The Solar Eclipse: Expectations vs. Reality
The total solar eclipse took place all throughout North America on August 21, 2017. For those of you who don’t know, a solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the sun and Earth and blocks all or part of the sun for up to about three hours, beginning to end, as viewed from a given location.
As the event approached, I personally did not know what to expect besides what I had heard, like don’t look up at sun with your bare eyes. As people began to talk more and more about the event, the more they began to geek out about it.
Glasses were becoming sold out everywhere, the day of people were posting pictures and videos all over social media with “punny” captions and, of course, there were Snapchat filters to capture this phenomenon. People even traveled long distances in order to experience a better view which resulted in hotels being booked and insane traffic.
One of the biggest letdowns was many of us thought that the town of Boone would become dark, however, that was not the case. Although the lighting seemed somewhat different, I assumed that it was from the rain clouds that also blocked most of our solar eclipse experience. I soon learned that Boone, NC, was not necessarily in the path of totality, so, we didn’t experience as much of the “awe inspiring sights” that many others did.
Even though I personally did not get a pair of glasses, I was lucky enough to have friends who did. People were serious about their glasses and were even lined up for miles it seemed on the campus of Appalachian State University to get a pair.
If you had the glasses, it was definitely an intriguing sight to see.
Overall, it is cool to say that we have indeed experienced a solar eclipse in our lifetime.
Sources:
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipse-who-what-where-when-and-how