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Total Solar Eclipse, 2024

 

Ever since we missed our chance to view the Totality back in 2017, albeit being so close (Cary, NC) to Eclipse path across the US, we made sure that the one in 2024 is viewed and ends up being spectacular. And what a show it ended up: 3 minutes and 48 seconds of awesomeness!

It needed a lot of forethought and preparations - six months of planning. While 2024 eclipse was supposed to pass through places near to us, we still needed to ensure we are at the right place at the right time.

Eclipse path

NASA has an interactive Eclipse explorer site. We made extensive use of it in our planning. A super helpful site that showed a specific location's duration of eclipse and totality.


There were enthusiasts who charted the path with their inputs. This was super helpful because of the Google Maps overlay.

PlanIt

This app was immensely useful for photography or even imagining from where we could watch the eclipse in the sky.

Places considered

Niagara, ON

Who wouldn't want to have best seat in the world? The path of totality included the scenic over the falls eclipse. We had this as our first option.

Sandusky, Ohio

Base station. Access to US with longer totality time and larger area of coverage. While Ohio is always predicted to be gloomy, this option allowed us a greater leverage.

Preparations

Procuring certified viewing glasses were first on the agenda. No matter the place, we need to protect our eyes so that we don’t get trolled like this or lose our eyes!

We got ourselves the “Celestron EclipSmart Solar Shades” and “Celestron – 3-Pc EclipSmart Safe Solar Observing & Imaging Kit”. The latter had the option to put it on top of the camera.

I also purchased “Baader Planetarium AstroSolar Filtre Solaire” just in case. The idea is to beat the surge pricing as we get closer to the eclipse.

We booked a hotel in Sandusky that was full refundable up to 24 hours. This gave us alternatives in the event we begin to see negative aspects of travelling to Niagara.

A month before eclipse, Niagara mayor informed that he’s expecting 1.5 million people. This would mean access to Rainbow bridge would be impossible for the amazing photo or to experience the bliss. Two weeks to eclipse, Niagara declared state of emergency. This also dampened our spirits.

The weather

For perfect viewing conditions, you would need clear skies. Niagara was predicted to be cloudy with high chances of rain. We used CloudCover report we throughout. This was just one week before. We thought we could try Kingston. Two aspects about it put us back: Smaller totality window and chances of low clouds.

Given the circumstances, we decided to utilize the Sandusky option. Even though Ohio valley is always cloudy, we took our chances because of greater access to other places by road and Larry’s charm! Larry was my manager and mentor at LexisNexis. He retired back in the summer of 2020 and was living in Vermilion – a stone’s throw from Sandusky.

April 8th, 2024

We drove in our new Subaru and reached our hotel the day before: April 7th – a Sunday. We visited Larry’s place, and he showed me options for viewing. The day was perfect – sunny skies! We also visited my college-mate in Cleveland, Senthilkumar, whom I had last met in person back in 2004.

The whole of Sunday was also dedicated to finding alternative places:

All of them were about ~5 hours by road, and all of them were in the path totality path with maximum totality durations. I kept checking the weather for all of these places. Thanks to AccuWeather, WSBT, NOAA NWS Facebook page,, and Meteorologist Facebook pages. All of this information was a lot, but still had to be consumed and combed through.

I woke up at 4:45am next day. Started to check all the sites above including newly installed Windy App (to find low vs high clouds). It rained the whole night, but clouds began to part in Sandusky. Skanda mentioned that based on his reading high Cirrus clouds should not obstruct our viewing of eclipse at all.

After a lot of analysis and at about 7:30 am after breakfast, we decided we would drive through to Spiceland, Indiana – not through highways but through local roads. This is so that we are within the totality path. About 8:30am, when we were getting ready to leave, things began to change. Places in Indiana, for the afternoon, had an increased cloud cover (46%) and Vermilion had been constant at 14%. Windy and CloudCover agreed to Accuweather’s prediction. So, I messaged Larry that we would be coming to his place to view instead of driving to Indiana.

We reached around 1:45pm, the eclipse began around 1:58pm and the rest are in my pictures here: https://radnus.smugmug.com/Events/Total-Solar-Eclipse-2024/n-vCpChW

Note:

  • Never travel back on the same day of event, that too an event of this magnitude. Took us about 5 hours to travel 100kms. Our travel back went from 6 hours to close to 12 hours.
  • Flat white coffees in these places are worst: 
    • The Bean Coffee House, North East PA
    • Vita, Sandusky, OH
    • Joe Muggs Coffee at Books-A-Million, Sandusky, OH
  • Food at this place was fantastic: Jo Wok, Sandusky, OH
  • Food at this place was OK: The Great Indian Kitchen, Cleveland, OH
  • Food here was great: Nawab's Kitchen, Windsor, ON

 

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Location: Vermilion, OH, USA

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