We made it back! Direct to you, from the dark side of the moon. They say that only one in 10,000 people in this world ever witness a total eclipse of the sun, but I find that difficult to believe around here. Anne and I and thousands of our friends journeyed south to see yesterday’s eclipse. For us, portal-to-portal, it was a twelve-hour tour. Most of it spent in the car, just to travel a little over a hundred miles south and then back north again.

Wait, I forgot to deduct the four minutes of totality that made it all worthwhile! This was my third total eclipse. I do not count partials or lunars. For me, it is all the way or no way. I have been blessed with clear skies for all three occasions.

This time, we headed to Jackson, MO, near Cape Girardeau, where we met up with Joanie and Pat. Before the pandemic, we were all regulars together at Science on Tap lectures. So, this field trip outing was a lot like that, without the beer. They had spent Sunday night down south and had consequently missed out on experiencing the day of drive down, but they planned on heading home after the eclipse. I look forward to hearing their report. Before the eclipse they were both interviewed by the local FOX affiliate. Here is the link to their segment.

I was more laid back for this event than either of the previous two occurrences. My main mission on this trip was to capture solar flares and I was successful. These are plasma plumes that arc out for thousands of miles along the limb of the moon. In the include photo they are the pink spots along the moon’s edge.

Just as it takes the moon in a total eclipse to occlude the disk of the sun, so that one can see the corona, careful management of the camera’s shutter speed is required to see these flares. Too long of an exposure and the much hotter corona drowns out the relatively cool flares. I luckily managed to capture them during my first eclipse in 1979, missed the in 2017, but was successful again this year.