Just Barely Through the Fog Banks: The Eclipse from Ground Zero, the Oregon Coast

Yeah, I was really taking a chance, choosing to stay on the Oregon Coast for the 2017 eclipse. The reason? The fog. And there was a lot of it. To make the long story short, it never really lifted, but we could still see most of the sights through the clouds. I didn't get to see much of the corona, but there were lots of Solar prominences to compensate. It was an awesome experience in the end, but my nails are bitten down to the nubs!

We started out from Florence at 4:40 AM, not wanting to miss a parking spot. There was not a lot of traffic, and we were absolutely thrilled to see parking spaces at Seal Rock State Park. The fog was a concern, though, and the sun was still not at all visible at 8:30.

The crew at Seal Rock was stubborn though. There was some discussion of trying a different spot, but most everyone stayed, hoping for a break in the clouds. It never happened, but the clouds thinned enough that the Sun shown through. I suspect that made things a bit more dangerous, because the clouds made the eclipse glasses almost useless, and UV light could still damage people's eyes. I trusted my cameras to filter things for me (I was shooting with two Panasonic Lumix DMZ FZ70 with a 60x zoom; one on a tripod, the other handheld). I started snapping photos.

At the beginning, the Sun was the show with a couple of sunspots visible, one almost dead-center, and the other near the lower left quadrant.

More of the Sun's surface was covered, and it was becoming difficult to focus on the crescent sun in the rapidly dimming light.

Despite the warnings, I realized I could get pictures at this point without the filter, so the next couple of pictures are the true color of the Sun: white.

The discontinuities on the right edge of the crescent below are mountains on the Moon splitting up the sunlight.

The crowd at Seal Rock had been chattering away throughout most of the buildup to totality, but there was a sudden hush of shock and awe as the Sun suddenly disappeared, and it was as dark as night.

The Solar prominences glowed pink around the margins of the disk. As noted before, the corona was not visible through the fog.

There was an audible gasp in the crowd as the first streaks of light appeared on the other side of the Moon. The prominences quickly disappeared in the bright shinning light.

And then totality was over as the sky began to lighten up after 1 minute and 25 seconds of darkness. We didn't get to see the stars and planets, but I was not going to complain. What we saw was simply awe-inspiring. I understand that not everybody can drop everything and go across an entire country to see a shadow for less than two minutes, but if you ever have an opportunity, don't pass it up! It's a common experience of humanity to see the Sun blotted out by the Moon, and witnessing one in person can help one understand the myths and legends that grew around eclipses. I literally felt like shouting for the dragon to let the Sun back out of its mouth.

Update: Very pleased that EarthSky posted one of my pictures! http://earthsky.org/todays-image/photos-aug-21-2017-total-solar-eclipse