Watching the Sun Fade Away

So the world didn’t end, the dragons remained quiescent, and the eclipse just sort of did its thing, and you know? It was still pretty cool.

This is the second solar eclipse that we’ve had here in Wisconsin in the last decade – rather a prodigious clip, all things considered. It was supposed to be cloudy just like the last one, but at least here in the southern part of the state it turned out to be a clear spring day.

No, I was not about to go traveling to get to where the entire sun would be obscured. Between the time and the distance and the crowds that would greet me once I got there that struck me as a bit more work than I was willing to put into it, though three cheers to those who felt it was worth it to them, I say. Jeri and Kit, some of our UCF friends, stopped by on Sunday for a visit as they did so, and it was lovely to meet them in person after seeing them on Zoom calls and various online forums over the years. They continued on their journey toward totality after leaving us, and I hope they had a grand time of it.

Today was a workday, though I did block off my calendar for the half hour when we got closest to totality and my earlier appointment canceled so I had a good long time to see. Kim found some eclipse glasses and let me have one, and a good-sized group of people gathered in the main courtyard outside the Commons to watch it happen.

I put the lens of my phone camera up to the glasses to see if I could get a decent picture of things, and the answer was “No, not really,” but I did try.

We all stood out there for a bit, chatting with colleagues and students, and watching the moon’s disc slowly work its way into the sun until there was only a sliver showing and then work its way back out. The sliver tended to rotate clockwise during this process for some reason.

Also, a bald eagle flew by while we were out there. Read into that what you will.

Eventually you realize that as cool as an eclipse is that’s pretty much all it does and then you go back to the rest of your day.

The next one that will come by anywhere near here will be about a thousand years from now, or might as well be given the realities of the human lifespan, but it was fun to see this one.