Eclipse of the
Frying Pan
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Our trip to see the dark side of the moon
We didn't take any pictures of the eclipse. You can probably
find better pictures than we could have taken.
We were more interested in being there than in taking a picture of it.
Pictures of us being there are below.
For several decades, I have had this picture of a hippy man
waving a frying pan in front of a blue tarp.
When I got the Sky and Telescope special issue with
industrial strength sunglasses included, I immediately
saw the similarity with the picture on its cover.
The similarity could be increased by enlarging the black circle
and cropping out the man.
No time for that. It will have to do for now.
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The
last time we were in Vermont
it rained so hard that we could
not put up the tent but had to sleep in the car. It has been said
that an eclipse is a bad omen, but that could be seen as a bad omen
for the eclipse.
My boyfriend-in-law
keeps up with the latest astronomical news;
about a month before the radio even mentioned it, and two months
before April Eight we had reservations for a hotel in Newport VT,
which is within a few miles of where the path of totality crossed
the Canadian border.
There was a snowstorm a few days before the big day.
When we got there, there was snow on the ground, but the sky was clear.
We were in a bad place but a perfect location. The place was an
unpaved muddy parking lot with idling semi-truck and dumpster.
The location was on a direct line from sun to moon on through Earth
with nothing but clear air and hard vacuum between.
We brought along two extra pairs of sunglasses. In addition to the
two that came from the Sky and Telescope special issue, we had some
that we got from the Boston Museum of Science three decades ago when
a solar eclipse came near. We thought we might lend them
to someone who did not have them, but as it turned out, everyone in
the parking lot had at least as much equipment as we did. Those next to
us had several pair of filtered binoculars, a guy across the way had
a full face welding mask.
Despite his role in alerting us for the need to get hotel reservations
early, my boyfriend-in-law and his wife went to a different place
and brought a lot more equipment, from telescopes to colanders.
(-: If you land in a lander, do you go to sea in a co-lander? :-)
Click for pictures of
Diane and Keith
waiting for the moon.
