Echinosum
Posts: 597
Joined: 1/28/2021
From: Buckinghamshire, UK
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As wineismylife said, it's 100% or nothing. I think people were warned, but perhaps not starkly enough for them to realise it. But it is quite a long journey from the 90% area to the totality area, so we couldn't say, just drive a short way and you'll have a much better experience, it could well be a full days journey each way.
A disappointing phenomenon are the annular eclipses, which are about as common as the (true) total solar eclipses. Annular eclipses occur when the apparent size of the moon in the sky is not as large as the apparent size of the sun, so although the moon gets directly in the way of the sun, it does not totally block it, leaving a ring (annulus in Latin) of the sun uncovered. These might well be at around 98% coverage, but it's 100% or nothing.
Annular eclipses occur because the sun and the moon vary in their distance from the earth, albeit in some modest range. But since on average they have almost exactly the same apparent size in the sky, as they move back and forth so about half the time the apparent size of the moon is smaller than the apparent size of the sun, and so cannot completely block it. Rarely, there are hybrid eclipses which are annular from some vantage points and (briefly) total from others.
This also (partly) explains why some total eclipses last much longer than others, at the perfect vantage point. This recent eclipse had a relatively long period of totality, if you were in a good place. Clearly if you were near the edge of the totality zone, it would be much shorter, as low as seconds on the edge of the totality zone. I think they can, very rarely, last as long as about 9 minutes. But 2 to 3 minutes is typical.
FWIW, I was in a suitable spot in Germany to view a total eclipse about 20 years ago, but the clouds moved across the sun 10 minutes before totality, and cleared about a minute after.... There's one coming to northern Spain in a couple of years' time. My father, who by then will be 88, is thinking maybe he should try to see one before he dies. He did try to see that one 20 years ago, but he was in a place with even worse weather than me that day.
< Message edited by Echinosum -- 4/10/2024 1:45:48 AM >
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NWR: Whos in the direct eclipse path ? - 
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