Eclipse day in the USA is here!

[Accutron]

We drove about 350 miles to the Cookeville/Sparta TN area. I stayed off the freeways entirely, and traffic on the way down was very light. On the way back, it was bumper-to-bumper for around 20 miles north of Cookeville, with heavy congestion in every town all the way to Somerset KY. We stopped in Somerset for dinner, and didn't have any problems afterward.

Our viewing site was a gravel turnaround along Rt. 136, about 350m north of the centerline between Cookeville and Sparta. Rt. 136 is a two-lane road that runs parallel to Rt. 111, which is a four-lane divided expressway. There were lots of truckers honking their horns at us from 111, and we even had one redneck heckler that declared us "a bunch of stupid f**kers" in a thick TN accent as he drove by. There were a few puffy clouds here and there that gave us some concern, but the sky was completely clear for the main event. I managed to capture sunspots right after C1, and I got some perfect photos of totality. Beyond the eclipse itself, the most striking feature was the complete shutdown of everything else near and during totality. All of the traffic just stopped, and it got completely silent.

The camera I used was a Canon SX530HS, and I used a piece of gold-plated #12 welding glass as a filter during the partial phase.


Viewing location, along Rt. 136 near Sparta TN.


First bite, about 4 minutes after C1.


Viewing location, GPS coordinates. You can see the bite forming in the lower right of the sun's reflection.


Twilight, about a minute before C2.


Totality at 17:30UTC.


C3 diamond ring with blurring from AF failure.