A primal experience: Americans dazzled by solar eclipse

4.4 mn watched NASA’s TV coverage

NEW YORK, Aug 22, (Agencies): The stars came out in the middle of the day, zoo animals ran in agitated circles, crickets chirped, birds fell silent and a chilly darkness settled upon the land Monday as the US witnessed its first full-blown, coast-to-coast solar eclipse since World War I.

Millions of Americans gazed in wonder at the cosmic spectacle, with the best seats along the so-called path of totality that raced 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) across the continent from Oregon to South Carolina.

“It was a very primal experience,” Julie Vigeland, of Portland, Oregon, said after she was moved to tears by the sight of the sun reduced to a silvery ring of light in Salem.

It took 90 minutes for the shadow of the moon to travel across the country. Along that path, the moon blotted out the midday sun for about two wondrous minutes at any one place, eliciting oohs, aahs, whoops and shouts from people gathered in stadiums, parks and backyards.

It was, by all accounts, the mostobserved and most-photographed eclipse in history, documented by satellites and high-altitude balloons and watched on Earth through telescopes, cameras and cardboard-frame protective eyeglasses.

In Boise, Idaho, where the sun was more than 99 percent blocked, the street lights flicked on briefly, while in Nashville, Tennessee, people craned their necks at the sky and knocked back longneck beers at Nudie’s Honky Tonk bar.

Passengers aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean watched it unfold as Bonnie Tyler sang her 1983 hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Several minor-league baseball teams — one of them, the Columbia Fireflies, outfitted for the day in glow-in-the-dark jerseys — briefly suspended play.

A woman of New Orleans handles snakes as she sits in the campground

set up for viewing the solar eclipse. (AP)

A woman adjusts a telescope before the total solar eclipse. (AFP)

“Oh, God, oh, that was amazing,” said Joe Dellinger, a Houston man who set up a telescope on the Capitol lawn in Jefferson City, Missouri. “That was better than any photo.”

For the youngest observers, it seemed like magic.

“It’s really, really, really, really awesome,” said 9-year-old Cami Smith as she gazed at the fully eclipsed sun in Beverly Beach, Oregon.

NASA reported 4.4 million people were watching its TV coverage midway through the eclipse, the biggest livestream event in the space agency’s history.

“It can be religious. It makes you feel insignificant, like you’re just a speck in the whole scheme of things,” said veteran eclipse-watcher Mike O’Leary of San Diego, who set up his camera along with among hundreds of other amateur astronomers in Casper, Wyoming.

John Hays drove up from Bishop, California, for the total eclipse in Salem, Oregon, and said the experience will stay with him forever.

“That silvery ring is so hypnotic and mesmerizing, it does remind you of wizardry or like magic,” he said.

More than one parent was amazed to see teenagers actually look up from their cellphones.

Patrick Schueck, a construction company president from Little Rock, Arkansas, brought his 10-year-old twin daughters Ava and Hayden to Bald Knob Cross of Peace in Alto Pass, Illinois, a more than 100-foot cross atop a mountain. Schueck said at first his girls weren’t very interested in the eclipse. One sat looking at her iPhone.

“Quickly that changed,” he said. “It went from them being aloof to being in total amazement.” Schueck called it a chance to “do something with my daughters that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”

Astronomers, too, were giddy with excitement.

NASA solar physicist Alex Young said the last time earthlings had a connection like this to the heavens was during man’s first flight to the moon, on Apollo 8 in 1968. The first, famous Earthrise photo came from that mission and, like this eclipse, showed us “we are part of something bigger.”

NASA’s acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, watched with delight from a plane flying over the Oregon coast and joked about the space-agency official next to him, “I’m about to fight this man for a window seat.”

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As if a solar eclipse was not enough, the moon threw some virtual shade at the sun on Twitter on Monday, as millions of people watched the first coast-to-coast total eclipse in the United States in nearly a century.

“HA HA HA I’ve blocked the Sun!” wrote NASA Moon (@NASAMoon) on its verified Twitter account, which was created by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Make way for the Moon. #SolarEclipse2017.”

The tweet was accompanied with a screenshot photo showing that the moon had blocked the verified Twitter profile of NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun). The sun’s response was swift.

“Uh EXCUSE me?!? #solareclipse2017,” tweeted @NASASun.

Tens of thousands of Twitter users liked the exchange and many social media users responded with amusement.

“This is just too perfect. Congratulations. You have won the entire internet,” user Andy Stein (@MandoPony) replied.

“I feel the moon is gonna get some licks in but the sun is gonna come out on top,” wrote another user, @ GeeInTheNorth.