The Great American Eclipse

On Monday the Great American Eclipse passed through my neck of the woods, and to be perfectly honest it was a bit of a letdown. Maybe I bought too much into the hype and had unrealistic expectations. Where I live in Colorado we got about 92% coverage of the sun, but the light didn’t dim much and the only really notable thing that I observed was how tree shadows got a little distorted. Perhaps more interesting than the eclipse itself were all the other people gawking at the sun with their eclipse sunglasses on. I was able to briefly borrow eclipse glasses from another person and look at the sun myself during the brief period of greatest coverage, but for whatever reason I felt nothing. Soon enough the whole thing was over and everyone went back to whatever they were doing prior to standing around outside. Maybe I need to experience a complete, 100% solar eclipse to understand why it’s such a big deal. If there’s one positive thing I took out of Monday’s eclipse, however, it’s that I think I now have a greater appreciation for the amount of light that our sun generates. Even with about 92% of it covered by the moon, there was still enough light coming to Earth that if you weren’t looking up you might think it was merely a cloudy day.