Total Eclipse

April 10, 2024 Rory Glasgow Solar Eclipse

April 8, 2024

The day finally arrived!

The weather across most of the country was uncertain, at best. But, the city of Mount Pleasant, Texas looked to have a fair chance of visibility along the path of totality. So, Kristi and I hopped into the truck and drove to northeast Texas.

It was a beautiful drive. Google Maps directed us along some highways and farm-to-market roads that ran through the Davy Crockett National Forest and other densely wooded areas in East Texas.

We chose Town Lake Park, on the north side of town, to set up for viewing. The park is located next to New City Lake along Jefferson Ave/Talco Rd. We arrived about 30 minutes before totality. The sky was mostly cloudy, and the clouds only occasionally parted long enough to see the eclipse, which was well underway. As a result, I had a great deal of difficulty getting the camera pointed and focused.

The tailgate of a truck is not a very stable platform for a camera, but it was the easiest location to set up in the short time we had before totality. I cast the image of the eclipse onto the tailgate to align the camera without looking through the viewfinder–it’s a very bad idea to view the Sun through a lens like that. Note the pallid light all around–totality was near!

This image of New City Lake was taken a few minutes before totality.

A big hole opened in the clouds shortly before totality. Everyone we could see in the park was wearing eclipse glasses and watching as the scene progressed. The Moon began covering the last bit of the Sun. Bailey’s beads appeared, and then in an instant the sky darkened, the solar corona shined into view, and totality had begun!

Totality! This image does not do justice to the naked-eye sight. “Surreal” might best describe my feeling about the event. The bright star to the lower right of the eclipse is the planet Venus.

The darkness was not total. The sky resembled the time about 15 to 20 minutes after sunset, except it was like that in all directions instead of just to the west. The temperature was noticeably cooler.

I wanted to concentrate on viewing the eclipse, so I avoided fiddling with the cameras during totality. As a result, the images I got with the Canon DSLR were not as good as they might have been. I mostly stared at the eclipse while clicking the button on the camera’s remote-control cable, hoping for the best. A few high, thin clouds passed by from time to time, which made for a smoky effect similar to that of last year’s annular eclipse.

A few solar prominences were visible during totality. I believe that is a star to the upper-left of the eclipse. I am not certain what the two tiny lines are on either side of the star. Perhaps satellites?

If you look carefully at the image above, you may see a red dot on the lower-right edge of the Moon. That is a solar prominence. I counted a total of three during totality.

There were some thin clouds passing in front of the Moon and Sun in this shot. The image is over-exposed, but the “spikes” of the corona are still visible.

After realizing that the camera was off-center, I made a quick adjustment and captured this image.

And then, just as suddenly as it started, totality was over. We witnessed a lovely diamond ring effect, and we both saw shadow bands on the park road surface. Some high clouds moved in and created this pretty scene: