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Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. -- Psalm 32:11 IN THIS UPDATE Totality at Home Hello Friends, We had an incredible eclipse experience here in Cleveland. Presumably millions of people saw it, including everyone I know. I have not yet spoken to anyone who has not seen it. Some people have had a gushy reaction but lot have had very little to say. "It was nice. It was
cool." Not much more. Weird. I'd hoped for more passionate, effusive reactions from more people. If you have any eclipse stories you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them, especially if you were in Ohio or somewhere else along the path of totality. I'll share our family's story below. We still have Eclipse Over Cleveland and Eclipse Over Ohio t-shirts! We're now offering FREE SHIPPING so that's a $7.00 savings! Please surf over to the Eclipse Store and grab yours! They're a great souvenir of the Celebrated Great Eclipse of 2024!
For more information about topics from Classical Astronomy discussed in this newsletter, please check out a homeschool astronomy curriculum (but popular with adult readers too!) Visit our archive of previous editions of the Classical Astronomy Update newsletters, going back to 2007. *****
Totality At Home I'm writing to give kind of a "post game wrapup" to the Eclipse
Over Cleveland two weeks after the fact. I feel obligated to do so after so much buildup for so long. But I'm less than enthused about writing this today. The eclipse was a really big deal on Eclipse Day, April 8, but the story seemed to instantly fall flat here in Cleveland. The media and the public moved on to the next shiny thing almost immediately. I'd hoped this once-in-a-lietime event would have made more of an enduring impression on people and am thus kind of
disappointed. In all the months beforehand the "smart money" said Texas was the place to be and not gloomy old Ohio. I had high hopes for favorable eclipse weather during the unprecedented El Nino winter of sunny, unseasonably warm days in our climate zone. But our Cleveland weather took a dump in March, which many cold, clammy rainy days which
dampened people's hopes. The soothsayers of meteorology took us on a merry chase during the 10 day period leading up to the eclipse, changing their Eclipse Day forecast every day and even more than once during a single day. There was a downpour at 6:00 AM on Monday, April 8. I had been encouraging people all along that "God loves an Eclipse Day"
and the same-day forecast was somewhat hopeful. Thankfully, the sky cleared out and was crystal blue by 9:00 AM. However, as the morning turned to afternoon, a lot of "chemtrails" began filling the local sky and there was a lot of high cirrus cloud by eclipse time, leading up to totality locally at 3:13 PM EDT. Here's the GOES satellite cloud map
for 1:36 PM EDT, justy before the lunar umbra traversed the United States. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Texas and Ohio swapped weather. Some spots in Texas were sunny and saw a beautiful totality, while some places (like Dallas) saw glipses of totality through clouds, but other locations were completely clouded out. My heart goes out to everyone in Texas who missed out. But as can be seen on this map, most points north of Texas along the path of totality
had clear skies, including all of Ohio.
Unfortunately, the downpour over Cleveland at 6:00 AM had moved over western New York State by eclipse time, and Niagara Falls and Rochester were clouded out. I feel especially bad for Rochester which had a great
eclipse planning effort. Unexpectedly, the best, clearest eclipse skies of all were over Quebec, locations east of Montreal. No one saw that coming. But that's how it goes with total solar eclipses. "The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away, blessed be the Name of the LORD." I only heard back from one Update reader, Paula in Texas, who shared
these pix and her account from Dallas: We had cloud cover for much of the eclipse in the Dallas area, but I took pictures as the sun peeked through and I'm blown away. God just blessed me
with the diamond ring picture (I was changing the battery in the dark in my camera just seconds before) and just had enough time to snap it. Paula is a teacher at THEO in Plano and has communicated with me over the years. Thanks Paula! Always great to hear from you.
Though the early bad weather likely reduced the numbers, visitors poured into Cleveland other places around Ohio from around the country and the world. All our local hotels were booked. But unlike these eclipse visitors,
local Clevelanders witnessed this spectacle FOR FREE, spending ZERO dollars and travelling ZERO miles! And after that tortuous 10 day nail biter of an ever-changing forecast, I hope everyone here can count their blessings that the DOWNPOUR of 6:00 AM still resulted in TOTALITY at a quarter after 3:00 PM! Any Clevelanders still looking for evidence of God will hopefully have found all they needed! All our children gathered together with us, along with our two toddler grandsons. We were also joined at our house by several other friends and family, about 20 people in our party. We all walked to meet up with our neighbors at nearby Loew Park, where our councilman neighbor had arranged a gathering. A few hundred people were there, scattered all over the park. Most people apparently stayed home in their backyards and
elected to be alone and not join the social event as I had advised. It was generally a festive gathering. The sky was adequate, though somewhat diminished by the thick cirrus cloud. But the show got really interesting as totality approached and the ambient light was noticably reduced, giving the sky a strange, daytime twilight effect. I made a GoPro video of the scene on the ground at Loew Park, not including the Sun. This timelapse video shows
the approaching lunar umbra in the sky and the resulting darkness on the ground sped up 16 times, so you can quickly see the passage of the Moon's shadow and its effects. You can click this link or the image below for the
video. (The two girls photobombed the scene after I already set up the camera, hope they don't mind being included in the video.)
