This coming Monday, 21 August, the United States will see something that it hasn’t seen in nearly a century. A total solar eclipse will cross from coast to coast, entering the USA in Oregon and exiting over South Carolina. The longest duration of totality, where the Moon completely covers the sun, will take place near Hopkinsville KY, at about two minutes forty seconds. The path of totality will cover about 70 miles from north to south.

I have been planning on seeing this for about 18 months. In December of 2016, I narrowed it down to traveling to Wyoming, Nebraska or Missouri for totality. With my older daughter partaking in a school theatre trip to Scotland the week prior, and flying back the day of the eclipse, it was sadly not going to be a family vacation. Eventually it turned into a trip with my dad, my brother and his youngest daughter, and my youngest daughter making the trip.  With other people making the trip, I picked Nebraska as our prime target, booking rooms in Lincoln.  From there, we can travel easily west or southeast to chase the sun should clouds be in the way.

We leave tomorrow morning, spending the night in Omaha, then traveling on to Lincoln Sunday.  I have other rooms booked several more hours down the road in Missouri, should weather be more favorable there. We will play it by ear.

I am not bringing the entire astronomy toolkit. Telescopes are staying at home. Just bringing a tracker, my DSLR, my mirrorless camera, a point and shoot and my iPhone. I’ll be trying to get images of the eclipse, but I won’t be obsessing over it. The point of a total eclipse, especially your first time, is to experience it. Not fret over loads of camera gear. I’ll set it up, start the camera shooting, and hope for the best.

I’ll post blog entries daily over the course of the long weekend, maybe twice a day, detailing the trip and our adventure pursuing the sun. With luck, I’ll have totality photos on Monday evening to share.