I quite literally made dozens of different plans to get somewhere that was in the totality path that had good weather. For more than a year we've been planning to fly ourselves to somewhere in the path of totality, thinking that we could adjust locations on eclipse day and go for wherever had good weather. Plus, we'd avoid the traffic jams that were sure to be present. However, all those plans failed. Primarily because I'm not done building my primary plane yet! But I regularly fly nine other planes: eight were in maintenance. The one remaining is not something I could really afford to rent, but I was considered breaking the bank for a brief moment to grab it when a customer booked it and saved me from myself.
So several weeks ago we decided to shift modes of transportation. I booked tickets to south TX because it had the highest probability of clear skies in the US, and we'd turn it into a mini vacation for the weekend, watch the eclipse on Monday, and get home on Tuesday. As the 10-day weather forecast came into view we realized that would likely not be worth the effort -- the forecast was calling for rain all weekend and 100% cloud coverage on eclipse day. In the middle of last week we cancelled those plans and started to think about driving somewhere and surrendered ourselves to join the traffic we were sure would be prevalent. We made plans to drive to Ohio, but the weather there went from great to 50/50, so we started looking at eastern New York. But the front moved through faster than predicted and NY began to get worse while Ohio got better, but still wasn't a sure thing.
We have a friend with a nice traveling airplane who unexpectedly had extra seats and on Saturday he invited us to go along. In the 48 hours prior to the eclipse we changed destinations a handful of times, seeking the best weather and parking space before finally settling on central Maine. Monday morning we flew to Greenville, Maine and had a completely unrestricted view of the event.
We took some experiments with us to help observe the eclipse: comparing sharp and fuzzy shadows cast by the crescent sun, casting an image of the crescent sun through pin holes, red and green color swatches to note the Purkinjie effect, and shadow band observing areas. My wife bought solar binoculars for the 2017 eclipse and we all got to see the moon march across the sun through them. We were even able to see large sunspots!
The difference between 99% coverage and totality was quite literally night and day. I observed the 2017 eclipse from southern CA where we had about 70% coverage. While that was a cool thing to see, it was not in the same league as what I witnessed on Monday. Although I had read and studied the event, and I knew what was going to happen, the magnitude of the final seconds of the diamond ring, Bailey's beads, and the instant change from seeing the sun so bright you couldn't look at it to seeing the wonder of the corona was magnitudes different than a 99% coverage eclipse. The sun's corona was completely visible with the naked eye, and I have not seen any photograph that does it justice. We could see the corona rays reaching out into space about 3-4 times the diameter of the sun. We were able to see pink solar prominences around the edge of the sun, again easily visible with the naked eye, and later I though about how large those had to be for us to see them. They had to be tens of thousands of miles in height! I looked at the corona and prominences with a pair of binoculars, and was amazed at what I saw. The detail of the event was amazing, and knowing I was seeing something that would never be seen again added to the wonder. The corona and solar weather is constantly changing, so what we saw in Maine was different than what others saw just minutes before or after.
It was an awe inspiring moment I will never forget. It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. We're already making plans to go to Spain for 2026!
