i grew up in southern illinois. the weather in april is dodgy at best, and i had honestly written off any chance of actually seeing it there years ago. that meant i was probably not going to see it at all. i had experienced the madhouse associated with the 2017 eclipse, and i was very hesitant to find a viewing site and lodgings among the crowds in an area i was totally unfamiliar with. so when the weather suggested southern illinois would be one of the few places with mostly clear skies along the path of totality, i just had to make the 13 hour drive from dc.

not a second of that journey was wasted. i quickly decided to go to the quetil trail overlook in alto pass - a park essentially in my backyard (only about 2 miles from my old home) and which i knew offered the best views in the house. i think this is where having local knowledge came in handy - i arrived early, but the crowd didn't stop filing in until just before the partial phase began. it turns out most viewers instead went to to bald knob - the highest hill in the area, but where the treeline is not as amenable to a sweeping panoramic view.

there are a bunch of stories i'd like to tell, but i'll keep this focused in on the actual eclipse. the first thing is the experience of the moon's umbra rushing in. it is astonishing to see this growing dark blotch on the horizon as the light is visibly failing by the second. one of the striking differences from 2017 was in the quality of the light before totality. in 2017, the light turned a deep red orange, almost as if someone had pointed a stage light at the earth. shadow bands were intense and danced violently, which give everything a hallucinatory, shimmery quality. by contrast, this year's entry into totality was much more subdued - the light was slightly bluish, and while we did see shadow bands, they were extremely muted and rocked back and forth. the light also felt a bit more diffuse - everything looked faint and muddy.

i've got some guesses for a few of these aspects - first, since the eclipse was shallower in 2017, i suspect that the chromosphere was more exposed around the moon's rim. this would mean a much greater proportion of the light was coming from the deep red glow of hydrogen alpha emission. seasonality also probably had something to do with it, since shadow bands are an artifact of atmospheric turbulence. the atmosphere was absolutely trying to cook thunderstorms in 2017 before the moon turned down the heat (the infamous carbondale clouds were a thunderhead that hadn't fully evaporated), but this year's eclipse was essentially in a post-frontal environment. the diffuse lighting might also be from the large corona (i was seeing the corona on the opposite side of the disappearing sun for like 15 seconds before totality), which might have helped smear things out.

speaking of the corona, it was amazing. it was about it was about 1.5x the size of the corona in 2017, and had all sorts of delicate tendrils stretching away. i was surprised by just how large and active the corona was. it's pretty neat to now have firsthand experience visually comparing solar minimum and maximum. the diamond ring effect was amazing this year, but we also had the addition of a very large prominence dangling from the bottom of the moon. it was very bright, but had a deep red coloration to it. i honestly want to call this a "garnet ring". it was visible through most of totality.

midway through the eclipse we got an extremely strong gust of wind, and i can't help but wonder if it was an atmospheric effect. it was a little gusty during the early phases of the eclipse, but the winds had slackened before totality. this wind gust felt like it had come out of nowhere, and it was strong enough to have knocked over at least one tripod. after the eclipse, i was chatting with a group of locals who had been watching from a nearby farm, they also got the gust and said their ears popped when it passed. it was really strange.

there are a lot of little fragmentary things i still need to sit down and try to consolidate in my memory. totality gives me one hell of an adrenaline kick, and i feel like i looked at a lot but my memory just slides off of it. i spent nearly a minute transfixed by the corona through my binoculars, but if you were to ask me to describe it in detail i probably couldn't do it. likewise, i saw venus pop out of the darkness well before the totality, but i never noticed jupiter (and totally forgot to look for other stars or even take a stab at trying to have the achievement of making a comet observation during totality). it breaks my little monkey brain in ways that are hard to plan for.

anyway, need to finish traveling home today, and i'll probably have some dslr photos to post this evening.