Monday, Aug. 21, 2017 looked to be a warm late summer’s day in upstate South Carolina as I pulled our van onto the side of a country road a few miles east of Pendleton. My family and I had gotten up early this morning to study the path of the Great Eclipse. We found what we thought was a suitable area, Bishop Branch Road, which gave an unobstructed view of the sky.
At 1:07 pm, the eclipse began. The sun’s normally round disk had a tiny “bite” out of it. For the next 30 to 45 minutes that tiny dark segment grew and grew until the sun began to take on shape similar to Pac-Man. By 2 pm, the daylight had begun to look strange as if some high, thin clouds were blocking the sun’s full light, and viewing the solar disk with our glasses revealed a crescent sun in the sky — looking rather like a banana.
Cumulus clouds tried to cover the sun a couple of times, but fortunately, the loss of full heating limited their growth. Indeed, it felt much cooler than when we first arrived. Nearby a hawk flew across the pasture with a piercing shriek as if it, too, was confused by this strange light. Shadows began to take on a really sharp appearance as the sun’s light was reduced to an intensely bright sliver.
By 2:30 p.m., daylight was now eerie. Things were getting darker, but from above, not from the west as is normal during an evening twilight. The sky kept getting darker, and the sun was only a barely visible thin crescent as 2:37 pm approached — the start of totality.
Suddenly, at 2:37 and 30 seconds, it seemed as if someone turned down a dimmer, and the sky darkened and turned a deep blue-black with the moon’s shadow. The cicadas’ buzz in the trees grew silent, and birds stopped singing. Somewhere nearby a dog began barking frantically.
At this point, it was safe to take off our solar glasses and look at the eclipse. The sun’s pearly white corona was now visible behind the moon. Nearby, Venus shone brightly. All along the horizon, the cumulus clouds took on a sunset glow. It got cool really quickly.
Indeed, the loss of the sun’s heating caused the temperature in the moon’s shadow to fall near to the dew point, producing the smell of moisture. Time seemed to stop briefly, but all-too-soon the “diamond ring” appeared, signaling the end of totality at 2:40 p.m. Rather quickly, the sky started to brighten, the street lights turned off, and nature returned to normal. The wildly barking dog settled down, and birds resumed their songs. A few dark bands spread across the sky as mountains on the moon blocked some of the sunlight reaching Earth.
The small group of a dozen or so people who had gathered along with us exchanged the sense of awe and wonder we felt after witnessing this rare event, and then continued on our way.