You can see from the video the curvature of the lunar umbra across the sky as it swept overhead. You can also see that we had very strongly orange-colored 360 degree eclipse twilight. This was much more colorful and pronounced than my recollections of the 2017 eclipse from our location in
Tennessee. Click this link for an 8 minute long normal speed version of the above video, which includes my loudmouth running commentary of everything that I saw during totality. At the onset of totality, as darkness descended as the lunar umbra swept over Cleveland, I looked at my phone and it said 3:13 PM. I had known this time for many years, and as had been widely reported in all media for months beforehand, and I was holding in my hand direct confirmation of the fact. I remain astounded at the precision of the science of eclipse prediction, that this exact time of day can be known decades in
advance. Eclipse science is a type of "Scientific Calvinism," that the positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon are preordained, and can be comprehended by the mere human brain. What an awesome LORD who can create such an orderly universe and enlighten His creatures to study and understand such a glorious framework. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the
firmament sheweth his handywork. - Psalm 19:1 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter - Proverbs 25:2 Before seeing my first total solar eclipse (TSE) in 2017, I had been assured by my veteran eclipse
chaser buddies that I'd have a wildly emotional experience. Contrarily, I had a flat emotional response to the first. So instead of ooo-ing and ahhh-ing at totality, I spent my time drawing a picture of what I saw and making various scientific observations. Well, I had the OPPOSITE experience for my second eclipse here at home! I was screaming like a nutcase and blew out my voice, like I was yelling at a ball game! I had one eclipse friend who predicted that I might have a strong reaction the second time. I was puzzled by that since I could not understand how a second TSE could be more impactful than the first. Well he was right! Here's what happened when I tried to draw a picture of the 2024 Eclipse Over Cleveland. I tried 3 times and could barely hold the pen and make any sort of coherent sketch!
You can see by the sketch in the upper right corner that I did much better after the eclipse was over and I collected my wits.
I was so blown away because I was TOTALLY unprepared for the HUGE prominence, which is an eruption from the Sun in the pink-colored chromosphere, or inner atmosphere of the Sun. I called it the Jewel Prominence. It appeared “prominently” on the eclipsed Sun
around 50 seconds after the onset of totality. Unlike a typical prominence that appears briefly and quickly vanishes, the Jewel Prominence remained “prominent” throughout the remainder of totality. It was like a magenta-pink Venus parked on the solar limb at the 7 o’clock position. It persisted continuously and might have grown brighter throughout
totality. Before the end, it was joined by another, smaller prominence to its right which then swelled to full chromosphere as totality ended with Diamond Ring. I couldn’t take my eyes off that prominence, I was transfixed. I barely had the presence of mind to look around to notice Venus, to the lower right of the Sun. I could not pick out Jupiter
due to all that cirrus cloud. Though we might have had a better show without that cirrus, I am NOT of a mind to complain! It was a truly glorious sight. I cannot fathom how anyone could witness such a sight and not discern the Hand of a Creator, especially in pondering the marvelous celestial clockwork behind it all. We throw around the word "awesome" all
the time, but this was truly an awe-inspiring spectacle in the heavens. As usual, none of the eclipse pix posted online captured a scene resembling what I saw with my own eyes. So I made my own “artist’s conception” how it looked to my myopic, retinal defective eyeballs. But I could not make the Jewel Prominence bright enough, I’d need a light
bulb! It looked a Christmas light hanging off the silhouette of the Moon, like a ruby necklace around the neck of totality.
Everyone in Cleveland saw the Jewel Prominence. It was the subject of its own big separate
news story, over and above the regular eclipse coverage. The common folk called it the “solar flare” or the “laser beam.” The media scrambled their facts, as usual, calling it “the Baily’s Bead” or “Diamond Ring,” or anything but a prominence. I had the good fortune to appear on a radio program the next morning to set the record straight. Others did the same on print and TV, but it’s too late, it won’t stick in
the public mind. Now that a lot of people in Ohio and beyond have seen totality, you might have a lot of questions about what you saw. Many things people want to know are explained on this
page and the accompanying video. It'd be worth taking a few minutes to read and watch, to help interpret and unpack this visual experience of totality. After the eclipse ended, everyone was elated and euphoric. Everyone (including me) was hugging everyone, which is not my style! I spoke
about the eclipse to everyone I saw the rest of the day, including passersby walking dogs and riding bikes. Everyone was very friendly and outgoing and freely sharing their experiences and personal eclipse stories. While it was great throughout the rest of Eclipse Day, it wore off quickly in the days that followed. I posted a Twitter poll asking "How did you react to the Eclipse Over Cleveland?" that got the following final results: Epiphany - life-changing
17.8% Wildly emotional 31.1% Very cool, interesting 48.1% Meh - no big deal 3% Since the poll had over 2000 views but only 135 respondents took the time to respond, I suspect the "meh" factor was much larger. Everyone who had a wild emotional or life-changing experience would then be a very tiny minority.
I find this to be a very surprising and
disappointing response, very hard to understand or interpret. It just seems so hinky, like people have the eclipse equivalent of PTSD or something. One person called it an "eclipse hangover." It was as of people saw something so bizarre, so out-of-the-ordinary, that they didn't know how to process it, and are now just shutting it out. Or something! Can't figure this out. On one hand, I'm wondering if a LOT of people did not understand the instructions and left their Eclipse Shades on the whole time during totality. That would certainly account for the underwhemling response. There was some bad "misinformation" going out beforehand from local ophthalmologists warning that eye damage was possible even from viewing totality, or at least from viewing Diamond Ring at the end. This is just silly,
debunked by centuries of safe eclipse viewing in all times past by thousands of people, including PhD scientists. On the other hand, if these results are reflective of actual eclipse eyewitnesses, I think perhaps part of the enthusiasm of a TSE is the adventure -- traveling the globe to exotic locations. And then talking about with like-minded friends
afterwards. People tend to take for granted and not value things that are just handed to them. No work involved, no personal investment. I think maybe it's necessary to chase an eclipse in order to fully appreciate it, to earn it. It's different if people just look at it in their backyard in their bathrobe and then go back into the house alone and back to their daily business. What do you think? I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who cares to take the time to communicate. Thanks in advance.
Till next time, God bless and clear skies, - jay The Ryan Family Cleveland, Ohio, USA When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? - Psalm 8:3-4, a Psalm of David |
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