When 99% Isn’t Good Enough: Get Yourself to Totality!

by Dr. Don Haas

Why you should see totality, what you might do to get ready for the eclipse, and, of course, what you might do during the eclipse!

On March 5, 1946, my mother was a high school student in Columbia, Missouri. A few of her friends encouraged her to join them in skipping school to go see Winston Churchill speak at Westminster College in nearby Fulton, MO. Mom regretted until her dying day not seeing Churchill introduce the concept of “The Iron Curtain” to the world in his speech that day with President Truman also on the stage. The speech is regarded as the marker that began the Cold War. And Mom went to high school that day instead of being a witness to history. 

She long remembered missing history that day. She did not long remember what she did in history (or any other class) that day.

Of course a total solar eclipse is not historic in the same way as Churchill’s speech. But, missing totality would be a personal tragedy in the same way for you and yours as missing Churchill’s speech was for Mom! The next chance you’ll have to see one in the contiguous U.S. will be on Aug. 23, 2044. And that will be limited to Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota in the U.S. The following year will offer an eclipse hitting much more of the U.S. and it’s in August so more cooperative weather is likely. The next total eclipse to hit New York State won’t be until 2079, and in 2079 New York viewing of totality will be limited to a bit of Long Island. 

In Ithaca, New York, where PRI is located, next month’s eclipse will be 99.2% complete. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? No! Sure it will be kind of interesting, but there is a gigantic difference between 99.2% and 100%! It’s a difference between kind of interesting and utter amazement. 

People travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to see total solar eclipses. This will be my third. I traveled to the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula for my first total solar eclipse in 1991. For the 2017 eclipse, I traveled to Idaho. For this April’s eclipse, it’s coming to my house!

If you can get yourself to totality in a few hours, do it! Or regret it.

The 2017 eclipse was a partial eclipse in New York State. This year’s eclipse, if the skies are clear, will be a spectacularly different experience for New Yorkers in the right part of the state. After totality in 2017, a friend’s student summed up the experience well, “I can see why people started religions over this!” 

I’ll also note that that same friend thanked me profusely for encouraging him and his students to get to totality, a couple of hours from his school.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon completely covers the Sun, obscuring its entire disk from view. During this phenomenon, the sky darkens dramatically, revealing the Sun's corona, creating an awe-inspiring spectacle. In contrast, a partial solar eclipse transpires when only a portion of the Sun is obscured by the Moon, leaving a crescent or a similar shape visible. While still remarkable, the partial eclipse lacks the intense darkness and the breathtaking sight of the Sun's corona that characterizes a total solar eclipse. Both events occur when the alignment of the Earth, Moon, and Sun is precise, but the level of coverage and visual impact differ significantly between the two. 

Total solar eclipses happen because of a bit of lucky geometry. The sun’s diameter is 400 times greater than the moon’s and the sun is also 400 times further away. That makes them appear to be almost the exact same size in the sky. They both have an apparent diameter of about a half of a degree. That coincidence gives us an incredible spectacle!

I’ve struggled to find the right metaphor for the difference between partial and total solar eclipses. It’s something like going to see fireworks and 99.2% of the fuse burns and goes out. And then thinking you’ve seen fireworks. Maybe it’s something like being a character in a scary movie and the difference between your car’s engine almost turning over and your car starting. 

What happens as we move into the moon’s shadow?

As the umbra, the dark, central part of the moon’s shadow reaches you, you may see that shadow move in at over a thousand miles an hour. You may then see ripples of light dancing on the ground around you as the last sliver of the sun’s surface is being turned into a sliver of a crescent. These are shadow bands, and look something like the light rippling on the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day. In the moments before totality, you may see Bailey’s Beads and the diamond ring effect, where the last bit of the sun’s surface shines brilliantly through lunar valleys on the moon’s edge and then the very last valley. The temperature will drop as the sun is blotted out, and birds will sing their evening songs. 

At the moment of totality, remove your eclipse glasses. It is perfectly safe to view during totality! 

The winds may noticeably change with the changing temperatures. Mercury, Venus, and possibly Jupiter will appear, and perhaps the brightest stars during totality as well. The sky will look something like a 360° sunset. And, you’ll be looking at the sun’s corona; its outer atmosphere, which is only visible during total solar eclipses. If we’re very lucky, there may be visible solar flares. The sky will appear as you have never seen it before. 

When totality ends, these phenomena will play out in reverse order, and as the sun’s surface reemerges, you’ll need to put your eye protection back in place. A more detailed description of eclipse phenomena is here. 

