இலவசம்: An Event of a Lifetime!

It was twilight. Birds were squawking and flying back to the trees. Dogs barked like crazy anticipating their evening stroll and dinner. Crickets started chirping. Streetlights and the front lights of houses came on, their light sensors triggered by the onset of darkness. The temperature dropped significantly. It could have been any evening, except that it was midday. It was the day of total solar eclipse.

Solar eclipses are not a common occurrence, total solar eclipses more so. The last time a total solar eclipse occurred in Austin was in the year 1397, and the next one is not going to be till 2343. In other words, we can confidently say that no one who saw the last one is alive today, and no one alive today will be there for the next one. A solar eclipse is rare, truly the event of a lifetime.

This solar eclipse is a rather special one, because there was an annular eclipse as a curtain raiser last October. Though it was only partial in Austin, the path of the annular eclipse was not too far from here. In fact, the path of these two eclipses overlap each other in a town a couple of hours west of Austin. These two eclipses coming one after the other created an unprecedented excitement among the public.

Path of the Annular and Total Eclipses

The scientific community stoked the excitement through outreach events over the past many months. Personally, I had attended the STEM Girls Day in the University of Texas, Austin, as part of the Austin Astronomical Society, where we educated school kids about the eclipse and handed out over a thousand eclipse glasses. Bars hosted science trivia nights where I won a few goodie bags. There was even an eclipse themed stand-up comedy show.

One particularly satisfying project was brought to Austin by Allyson Bieryla, Harvard University. The aim of the project is to get the Blind and Low Vision community experience solar eclipses by converting light into sound. The light intensity is converted into sound by the LightSound device and the change in intensity is depicted by a change in the musical tone. My daughter and I volunteered in assembling this units, which were then shipped across the country for use by the BLV community.

I was also fortunate enough to be invited to talk about the eclipse with kids in a neighboring elementary school. I decided that I would use no technology and keep the session as a conversation. I am glad I held their attention the whole time. I was impressed by the knowledge they had and by their questions. I was glad that I had done enough homework before going in front of them and did not make a fool of myself.

May be an image of 1 person, television and text

Sole use of tech was when a book was projected!

But the eclipse almost did not occur for us. The weather forecast predicted cloud coverage over most of central Texas, and in the last few days, there were predictions of rain right around the time of totality. The media stopped talking about how glorious the eclipse is going to be and began to discuss what would happen under a cloudy sky. The most expected event of the year was at the risk of literally being a damp squib.

Our expectations were dialed down. The whole city was manifesting for some bit of the sky to clear to have a view of the eclipse. The day dawned with overcast skies. There were layers and layers of clouds. They were dark and thick and the possibility of seeing anything through them were remote. We braced ourselves for a disappointing day.

Twas a cloudy day!

Then the universe decided to take pity on us. As the day progressed, a light wind started moving the clouds away. The eclipse started and the sun played hide and seek among the clouds. We were able to glimpse the first contact and then the moon starting to cover a part of the sun. Since our expectations were low, we were ecstatic even with the veiled view that we could get.

Some Post Production Fun!

Another look!

About fifteen minutes before totality, the clouds parted, and we had an unfettered view of the eclipse. We saw the sun reduced to just a crescent, Baily’s beads, the diamond ring and then totality. That was an amazing sight. It was then the birds went silent, the dogs stopped barking. The crickets chirped on merrily. It was surreal to see a twilight sky in the middle of the day.

Totality! PC: My son Anshuman Garga

When the sun was completely covered, we could see the solar prominences. These are large loop like structures that extend from the surface of the sun. We could see Venus shining like a bright star. Jupiter was supposed to be visible, but it was behind the cloud cover. We tried looking for the Devil comet but could not see it. But for the small window, the sky was still overcast and so, we could not see a lot of stars. We felt the movement of the moon towards totality to be excruciatingly slow. But the totality did not last long enough, soon we saw third contact and the second diamond ring, and the journey of the moon across the sun continued.

Solar Prominences! PC: Anshuman Garga

Diamond Ring! PC: Anshuman Garga

Venus!

As more and more of the Sun became visible, the clouds started coming back as well. Even as the moon raced past the face of the sun, our visibility became less and less and soon enough we were left with just an overcast sky. And within an hour from the end of the eclipse we had a short but heavy rainfall.

Ready for some rains!

It was as if nature did not want to disappoint us and gave us a window to watch the show it put up for us. And what a show it was! I had to forsake all technology at some point and just immerse myself into experiencing this wonderful phenomenon. I was speechless when I saw the milky way the first time, and when I saw the rings of Saturn, and Jupiter and its four big moons. I felt the same today during totality. It was just a mind-blowing experience.

I just felt lucky and fortunate to witness this celestial spectacle and I thank all those who made this experience memorable. My emotions are definitely not something that I can ever recreate with words but I just wanted to share it with you all.