there's no way to prepare yourself or what it is truly like to be in a total eclipse of the Sun.
Many people have seen a partial eclipse of the Sun
and it's nothing at all like a total eclipse of the Sun.
here in Knoxville we're at 99.9% of totality. Which sounds really close, it almost
sounds good enough but here good enough isn't even close you are going to miss
the prime thing that a total solar eclipse is all about and that's getting to see the corona of the Sun.
To see a 99% partial eclipse is like going to your favorite
musical and standing out in the lobby. You can sense the excitement, but you've missed the main event.
Once it gets really really close to the disc of the moon is now just starting to cover up the entire disc of the Sun
Astounding things start to happen. Because one it goes from as bright as day to a
dark as dark Twilight in a matter of minutes
You see the animals behaving very strangely because it usually does not get dark in
the middle of the day gradually the Sun has become only a sliver all that's left
is the diamond ring effect just the last little bit of sunlight coming through
you have this glimmer for just an instant you see storms in the lower
atmosphere of the Sun prominences kind of a fluorescent red in color.
All of a sudden it is nighttime in the middle of the day you your body knows every part
of your being know that it should be daytime but now it's night.
You can see some of the bright stars you can see Venus or even more strange if you look
up or used to be the Sun is now this black circle and it's surrounded by this
brilliantly glowing soft white light called the Corona.
Corona is a kind of halo around the Sun it's the sun's outer atmosphere we never see it except during
a total eclipse of the Sun and it's unearthly beautiful
you just can't help but just feel as if everything about reality has changed you can understand
why people used to get really really frightened during solar eclipses because
feels like a dream
looking at the sunspot
okay what do you see
Oh it's right there!
Wow!
In anticipation of the eclipse coming to the area we are doing some outreach programs here and where we have
solar observations on the roof we can safely view the Sun and different
wavelengths to get different perspectives and also running through
simulations of the day of the Eclipse here in the planetarium.
what we're trying to do here more than anything else is educate the public let people
understand how important it is that we do it safely I'm holding a pair of solar
eclipse glasses now we've had sunglasses all our lives and I can tell you for
certain sunglasses are not for looking at the Sun these have a neutral density
factor that only allows 1/100,000th of the ambient light to sunlight to pass
through that's safe to look at the Sun with anything less than that is not safe
so if you have a certified pair of solar glasses then you've got the right thing
when the moon is blocking the Sun totality occurs you actually take off
your solar filters that's when you can see the corona of the atmosphere around
the Sun and you can taking the full spectacle that is the Eclipse
I truly believe is a life changing experience that everybody should make an
effort to do and go see a total solar eclipse
it's been 38 years since I've
total eclipse has come to the mainland United States and this one is
exceptionally nice because it goes all the way from Oregon across the country
to South Carolina right through Tennessee
most of the time people have
to travel far off places even sometimes taking a cruise they get into the path
Eclipse and it's cutting right through our backyard
81 million people are within driving distance of that path that's a third of the population United States
so if you can imagine a natural event that draws that kind of attention, it'd be a shame the miss it.
We strongly recommend that people get out of
Knoxville the day of and get into the path of totality because it is a sight that you will not want to miss.
it will change your life and give you a
story that you will remember and want to tell your children tell your friends
this should be a top item on everybody's bucket list