sun’s face is covered by the moon. From our vantage point looking through the trees, it seemed as if the sun was rising all around us, the sky at the horizon turned a bruised-yellow color.

As we examined the narrow ring of light from the sun more closely, we saw something else quite remarkable. I thought it might be a solar flare but later learned it was a different artifact just as impressive and beautiful: a solar prominence. It also did not show up in the photos we took, but it looked like a small pinkish-orange spike of light extending from the sun, right beside the dark moon disc. (LINK to article below.)

According to NASA, a prominence is really a massive loop of the sun’s plasma that hangs attached to the visible surface of the sun. (LINK to article below.)

Then less than four minutes after it began, the total eclipse ended, and a small sliver of sun became visible again; the light was blinding. As the second Diamond Ring appeared, we had to put our solar glasses back on to watch the moon complete its path in front of the sun. The receding eclipse featured the dark “bite” growing smaller and smaller—the crescent shape decreasing—until the full sun was visible again.

7. Other Reported Sightings

Throughout the day, we exchanged text messages with family and friends, describing our own unique experiences. A friend from college living near Austin, Texas—in the path of totality—texted that the clouds there broke up enough to get a good view of the eclipse. He also saw the solar prominence and agreed the entire event was “pretty cool!” Another college friend who now lives north of Pittsburgh said all but a sliver of the sun was covered. Even so, the ground there was pretty bright, although definitely dimmed. My brother in Memphis made a similar remark, texting that their partial eclipse left just a thin fingernail of a sun, but it was amazing how light it still was. My sister in northwest Arkansas said she watched their partial eclipse alone on her back deck, adding, “It was close, but no cigar.”

My younger son viewed the total eclipse—which he described as a “surreal experience”—along with friends as they sat on the rooftop of the house they rented in Bloomington, in their last days before graduating from Indiana University. He sent a photo that he didn’t think was as good as the one I had shared, but to me, his image was definitely sharper than mine.

My older son took a break while at his job in Los Angeles to view the partial (60%) eclipse. He had shared the extra solar glasses my wife sent him with work colleagues and joked that had enhanced his standing with them. Having graduated with a film degree, he also sent a picture of what he experienced.

When I asked later whether he’d edited the photo, he replied he might have brought down the contrast and exposure, but the orange color was purely natural—or at least as it appeared through the filter of the glasses. (Because the eclipse in LA was just partial, he had to view the entirety of the sun’s progression through solar glasses to save his eyes.)

8. After the Curtain Fell

The next morning as we were getting ready to drive home, I was reflecting on what we had experienced, unable to articulate my feelings. My wife had our hotel-room TV tuned to Good Morning America where they were running a story about the total solar eclipse. As it so happened, the GMA crew had traveled to Cleveland—just a few miles from where we were in Willoughby—to watch the event.

The brief GMA clip is well-worth watching; it runs 4:28—just 30 seconds longer than the period of totality—and truly gives a sense of what people saw, and what they felt. The story featured co-anchors Whit Johnson and Robin Roberts, who together shared the eclipse in Cleveland, both overcome with emotion. To portray the celestial event, which had caused Whit to ponder the questions of the universe, he said the experience was “able to pierce your soul and activate your mind at the same time.” His mom had witnessed the eclipse earlier in the day—down in Mazatlán, Mexico—but he was able to share the experience with her, albeit virtually, feeling connected even though she was 2,000 miles away.

Standing just outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, a tearful Robin Roberts said, “It’s hard to express the emotions that you feel when you see something like this.” She was with Whit, describing how she had been ready to head to the airport before the eclipse even started—perhaps due to a busy schedule, or low expectations of the event. Whit had convinced her to stay, telling her what was remarkable wasn’t what she was going to see, but what she would feel. Robin went on to describe her reaction to the eclipse in powerful and moving terms. Whit commented on what she’d said this way: “While the rest of us are having all these feelings that we can’t put into words, she was able to break through with her emotion, giving the rest of us permission to feel those same things.”

And it was then, after listening to Robin and Whit, that my own feelings about the total eclipse became clear to me. I realized something very special about the amazing experience we had all shared here in the United States: in that brief moment, our country was truly united. As we stood and sat with others, watching in awe and wonder all across America, there were no Democrats or Republicans. There were no blacks, whites, browns, reds, or yellows. There were no Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or atheists. We were all insignificant beings gathered together in a transcendental moment.

9. The Next Big Show

We left Willoughby later than we planned but still took time to stop at a local store where my wife bought a souvenir eclipse t-shirt.

She drove first on our long journey home, giving me a chance to start drafting my blog post and to research some of the astronomical science along the way. Not surprisingly, there was a lot of traffic on the turnpike that resulted in a commensurate increase in accidents, causing further delay. During the trip, reality set back in for us. I remembered I was supposed to be helping proctor (remotely) a final exam for a graduate course I was co-teaching. My wife knew she had to go into Philadelphia for work the next day. The mystery and magic of the eclipse were swiftly swept away, but we were now converts.

We knew we would have to wait 20 years before there was another total eclipse in the continental US. Still, my wife had discovered one would occur over parts of Europe in just two years. So now we are planning a trip to Iceland in August 2026. It was somewhere we wanted to go anyway. Even if the clouds and active volcanic smoke don’t cooperate, we can still explore Iceland’s Golden Circle and the Blue Lagoon.

But if all goes well, we will again be able to experience that transcendental, unifying experience where we all—every man, woman, and child on Earth—are truly equal under the sun.