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Eclipse is a bust


Barb_
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I'm in a 70 percent area, and it is nice and clear with some light clouds here and there. We are getting a great view from our back deck. We're going out every 10 - 15 minutes to check it out. My father-in-law can't tilt his head back, so he's watching it on TV. I'm starting to get a stiff neck, lol.

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90+% here, sunny.  The peak is right now.  The sky looks a bit weird, as though a storm is about to blow in, but it's much brighter outside than I thought it would be.  I thought I read that it would look a bit like dusk - it doesn't at all.  Looking through the glasses, the sliver looks like the moon.  I don't think y'all are missing much if you can't see it.

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90% here and just finished the peak with no clouds. It's no wonder people used to freak out, it would be so frightening if you didn't know what it was.

 

It was cool, but not a big deal without the 100% I think.  Looked like cheshire cat!  DH took his camera set up to the area of totality.  He was excited about getting pics.

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Roughly 80% here (in about half an hour), and the clouds are off and on.  I was able to see the beginning.

 

Worse though - I have a conference call that is scheduled for the peak time of the eclipse, plus and minus a half hour.  :/  I plan to listen in while outside with my viewer!

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We are going to get about 90% and it is a beautiful sunny day. It is much more exciting than I expected it would be!  Wish I wasn't alone though. ;)

 

You and me both LOL!  This is a completely odd experience for this homeschool mama in the homestretch...watching this event alone!

Turning excitingly dim here - 95% obscurity in a few minutes.  

Pin hole cameras work BTW!

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90% here and our peak just passed. It didn't get dark, just dim - but you could definitely tell something was up because of the difference in the light and shadows. 

 

Five of my horses went into their stalls, which is unusual during the day. My dogs didn't seem to notice a thing.

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90+% here, sunny.  The peak is right now.  The sky looks a bit weird, as though a storm is about to blow in, but it's much brighter outside than I thought it would be.  I thought I read that it would look a bit like dusk - it doesn't at all.  Looking through the glasses, the sliver looks like the moon.  I don't think y'all are missing much if you can't see it.

Same here, exactly. (93%)

 

We are going out every 10 minutes and peeking (with glasses). It is actually cooler than I thought it'd be!

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We were at the community college because we're all taking classes. The instructors let everyone out of their classes, and they had a watch party on the front lawn. People were sharing their glasses so that everyone could see it, and the school was also playing Pink Floyd over some loud speakers! The eclipse looked like a fiery, or lava, crescent moon me. (93%)

 

Even though we had glasses, I was still afraid to look more than ever so quickly!

 

Did you see the crescent-shaped shadows of the leaves on the trees as they reflected on the grass and the sidewalks? Very beautiful.

Edited by Fifiruth
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We drove an hour to be in 100% totality. Drove through torrential rain and lightening, but the storm moved east in time and we we able to see the whole thing. When it slipped into complete totality...oh wow. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And it really did get dark, the streetlights came on. The temperature dropped a bit. But the light around the moon was just beautiful. Then the sun appreared again, and the clouds showed up. I'm thankful they held off as long as they did.

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We were 95+%... Not a cloud in the sky. It was fabulous. So, so, so glad because my space nut had her first DE class and couldn't miss it....so she missed the 100% totality road trip. I'm very thankful that it was great here at home.

 

ETA - And...no 10 hour round trip drive!!!

Edited by FriedClams
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We were at 85-90% and the light got really strange outside. Not dark, just different.  After seeing some comments from friends around the country I now kind of wish we had driven somewhere for totality.  Maybe next time. :)

Edited by EmseB
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The mosquitoes came out as it got dark, and my kids thought they saw a bat.

 

Seeing the corona around the dark moon was incredible. The whole experience of having it get dark so quickly, then light again...just wow. We had 360 degrees of sunset skies around the horizon.

 

So, so glad we made the drive. I didn't decide to go for it until yesterday evening; the 90% eclipse we would have seen at home would have been neat, but no comparison.

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We're at 75%.  We don't have glasses but we went outside with a colander and I made a cereal box viewer.   The kids thought it was neat.  Dd thought it was neat that the crickets (or peepers?) that we usually only hear at night were active, but we didn't see or hear any birds.  Our dog also went totally bat**** crazy at our peak, running around in circles barking like a lunatic.

 

Both my kids couldn't resist trying to peek at the sun, but at 75% it wasn't nearly blocked enough, thankfully.   :huh:

 

I keep seeing people with pictures on Facebook with cereal box viewers and they are looking through one end with the other end pointed at the sun.   I wouldn't think you'd see anything that way if you put it together right.  

Edited by Where's Toto?
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It is raining here, but there was a crescent sun visible through the glasses right at the peak. Honestly, I wonder if the glasses were what let it work, because it was so cloudy that I wasn't even sure where the sun was-but when we put on the glasses and looked for light, the only thing you could see was the crescent sun.

 

We watched with the school across the street. It was kind of neat...complaining kids, then suddenly "ooh!!"

 

 

I am glad we didn't go to one of the big viewing parties. I don't think all the planned outdoor activities would work well today...

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It was clear blue skies here in the Seattle area. My older son was watching from a school related event. My younger son, one of the boys I have been watching this month and I all watched from a park in Seattle. We were not able to travel to an area with totality because of the school event my son felt he couldn't miss.

Edited by LucyStoner
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We had clouds through most of the eclipse (bummer!) but there was about a three minute window where the eclipsed sun peeked through, and we got to use our pinhole viewer. So not a complete bust, but could have been better. I took a couple of photos of the clouds with my old ipad, and they are very pretty, but still....clouds? Today? Really? We wound up facetiming with my parents, who live about ten miles away, and had pefect viewing conditions. My mother was actually squealing with excitement! Lol!

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We are in an 89% area.  It was cloudy from about 9:30 am on.  a few hours later, I was just about to take the dog for a walk because I though rain was on the way.  As I was chatting with a neighbor, the sun came out.  I had my eclipse glasses with me and looked at it.  It was about peak coverage.  I shared them with my 85 year old neighbor.  We had about 20 minutes of sun, then intermittent clouds. 

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We were at 65% and it was REALLY interesting.  At the darkest, the level of darkness felt like a thunderstorm was about to start -- but there was not a grey cloud in the sky and it didn't smell like thunder.  The kids tried several methods to look at the sun -- but only the eclipse worked. We could not get the pinhole through a piece of paper, or the cardboard viewer, or the telescope with solar lens on it to actually give us a view of the sun.  There were a few clouds in the sky, but it did not impede the view at all.

 

Interestingly enough, it turns out BOTH of our Grandparents are in totality today. My parents live in Columbia, SC (and are staying inside watching it on TV.)  My in-laws were travelling through Hopkinsville, KY (by design) and stopped to see totality there for a couple of hours.  http://www.kentuckytourism.com/articles/hopkinsville-ky-the-place-to-be-for-total-solar-eclipse/3172/ 

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We were lucky. There were a few clouds, but nothing major. We are at 99+% and drove 30 minutes to totality. It was awesome and so much better that I had imagined. 

DS and gf came along, and DD and bf had driven 8 hours from  Chicago to be here, so it was the five of us.

I am totally jealous.  Dh, ds23 and dd17 are in the St. Louis area and got to see it with his brother's family.  They drove down on Saturday.  2 of them are coming back to Chicago by train tonight for school/work tomorrow. 

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