Today there was a solar eclipse, where the moon passes in front of the sun, blotting it out and making things darker (or just plain dark, depending on where you are). Back in the good old days people ran around in terror because they thought the world was ending.
That still happened today but it’s because Trump is president, not the eclipse.
At 86% totality, the eclipse over the Vancouver area was both neat and disappointing. The disappointing part is that even with only 14% of sunlight getting through, it was still bright enough (on a clear day) to only be a little dimmer than normal, similar to what you might see on a gloomy cloud-covered day.
On the neat side, the dimness did have a surreal “this ain’t right” quality to it, and shadows were even darker in relation. Trees were casting weird crescent-shaped shadows as the moon traversed across the sun’s path. I forgot to take pictures. Also, the temperature got noticeably cooler–not cold, but more pronounced than just steeping from the sunshine and into the shade would be.
Inevitably you see people do dumb things. As I headed downtown on the SkyTrain one guy wearing glasses with clip-on sunglass lenses (that did not appear to be special protective lenses) kept looking out and up at the sun, squinting and shielding his eyes with a hand. At one point he stopped and rubbed both eyes a good bit. That’s because you are damaging your sight, you dum-dum! When the rear-facing seat at the end of the train became free, he shifted to that so he could continue to stare at the sun. I seriously think he did damage to his vision. How can people be so utterly stupid about this? There was information about safety precautions all over the place.
Speaking of idiots, guess who else looked directly up at the sun?
TFW you learn the hard way. #Eclipse2017 pic.twitter.com/6mkQz62DC5
— Brenna Williams (@brennawilliams) August 21, 2017
It was still a spiffy, science-y event, though it has to take second place to the one I witnessed as a 15-year old in Duncan in 1979. That one was a total eclipse and having the day go from complete daylight to night in moments was very unsettling (but cool). This eclipse, though not total, still comes in ahead of the Bonnie Tyler song, though.
