April 08th, 2024 - the moon cut in on earth's dance with the sun

"You are my sunshine, My only sunshine. You make me happy When skies are grey. You'll never know, dear, How much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away"... well maybe it's ok for like four minutes because this was cool.

Mercyhurst University, like many area institutes of higher learning, planned around this once in a lifetime Erie solar eclipse event. They had educational opportunities, they bought reams of protective glasses to hand out and other swag and opened up their athletic fields for all their students and many other visitors to the area.

Hundreds of folks played games and set up blankets on the Lakers turf fields and hopes the clouds would part enough for a clear view of the total eclipse.

If you've never experienced one, there are folks who are in awe and they applaud the moon when it appears to "snap" into place. There are interesting phenomena that appear in pinholes devices and within shadows as the whole world gets a tad surreal for a few minutes in the middle of the day.

It slowly gets a little darker, perhaps a tad yellow-ish and then it's almost like your dad shut the lights off when its time for you to go to bed. The temperature drops a bit and you wait to see if the moon will continue on its journey and give you back your daylight and warmth.

Photographers tried all sorts of things from testing their phone's zooming capabilities through the protective cardboard-rimmed glasses to the heavy duty pros with expensive tripods, cameras and filters. 

​The slightly overcast day actually helped as there is no better filter than the clouds.

Erie and northwestern Pennsylvania had a ton of visitors from southern areas so traffic was a tad heavier getting around if you didn't know alternative routes. But overall traffic flowed, even if slow at times.

The area is expected to be in line for another total eclipse in this century, but not until 2099.

If you caught the bug, and want to know when the next total eclipse is happening so you can plan ahead, Alaska will have one in 2033. 

Or in 2044 you can hit the edges of the Dakotas and Montana or venture into Canada or Greenland at the eclipse take a weird ram horn curve up north.

If those seem a tad too difficult to navigate, In 2045 another will start in Califonia and end in Florida crossing portions of 12 states.

According to a CBS News report there are eight total eclipse expected to hit the U.S. in the 21st century.

Though its not a rare occurance, it is rare to any given area.

In a 2020 National Geographic report, there were three Americans, Glenn Schneider, Jay Pasachoff and John Beattie held the world record for observinf 35 total eclipses.

The moon's shadow moves across the earth at 1,000 miles per hour. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon but is also 400 times farther way. 

The word eclipse is derived fro the Greek, ekleipsis, which means abandonment. Eclipses do not happen on Mercury or Venus because they have no moons.

It is estimated that only one in 10,000 people on earth will see a total eclipse in their lifetime.