Depending on where you are, the duration of totality can be as long as 4 minutes, 28 seconds (near Torreón, Mexico). The longest duration in New York State will be about 3 minutes and 45 seconds unless you venture out into Lake Erie. At my house, I’ll get that 3 minutes and 45 seconds, more than a minute longer than when I viewed the 2017 eclipse from Idaho. It won’t be nearly as long as the almost seven minutes of totality we had in Baja, in 1991. There will not be another eclipse with a totality as long as the 1991 eclipse until June 13, 2132!

The last few paragraphs are the phenomena you’ll be looking for during totality. What follows are suggestions about how best to be ready for that, and to enjoy the partial phases of the eclipse.

A few words about safety

The danger of a solar eclipse comes from the fact that the sun becomes more interesting to look at during the eclipse than it is at other times. It is otherwise no more dangerous than on any other day. The greatest danger is that you might be tempted to look at it with a telescope or binoculars. Prior to and after totality, this is very dangerous and looking at a magnified and unfiltered sun can seriously damage eyes in an instant. You also shouldn’t look at it without magnification without appropriate eclipse glasses or other safe viewing apparatus. Indirect viewing is also recommended during the partial phases of the eclipse and there is more information on this below. 

During totality, it is perfectly safe to look at the eclipse! And you should! 

Make sure to inspect your eclipse glasses and filters for telescopes, binoculars, and cameras before using them, and make sure you purchase them from a reputable seller. 

For more on eclipse safety, and more eclipse basics, see NASA’s Eclipse Site. 

What about the weather? 

April in Upstate New York is not famous for clear skies. I had considered making plans to head a couple of hours up or down the eclipse path if the forecast for Buffalo was overcast. Two things made me decide to stay put and hope for the best:

1. The weather isn’t likely to be much different in Rochester or Erie. April 8 in Buffalo has 64% cloud cover (since 2000). Sadly, it doesn’t get much better than that anywhere that is both in New York State (or within a few hours driving distance) and on the line of totality. Within the US, except in southern Texas, the average cloud cover for the date is more than 50%. 

2. The traffic is expected to be terrible during the eclipse and the surrounding hours. Plan to get to the line of totality well before totality, and plan to spend a few hours after totality to let traffic clear. Or plan to sit in traffic. 

What does it mean that the average cloud cover is 64%? It means that on the average April 8th, 64% of the sky is covered by clouds. The GLOBE Program has a simple activity on estimating cloud cover. We’re not naturally very good at that kind of estimation. In the activity, you use blue and white sheets of paper of the same size, with the blue paper serving as the background sky. The white paper is cut or torn to be the appropriate fraction of clouds, and then that fraction is torn into smaller pieces and glued to the blue paper to represent clouds.

Here’s what it looked like for me:

Of course, clouds move. Even if it is this cloudy on April 8, if the clouds are moving, you’ll still see totality in the breaks of the clouds. That’s what happened when I, along with a few hundred Norwich (New York) Middle and High School students and staff watched the annular eclipse on May 10 of 1994. It was a partly cloudy day, but the clouds broke enough for us to witness annularity. I’m hopeful we’ll be at least that lucky next month. (Annular eclipses are a notch cooler than partial eclipses, but nowhere near as amazing as a total eclipse.) 

And, of course, averages are just part of the story. I used Weather Underground to look back at the last several years of weather on April 8 in my area. To do that, just go to the site, search for your location, and click on the “HISTORY” tab, and select the date.  

On April 8, 2021 it reached a near record high of 83° F in Buffalo and most of the day was characterized by fair weather. It was mostly cloudy for part of the afternoon 😟. On the same date in 2018, it snowed, and heavily at times. I’ll be watching the weather forecast closely as we get within ten days of the eclipse. That’s the time frame in which detailed weather forecasts become reasonably reliable. The forecast will help me figure out how many people to expect at my party - I don’t think it will make me go somewhere else. 

Things you might do to prepare for the eclipse

Logistical considerations

Figure out where you’re going to watch totality from, paying attention to concerns about traffic. Learn the timing of the different phases of the eclipse at your viewing location. 

The image below includes the timeline for the eclipse at my house just outside of Buffalo (from: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2024-april-8; the same site as the map above):  

One important consideration is where to go and when to both arrive and depart. The I♥️NY website has an extensive list of viewing locations around the state. If, like me, you’re lucky enough to live within the line of totality, staying close to home is likely the best choice. Traffic is expected to be horrendous for most of the day of the eclipse. Note that the New York State Thruway from the Pennsylvania line to a bit east of Syracuse will see totality - about 250 miles of the Thruway. Allow plenty of extra time to get to your destination and to get home afterwards. Don’t be in a rush to leave after totality as the traffic will likely thwart your rushing. Solar eclipse jam: How to avoid getting stuck in traffic on April 8, 2024 has solid advice on how to avoid or cope with eclipse traffic. 

