Here Comes The Occluded Sun: Watching The 2024 Solar Eclipse

Total Solar Eclipse (2024), dir. The Solar System

For all that’s been written about total solar eclipses, there were aspects I was unprepared for.

Monday’s eclipse was striking and beautiful, but it was surprisingly unsettling.

During the first 50 minutes, as the moon increased its occlusion, there was barely any perceptible change in temperature or coloring.

Viewing the sun through ISO-approved viewers, the sun appeared to be about 90% covered before the coloring of our surroundings appeared somewhat washed-out, and felt cooler.

It was only in final couple minutes of partiality when the temperature dramatically plunged, and suddenly we were in night.

Our location in Potsdam was bright, with wispy clouds (to my untrained eye, stratus clouds).

According to Accuweather, the cloud coverage matched Plattsburgh’s 26%, and it did not hamper our view of totality. As the sun disappeared from our viewers, we removed them to see the phenomenon with our naked eyes.

I was most surprised by the coloring.

The commonly published photos and videos are taken with sophisticated cameras fitted with filters which capture the light patterns but distort the color.

To the naked eye in real time, the corona was as white as a full moon on a clear night, far from the orange-yellow often depicted. The atmosphere-less moon was black as an eye’s pupil, but flat with no reflection or features.

The sky around the corona was a deep indigo.

It was that subtle difference in coloring between the flattest, blackest moon and the sky’s depth of color, combined with the fine hairlike but still and straight rays of the sun, which I’ve never seen captured.

The slight degrees of difference in colors and detail are what causes our unease in a way that our more common monochromatic records cannot replicate. Humankind evolved to distrust the slight variations, and no analysis can take that away.

Then, after a few disorienting minutes, the dark, unnerving spell shifts, as a rippled white glow appears along the edge of the moon’s blackness. The sky’s indigo lightens only slightly, but just enough to draw a greater contrast between moon and sky, and the threat seems to lessen.

A sudden bright glow appears before a bright white diamond ring is presented. Then the process reverses itself as color and warmth return to our world.

There is still an hour of lessening occlusion to come, but the crowd packs up as if the final credits are rolling on a movie.

It’s a testament to the emotional power of an eclipse that so much effort is made to record, predict, and view it.

We can know its arrival to the minute, but there is still excitement, and even panic in some circles. Some speak as if it’s a miracle we don’t have swaths of blinded pets and livestock across our country this morning.)

We were lucky to see it from SUNY-Potsdam, a remarkably friendly and relaxed atmosphere with games, used book sellers, and a group of singing girls.

As we drove away, a uniformed policeman played with an attack dog, And a man flew a model plane.

Seeing a total eclipse as it happens is like seeing Citizen Kane or the Mona Lisa for the first time: there is so much that has been written about it that it can be difficult to filter out preconceptions.

However, like any experience, it is best witnessed clear-eyed and accurately, and with heart and mind open to what cannot be completely defined and understood.

It was worth our four-hour drive that morning, and the seven-hour ride home.

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