I hope everyone in the US who had the opportunity to see the total eclipse of the Sun on Monday in the US enjoyed it (see the Location setting for it in the Manifold Server demo map at https://manifold.net/ims9/ )

I saw it from northern Vermont and had the extraordinarily good luck of perfectly clear, blue sky in a region that for the past 30 years or so has averaged over 70% cloud cover on 8 April.

I've been using Manifold for years to plan total eclipse expeditions, using layers like real-time weather radar and cloud coverage in dicey situations to try to plan last-minute moves to catch breaks in the clouds when skies are not clear. That wasn't necessary this time, but it sure helped to have Manifold to plan logistics and for site location.

Coming up next are total eclipses in 2026 in Spain, 2027 in Egypt (Luxor!) and 2028 in Australia. Use the demo page for Server to start planning for those. Remember that the times given are for GMT.

We drove 2.5 hours west of San Antonio to see it. We were planning to drive another 20 miles, but we noticed a cluster of cars pulled over in the middle of nowhere. I suspect they had done much more homework than I did and they knew where the centerline was. So we pulled over under a mix of dense low clouds and scattered high clouds. As the moon moved into position we had fleeting glimpses of the shadow across the Sun. But as totality approached, about 30 seconds before it got great, the lower clouds dissipated leaving only the thin upper clouds to get in the way. Sure, it would have been nice to have had clear skies, but what we had was spectacular. Four and a half minutes went by very quickly.

We had a mix of eclipse glasses and welding filters to view through. Some of the welding filters allowed us to see through the lower clouds when the eclipse glasses were useless. Highly recommend you get some welding filters for your trip to Spain - just in case of clouds.

I'm getting a 504 Gateway timeout on your ims9 link.

We had a good time, too. The physics department set up a bunch of telescopes, cameras, packs of solar glasses, and even some cardboard pinhole lenses on the science quad, and we had over 400 students hanging out and looking at it. Having really good telescopes was pretty cool because you could see the sunspots.

I think the art department had lots of cameras with filters on the Art’s quad.

The best part was the NASA launch facility a few miles away from us launched three rockets at the beginning, totality, and end of the eclipse. They were using the sounding rockets to test changes in the ionosphere. So we got to see an eclipse and three rocket launches.

Sunspots like this, Art?

Pictures from my scope during this eclipse.

Attachments:
filtered 50% eclipsed with sunspots.jpg

There was an article in Sky & Telescope magazine about testing the changes in the ionosphere by trying to tune in distant AM radio antennaes when the antennae was under the eclipse. They listed all the major radio stations and the time they were being eclipsed.

My daughter and I tried it, but no success. Our location was in a lake valley with steep hillsides to our south, so perhaps that interfered with our little experiment.

Interesting to hear that NASA was doing their own experimenting.

I'm getting a 504 Gateway timeout on your ims9 link.

The link is up now. Looks like it was taken down for a Windows update and then overlooked for restarts later.

I was lucky enough to walk to it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yQjfSdwqlIFb8gl_mDDWo670CAXgoq6u/view?usp=drive_link

Next time, I won't need to walk at all, just need to make it to 2045.

Yes, I rented a lake home at Greers Ferry Lake in Arkansas. My oldest daughter and I had a great time and saw the second total solar eclipse of our lives. We saw the 2017 one in South Carolina. I think I am too old to see another one in my lifetime.

We too had almost totally clear skies, with some high level clouds that dissipated about an hour before the eclipse got started. I am an amateur astronomer so I lugged my 10" telescope and camera gear so I could get some good pictures. Here are two that show the prominences (tongues of fire I like to call them) were especially noticeable and large during this eclipse.

Attachments:
2024 eclipse prominences zoomed in.jpg
2024 eclipse prominences.jpg

Great photos!

Thanks for sharing Ron. Beautiful photo and also great for showing you how dirty your screen is

I saw it from Plattsburg, NY. It was a 4 hour drive north to get there and then an 8 hour slog in very heavy traffic back home -- but spectacular viewing and well worth the effort.

I made my own Manifold Map for planning -- even crudely georegistered the near simultaneous pass of the ISS ground track on the odd chance I might see it just after totality ended.

http://www.hriyc.org/2024 Solar Eclipse.map

Thank you everyone for sharing the lovely photos.