Five weeks from now, a 70-mile wide strip across the U.S. will turn dark during daylight hours. It will be what is being called the Great American Eclipse (never mind that the eclipse will travel across a part of the remainder of the globe, as well).
It will fall on Monday, August 21, on an arc beginning in Oregon and traveling through Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska, and on through South Carolina. Durangoans who are traveling for the sight will locate in Wyoming and Nebraska. Bring a camper or a tent, they say, with accommodations expected to be full the night prior.
It has been about a hundred years since a full coast-to-coast eclipse of the sun took place, according to reports (solar eclipses, not coast-to-coast, have been more frequent; 1979 to be exact).
The eclipse will only last two to three minutes, and you will have to be within that 70-mile “Path of Totality” for it to be, well, total.
Those who have experienced an eclipse say that nocturnal creatures can briefly emerge, while diurnal creatures are suddenly inactive. Most of all, it is a reminder of the force of the cosmos.
For some, it ought to produce an interest in the solar system, including a reminder of the influence of the 15th century astronomer Nicholas Copernicus whose model of the universe placed the sun, rather than the earth, at the universe’s center.
In Durango, the eclipse will be about 80 percent, meaning a gray dark, but not fully dark, sky. It will occur at about 11:30 in the morning.
Is that sufficient for a local eclipse celebration of some sort for those who are not traveling? It could be.
A gathering in Buckley Park, to music, perhaps? Or at the Powerhouse Science Center on the bank of the Animas River? Or on the rim of the college, perhaps at Lions Den?
Costumes? We leave that up to the imaginative folks who engage in Snowdown each year.
Protective glasses are available online, although one website claims that a kitchen colander will work just fine.
“Ceremony of the colander?”
Let’s hear some ideas.
