I took the day off from work and filming in the studio to attend an eclipse viewing event here in Central Wisconsin. This was a free community event that was hosted at our local high school. The event coordinators passed out special glasses so everyone could view the eclipse safely.
They had pinhole boxes, telescopes reflecting the eclipse and other viewing devices to make this a pretty spectacular viewing event. There were about 200 people in attendance from our small community which made this even more exciting to share it with others as equally eager as we were.
Central Wisconsin was at its peak of 83% totality at approximately 1:13pm CST. The moon left a small crescent of sun still peeking out from behind it before things began to slowly brighten up again. We did not experience complete darkness, but we did have a dusk-like light and definitely experienced a drop in temperature cooling things by several degrees. I have to admit, as someone who is fascinated by our solar system, astronomy, and space/universe in general, I was a pretty excited to experience this cosmic event. It makes you feel small in such a vast universe.
My dad, who we all know and love for his behind the camera work in our videos, was once again behind the camera during this event as he tried to capture small clips of the various stages of the eclipse.
He was able to capture a couple pretty remarkable photos of it as well.
Since the event at the high school began nearly 2 hours before the actual eclipse would occur, we brought blankets and lawn chairs as well as a picnic lunch to make our viewing party even more fun.
I also brought along my crochet project presently in the works. I am in the process of designing a mesh tunic for under Nate’s Halloween costume. I’m never far away from a project, so it was inevitable that I would pull out my latest project to work on during the time before viewing the solar eclipse!
I have to say, this was an above average viewing event and not one bit boring even if it was not full totality. I loved that the weather cooperated. It was a beautiful sunny 78 degrees Fahrenheit with very little cloud coverage which made visibility pretty neat. I’m happy to say that I lived to experience this in my lifetime as the last one was nearly a dozen years before I was born. It was “totality” worth it! What a memorable day this was!
Where were you viewing from and what did you see? What was on your hook while the moon passed over the sun? Share your Eclipse story in the comments! Enjoy a few clips from today’s view from Central Wisconsin, USA.
