{"id":8401,"date":"2024-03-28T14:39:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T18:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8401"},"modified":"2024-03-28T14:39:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T18:39:50","slug":"eclipses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8401","title":{"rendered":"Eclipses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because of the upcoming solar eclipse next month there’s been a lot of interest. \u00a0Two friends sent me the link to Maria Popova’s Marginalian<\/a> on Annie Dillard’s description of an eclipse. \u00a0Annie Dillard is one of my favorite authors, but this is one I had missed. \u00a0O my!\u00a0 <\/span>She even notices the metallic color of the grass!\u00a0 <\/span>She sees more than I did.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

My experience of a solar eclipse is the combination of two eclipses.\u00a0 <\/span>The first one, July 20, 1963, crossed the state of Maine.\u00a0 <\/span>The zone of totality was on the far side of Penobscot Bay.\u00a0 <\/span>We parked the car up on a hillside where we had a beautiful view.\u00a0 <\/span>I had welder\u2019s glass for safely looking at the sun.\u00a0 <\/span>I watched the sun shrink to a crescent \u2014 and then the clouds came and covered it.\u00a0 <\/span>I began to cry.\u00a0 <\/span>And then \u2014 the light went out of the clouds.\u00a0 <\/span>Suddenly where we were standing was dark as night.\u00a0 <\/span>The birds all got quiet, the streetlights went on.\u00a0 <\/span>Where we were was night, but across the bay we could see the sun rays still coming down on the town of Camden.\u00a0 <\/span>Then, in the northwest, I could see the light coming again as the shadow went on its journey, and daylight returned.\u00a0 <\/span>It was like some huge prehistoric creature had flown over the clouds.<\/p>\n

The second eclipse was in 1972, on July 10, and the zone of totality went over Prince Edward Island.\u00a0 <\/span>I was living in Portland, Maine.\u00a0 <\/span>I drove to Bar Harbor to take the ferry to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.\u00a0 <\/span>The ferry left before dawn, and I could see the waning crescent moon above where the sun would rise.\u00a0 <\/span>Drove the length of Nova Scotia to the strait between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s a bridge now, but then there was only the ferry.\u00a0 <\/span>I camped out for one night, don\u2019t remember whether in PEI or Nova Scotia.\u00a0\u00a0The next day\u00a0<\/span>I went to the beach on the north side of the island.\u00a0 <\/span>Every dune was sprouting with telescopes.\u00a0 <\/span>I had my welder\u2019s glass.\u00a0 <\/span>There were no clouds in the sky.\u00a0 <\/span>Again I watched the sun shrink to a crescent.\u00a0 <\/span>With an almost audible POP! there was suddenly a black circle with a glowing halo around it where the sun had been.\u00a0 <\/span>A chorus of OOOOHHHS! sounded from the beach.\u00a0 <\/span>Again we were in night.\u00a0 <\/span>Again I could see the shadow moving across the water towards us. Suddenly, there was the sun again and we were back from night to daytime.<\/p>\n

For the eclipse next month, Hanover is just outside the zone of totality. \u00a0I have signed up for a bus to take a group of us to St. Johnsbury. \u00a0The probability that it will be cloudy is 70%, but knowing that unless the clouds are very thick we will still see the shadow convinced me to sign up. \u00a0It’s worth seeing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because of the upcoming solar eclipse next month there’s been a lot of interest. \u00a0Two friends sent me the link to Maria Popova’s Marginalian on Annie Dillard’s description of an eclipse. \u00a0Annie Dillard is one of my favorite authors, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,19,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-interesting-link","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}