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The Great American Eclipse: Part 8

The Great American Eclipse: Part 8 of 8

Travel agents who offer package deals to totality often state that experiencing a total eclipse is a life altering event.  Is that true or is it only hype, a marketing strategy designed to sell airline tickets?  It’s true, but only so far as you allow it to be so.  Standing in the shadow of the moon is no more life altering than making a new friend, learning to ride a bike, or reading a book that fires your imagination and inspires you to action. 

Last spring I told a group of 6th graders that if they went to the eclipse as totality approached they should run away from it while playing Cat Stevens on their iPod.  I then asked them why.  One of the boys got it.  He said that it was so the lyrics, I’m Being Followed by a Moon Shadow, would literally be true. 

All too soon the sun reemerged from behind the moon and daylight returned to the land.  Before packing up my equipment I took one last photo; the one posted here.  It’s my watch.  Look closely and you’ll notice that the date shows Monday August 21 and the moon phase depicts a new moon essential for a solar eclipse.  Look again and you’ll see that the stopwatch shows, one minute and forty-two seconds.  That’s the amount of time I spent in totality.

Show EXIF
  • Aperture: ƒ/4.5
  • Camera: LEICA X2
  • Taken: August 21, 2017
  • Flash fired: no
  • Focal length: 24mm
  • ISO: 100
  • Shutter speed: 1/125s
    The Great American Eclipse: Part 8
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