We live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and at 1:40 PM local time (about 30 minutes ago as of this writing) experienced a total eclipse, basically unobstructed for 3-4 minutes. It was really cool watching the shadows on the ground that had filtered through the tree leaves turn into crescents beforehand--something we've seen a few times before with partial eclipses.
What made this really different is that the sun was completely blocked out (making it easy to look directly at the moon/sun without any optical filters at all), to the point that street lights in our residential area turned on--like a very deep twilight. The way that the lights came down, though, was the coolest part. It appeared like someone turned down the lights using a dimmer light switch--twice--but spread over 1-to-2 seconds each time, and both times spread a few seconds apart.
If I hadn't been there, I would have thought that it was hyperbole--but it's not.
So how rare was this event? Well the last time it happened here was apparently 1873...and the next time is said to be 2317.
That's pretty rare.
JMTC.
Chris
What made this really different is that the sun was completely blocked out (making it easy to look directly at the moon/sun without any optical filters at all), to the point that street lights in our residential area turned on--like a very deep twilight. The way that the lights came down, though, was the coolest part. It appeared like someone turned down the lights using a dimmer light switch--twice--but spread over 1-to-2 seconds each time, and both times spread a few seconds apart.
If I hadn't been there, I would have thought that it was hyperbole--but it's not.
So how rare was this event? Well the last time it happened here was apparently 1873...and the next time is said to be 2317.
That's pretty rare.
JMTC.
Chris