The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
SHADOW & AWE
Gathered at the Wesleyan, health center viewing stations, residents catch rare glimpse of a solar eclipse
MIDDLETOWN » Monday afternoon’s partial eclipse of the sun was a chance to witness one of the universe’s magnificent marvels.
So there was no way that Duncan Olaechea of Portland was going to have his two sons, 7 and 10, miss out. In fact, he took the day off from work to make sure they experienced the utter wonderment he has been fortunate to feel several times.
“I’ve seen many eclipses in my lifetime in different parts of the world but my kids haven’t,” said the former Army combat engineer. “I wanted them to be a part of that.”
Olaechea caught a total eclipse in South America more than 20 years ago, he said. As the moon passed in front of the sun in the middle of the day, blocking its light entirely, he said, nightfall arrived for a spell.
In comparison, he said, with only a 66 percent totality here in Connecticut, “It was still pretty bright — it was [as if it were] 8 o’clock, just as the sun was setting.”
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The family was at Hartford Hospital as the eclipse approached and watched the spectacle from there.
“It was probably one of the best places to see it because we were inside a dark glass window and right outside, there was a glass roof, so you could see the eclipse through both those pieces of glass without hurting your eyes,” Olaechea said. His boys thought it was cool, he said.
The family didn’t have special ISO-certified viewing glasses, so Olaechea crafted a viewer out of a cereal box, however, “that didn’t work out too well.”
Fortunately, people outside were sharing their spectacles among the crowd.
Mark Masselli, president and CEO of the Community Health Center on lower Main Street, opened the rooftop garden for viewing Monday from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. and distributed 25 pairs of glasses. There was also a live feed of CNN on a big-screen television for those who preferred to watch the eclipse in its totality, he said.
“More people arrived than we anticipated,” Masselli said, so all those gathered passed around the glasses. “I think there was a great deal of excitement in the community.”
Being able to share the eclipse with friends and neighbors, he said, made a difference. “I think it was a real bonding experience,” he said. “People felt like this was a special event and it was nice to spend it together.”
Masselli live streamed from the rooftop on Facebook during the event.
“You couldn’t normally see — if you had these sunglasses on — anything. But if you looked directly at the sun, you would have a very nice view. You could see the moon slowly come and it got darker. We weren’t in the area of totality, so we didn’t have it completely but it really got darker,” Masselli said.
“You could clearly see [the moon] moving because we’re so far from it, even though it’s moving that quickly, it’s a slow progress that took probably an hour before it moved across,” he said. “So it was fast in relative terms, but at a distance, it’s slower.”
Several families brought their children.
“Every one of them was like, ‘I feel like I’m in outer space,’ Masselli whispered in his retelling, “with all that wonderment about the future and about space. It’s a great day for young people to think about their relation with the stars, and hopefully they’ll be traveling to them,” one day, he said.
Olaechea’s boys had heard warnings about not looking directly at the sun during the eclipse.
“The media made it a lot it a lot bigger than it was going to be, and they scared them, saying, ‘Don’t look at the sun,’ so they said, ‘we don’t want to go outside,’” Olaechea said.
Once he explained how to safely view the eclipse, the boys relaxed and enjoyed the show, Olaechea said.
“They’re finally understanding the formation of the planets and their relationship to the sun and the moon, so it was a good teaching moment,” he said.
Jennifer Sequenzia of Middletown watched from Foss Hill at Wesleyan University, where the Van Vleck Observatory was open to the public and at least 1,000 people milled about, she said.
“Everyone was very friendly and excited. We were all talking to each other like old friends. It was very cool. Everyone shared the glasses, but instead of putting them back on the table, they would hold them until the next person asked to see them. I had about four different people share their glasses with me,” Sequenzia said.
And people got creative when they realized they couldn’t get their hands on ISO glasses in time, she said.
“I saw viewfinders made out of everything from cereal boxes to UPS boxes to homemade things made out of I don’t know what. People also brought welding lenses,” she said.
Inside the observatory, which was full of people, she said, there was a live feed from NASA.
“They only had two telescope set up outside and only one of them was able to see the eclipse due to cloud coverage, but no one seemed to mind. People stood in line and waited their turn. Everyone seemed really happy,” she said.
“It was amazing to see the eclipse. But it was equally amazing to see how many people were out just enjoying a beautiful day together,” Sequenzia said.
Leslie Gianneli, director of PR and communications at CHC, said the sun looked just as ordinary as ever — until she donned the glasses.
“The first time you put on the glasses and looked up at the cloudy sky, you couldn’t believe you could see it, because [through the lenses] it was dark, but then it became much more clear.”
Stephanie Ivers, communications and PR specialist at CHC, organized the “lowkey” rooftop viewing event. Between staff, families and other members of the community, she estimates as many as 45 showed up.
“We had 25 pairs of glasses. Everyone shared and took a peek while they could,” Ivers said. “About 2:45, it started dwindling down.”
She was impressed with the eclipse.
“I think it was better than what I expected,” she said excitedly. “We were told between 67 and 70 percent totality so when the clouds started coming in, we weren’t sure we see it,” but then, when she donned the glasses and beheld the scene, it was breathtaking for many there, Ivers said.
Masselli said CHC staff were stationed by the elevator on the rooftop to remind people not to look directly at the sun and how to use the glasses safely.
Some had heard that their smartphone cameras could be damaged by improperly photographing the eclipse, too.
“People were trying to take photos with their phones and others put the glasses on their [camera] lens,” Ivers said. “Everyone came out pretty well unscathed,” she joked.
“This sense of community is something that brought people together and that’s always good,” Masselli said. “Shared experiences are much better than just individual experiences.”