The big lesson learned from yesterday’s major celestial (and social media!) event?
Absolutely DO NOT miss a TOTAL solar eclipse. It is weird, eerie, and otherworldly…it makes you realize that we really do live in a universe with planets, moons, solar systems, galaxies and gases, other strange odds and ends, and elegant orbiting orbs.
We are mere specks!
A total eclipse is special. No camera or video really captures what it is like to be there…to feel the temperature changes…to see the shadow approach…hear the shouts of joy and amazement from fellow onlookers…to see the stars and planets that come out momentarily as sunset falls on the full 360 degrees of horizon.
Totality was barely 2 1/2 minutes. Like the noble and coveted orgasm, alas, too short, too short!
In this image, that may be Mercury off to the left. Maybe an astronomer can confirm? The corona is spectacular!
Total Solar Eclipse, #1. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
Here is the classic “wedding ring” as Mother Moon begins to move away from Sister Sun. Note the solar flares in the reddish areas along the rim:
Total Solar Eclipse, #2. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
And a handful of portraits–the confused and amazed human gang on the hillside, then three of those human observers close up, a camera aimed at the firmament, and, finally, to bring us back to the Earth’s surface and remind us of our inevitable mortality, one deceased-but-still-quite-elegant tree:
Total Solar Eclipse, #3. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
Total Solar Eclipse, #4. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
Total Solar Eclipse, #5. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
Total Solar Eclipse, #6. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
Total Solar Eclipse, #7. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
Portrait of a Deceased Tree. Glendo State Park, Wyoming, 2017
Leave a reply