Eclipse: Totality

I knew it was coming, and yet I still started when, with a silent boom, the sun went dark.

Awesome

A much overused word, awesome, and the one that seems most applicable to my experience.

A moment before, the sun was shadowed, but it was still the sun. It was light. And then it wasn’t. Eclipse glasses removed, I could see the corona, radiating out from the dark central disc. Planets sighted with a little difficulty during first contact were now obvious.

The cool wind brushed the raised hair on my arms. My body knew something was very different. Color turned to black and white. Eerie.

Taking my turn with the binoculars, I see the chromosphere, a red rim surrounding the darkened sun, and glowing indentations around its edge caused by irregularities in the moon’s surface.

Suddenly and much too soon, a diamond ring of light reappears and totality is over. Noooo,  I silently wail, I’m still observing, I’m not done.

No matter, totality is done.

Until the next time. I’m hooked.