Sky & Telescope - August 2024 - 68

The Great 2024 Eclipse
Northeast Kingdom region of Vermont. We
set up early on a sports field at Vermont State
College. Hour by hour, people poured in. Buses
unloaded swarms of high-school students.
One couple had flown from cloudy Texas, long
touted as having the best clear-sky prospects.
The sunlight dimmed slowly at first, then
faster as the landscape grew eerily silvery in
the narrow crescent-shine. Shadows became
weirdly sharp in one direction. Venus and
Jupiter appeared through the deepening blue.
The corona emerged some seconds before
totality, then the last overpowering dazzle of
the diamond ring rapidly faded right down and
out! The crowd whooped and cheered.
The highlight of this eclipse for me will always be that great
pyramid of brilliant pink loops on one limb, foreshortened and
full of detail.
Our final report comes from Editor in Chief Peter Tyson,
who despite expectations enjoyed perhaps the best land conditions
along the entire route. As he told us:
I parked myself on a golf course in northeastern Maine by the
Slice Restaurant, whose owners offered free parking and a warm
welcome. Not a cloud in the sky, which is absurd for Maine at
this time of year - and especially this year, when it's been cloudy
or rainy for weeks on end.
PINHOLE EMOTICON An attendee aboard the
MS Zaandam uses pinhole projection to express
the excitement of witnessing the event halfway
between first and second contact.
A crisp breeze blew, snow still about, but
the temperature had risen to near 60°F by
totality, so it was quite pleasant. Perhaps 100
people gathered, some with impressive cameras
or scopes. We enjoyed 3 minutes 18 seconds of
totality, which naturally felt like a minute. It
all went so fast it was hard to keep up, but I
savored the sudden twilight at second contact
and a blazing diamond ring at third contact.
Most spectacular of all were the prominences,
including a necklace along the lower limb like pink Baily's Beads,
plus a huge prominence nearby like an upside-down V. V for
Victory, you might say, having waited so long and traveled so far
for this jaw-dropping celestial wonder.
Clear skies held throughout New Brunswick, Canada, and
beyond. Partial clouds permitted some residents of Newfoundland
to glimpse totality on the last landmass along the path.
And with that, the Moon's shadow slid off Earth and
departed into space. It won't intersect our planet's surface
again for another six months - this time in the form of an
annular eclipse visible from South America. That event will
make landfall on October 2nd at Easter Island before crossing
the southern tips of Chile and Argentina. Will you be there?
BAILY'S BEADS PROGRESSION This photo taken in Mazatlán, Mexico, combines 42 short exposures spaced one second apart as the
final sliver of the photosphere disappeared behind the Moon. A later exposure near the end of totality (right) shows the inner corona.
68 AUGUST 2024 * SKY & TELESCOPE
HEART PROJECTIONS: BOB KING; SECOND CONTACT SERIES: CHIRAG UPRETI

Sky & Telescope - August 2024

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