Note that Niagara Falls is expecting as many as a million visitors to view the eclipse! (That’s normally a half an hour drive from home; it won’t be that day!)

If you’re viewing from home or work or other familiar spot, go out on a sunny day between now and April 8 at about eclipse time and notice where the sun is in the sky. Between now and the eclipse the sun will climb a little higher in the sky, but just by a few degrees of elevation. Consider where on the property gives you a good view of the southern sky. 

If there are lights that automatically come on at dusk, see if you can make sure they’re turned off for the eclipse. If there are lights beyond your control, like streetlights, select a location far away from these lights. 

In Upstate New York, the leaves on trees won’t be open yet, so you won’t have to worry too much about trees blocking your view. Unfortunately, that also means you won’t have some interesting visual effects of the partially obscured sun shining through leaves. 

If you’re coming to my house, you’ll likely want to bring shoes that can get muddy as my yard can be swampy in April. Consider that kind of question for wherever you go. Check the forecast before you leave home so that you are prepared for the weather. 

Some folks put a patch over one eye ten minutes or so before totality so that one eye is adjusted to the darkness and is able to see more detail. They, of course, remove the patch at the first moment of totality. I’ve not done this before, but may give it a try for this eclipse. 

Conceptual considerations

Watch the moon as we get closer to deepen your understandings of the phenomena you will see. At this writing, the moon is in the waxing gibbous and it’s out from mid-morning to evening. It rises and sets a little later each day. On clear days, step outside and notice it, its illumination, and its position relative to the sun. On at least one day this month, take a spherical object outside during daylight when the moon is out. Hold up that spherical object so it lines up with the moon and notice that your spherical object is in the same phase as the moon! 

Below is an older picture of mine aligning a golf ball with the moon.

The reason that the golf ball and the moon are in the same phase when aligned with your eye is that the geometry of Earth-Moon-Sun system is the same as the geometry of the head-golf ball-Sun system. If you repeat the activity on eclipse day, the dark side of the golf ball will be facing you when you line it up with the moon. Both the moon and golf ball will be in the new phase! (Solar eclipses always happen when the moon is in the new moon phase, and lunar eclipses always occur at the full moon phase.) 

The moon’s orbit is tilted with respect to Earth’s orbit, so the moon is usually above or below the plane of Earth’s orbit. Because of this, in most months, the moon’s shadow goes above or below Earth and there’s no eclipse. 

Things to do during the eclipse

As totality arrives, you’ll want to look for those phenomena listed above under the heading, “What happens as we move into the moon’s shadow?” What follows is what to do in the hours and days before totality. 

During the partial phases of the eclipse, it’s unsafe to look directly at the sun without appropriate eye protection. Get some eclipse glasses, and, if you’re a photographer, consider getting a filters for your cameras, binoculars, or telescope. The sun must be filtered before going through the optics, not after! If you place the filter on the wrong end of the magnifying device, you risk permanent eye damage. 

Unless you are a very experienced photographer, I urge you to not worry too much about photography during totality. Totality is only a few minutes long and fussing with your camera will distract you from actually witnessing a sight you may never see again! Photos also can’t reproduce what the eye can actually see. Capture your images in your memory!

Many organizations are giving away solar glasses. In Western New York, the Buffalo Museum of Science in partnership with the library system is giving away tens of thousands of eclipse glasses, for example. And, many shops are selling them. (If you’re coming to my house, I have plenty of pairs of eclipse glasses).

There are also many interesting ways to view the eclipse through indirect methods - by projecting the image of the sun. The simplest is to just punch a pinhole into a sheet of paper or paperboard and let the sun shine through it onto a light colored surface. This is the simplest pinhole camera. Anything with small holes, like colanders, will work.

Below are photo-directions for making a slightly more elaborate (and wearable!) pinhole camera. An advantage of the wearable camera is that you’ll be able to see more detail with most of the light blocked out, and it’s stylish! You should be able to see much more than just images of the eclipsed sun. You will be able to see more with the wearable pinhole camera than with eclipse glasses. As the pinhole is in tinfoil that’s easily replaceable you can also do simple experiments to see how changing the hole size changes what you see. The directions are available in a PowerPoint presentation here. 

Sky & Telescope also has a nice collection of Solar Eclipse Activities for Kids and Families.

Get thee to totality!

Unless you’re willing to travel substantial distances, or are exceedingly lucky, April 8, 2024 provides a once in a lifetime opportunity! I am eagerly awaiting my third total solar eclipse, and am so glad it is coming to my house. If you’re not so lucky to have it come to you, make the effort to get to it. If the skies cooperate, you will not regret it!