Planning

One of the last things I said to the people that hosted us during the 2017 Eclipse, was that I would be at the Total Eclipse in 7 years.  So this Eclipse was in my plans well in advance, unlike the 2017 Eclipse was.  I briefly looked at the path and thought that Texas would be a good location, knowing we had nearly 7 years before we needed to make those decisions.

 

Thinking about my experiences with 2017 and 2023, I had some requirements for selecting a site to view the Eclipse.  First was to consider the typical weather and cloud cover information for April.  I did some searching on the web and found that the farther South along the path provided a better probability of clear sky's.  At the Texas-Mexico border, typical cloud cover was 50%, moving up to the Dallas area was 55%.  Moving into the Illinois and Indiana, cloud cover was 60% to 75%.  Second requirement was to be close the central path to maximize the totality duration.  A smaller town along the path would be preferable.  This would allow us access to facilities, food and fuel.  Third requirement centered around traffic.  I wanted to stay way from large cities, but having a large city nearby might have viewers go their instead of a smaller city.

 

 

After some consideration, my initial selection was somewhere near the Waco, TX area.  I thought this would give the best chance for weather and allow me to find a viewing location that met the other requirements. That was the decision until sometime in 2022.

 

 We were discussing our Eclipse trip with some close friends  and they asked if they could go with us on our excursion.  We described our plans with them and they were still interested, so we agreed to a joint trip.  In addition, they had family that owed a home in the Tyler, TX area.  This was only about 1 hr. from the central path and right on the edge of the eclipse path.  It looked like a great alternative and still met my viewing requirements, so I started to search the Tyler-Dallas area for a new viewing location.

  After consulting Google Maps, I found the small town of Sulfur Springs, TX.  It was only about 45 minutes from Dallas and about 1 1/2 hrs from Tyler.  It was a small town, with a population of about 16,000. It was located right on the central path and would provide about 4 minutes and 20 seconds of totality.  Reaching Sulfer Springs would require a 2 day trip, with a total of about 19 hrs of driving.  That would be fine and split up over two days, it wouldn't be too bad.  With the Eclipse on Monday morning, we also could leave Friday, arriving late Saturday and have Sunday to relax.  Then we would get up early on Monday and make the drive up to Sulfur Springs.   Taking the secondary roads from Tyler North should work out from a traffic standpoint.   Again from past experience, the traffic issues were typically after the eclipse when people were headed home.  We were planning to go back to Tyler and start out trip home on Tuesday.

We finalized the plans in February of 2024 and began making reservations for the trip.  Any hotels in the path were either already booked or very pricey, but we found a few spots just outside of the totality path that met our needs for the trip down to Tyler and return home.  The next step was to plan a quick trip to visit Sulfur Springs, talk to the people at the Chamber of Commerce and find a good viewing spot. 

Viewing Site Selection - Sulfer Springs, Texas

On February 20th, we flew into Dallas, TX to check out a viewing site.  We drove over to Sulfur Springs the next morning and began checking out locations.  We spent most of the morning driving around the town with a population of about 16,500.  We found a few good spots with my favorites being at the south end of town near the small Lake Coleman.  We then went into the downtown area, had lunch and then met with the team in the Chamber of Commerce. From the discussions, they are working hard to prepare the community for the upcoming eclipse.
We then returned to Dallas and flew back home the next day.

Change in Plans - We lost our travel partners

Right after returning from our site selection trip, we found out our travel partners would not be able to go with us.  There was a medical issue that needed surgery and so we would need to look at new accommodations.  It took a few days, but we were able to book hotels, just outside of the totality path at a reasonable cost.  Any hotels within the totality path were either already booked or 2X to 4X the normal rate.  We decided shorten the trip and leave on Saturday, with our first destination being just South of Little Rock, AR.   Sunday would be a shorter drive to Longview, TX.  The Monday morning drive would be a bit longer than before, but still reasonable.  After the eclipse, are plan was to drove back to Little Rock and then Tuesday, head back home.  So with the new travel all booked, all we needed was to wait for the next 5 weeks and hope for good weather.

And then the Weather!  Plan B - Vincennes, Indiana?

It didn't do much good to be concerned about the weather until the 1st week of April.  Any forecast more that a week out was likely to change, but I kept an eye on the forecasts.  As we got closer to the date, some of the long range outlooks were not very good.  Clouds and rain predicted for Texas.  I had been concerned with an El Nino year, we could get more than normal moisture moving in from the West Coast.  The month of March saw a number of Pacific Storms move in and cover large areas of the Totality Path with cloud cover.  As the 1st week of April come closer the forecast for April 8th became to be more consistent.   It was looking like Clouds and Thunderstorms would be moving into Texas during the weekend before the Eclipse and then moving out late Monday or Tuesday.  This was potentially impacting out selected site.
As we got to Monday April 1st, the forecast was still looking bad.  I also had to consider cancellation of hotels at least 3 days  ahead of our travels.  This meant midnight Wednesday, was our final time to change and still cancel with no fee's.  I spent Monday and Tuesday looking at NWS sites and Google Maps to find a backup site in case we needed to cancel. 
The forecasts were calling for clouds in the Dallas area for Monday, but moving NE along the path conditions looked better into Arkansas, Illinois and Indiana.  This would was my backup search area.  By Monday night, I found a site in Vincennes Indiana that might work out.  It was along the Central Path of the Eclipse with 4 minutes and 5 seconds of Totality.  This was about 20 seconds less that Sulfur Springs, but if it was clear, that was a good tradeoff.  I contacted to person coordinating this location and they had reservation only sites available dedicated for those interested in Photography and Astrophotography.  There was a fee, but the site would have restricted access.  I reserved a spot as a backup plan. 
by the end of Tuesday the forecast was still looking bad for Texas, while Indiana was looking better.  Before I went to bed on Tuesday, I cancelled the Texas Trip accommodations and made new ones for Indiana.  The nearest reasonable hotel rooms I could find were in Champaign, IL.  We would leave Sunday for as easy 3 1/2 hour drive then get up early and drive 2 1/2 hours to Vincennes.   We decided was would stay in Champaign again on Monday night.  We were planning to stay for the entire eclipse then head North.  I was a bit concerned about traffic coming from Southern Illinois and Traffic heading West from Indianapolis.  When we got to Champaign, it might be slow going West.  A stop in Champaign made sense, since Monday was going to be a long day and traffic was an unknown.  That was now the Plan.

Sunday April 7th, get staged. Monday April 8th, time to go.

We packed up the car on Saturday were ready to go on Sunday.  We left early afternoon and our drive was uneventful. We got to Champaign plenty early with only 3 1/2 hour drive.  After driving around the University of Illinois campus, we got some food and went to the hotel to get plenty of rest.
We got up early Monday morning. The plan was to arrive at our observation site in Vincennes at about 9:30am. This would give plenty of time if we ran into traffic or any other issues. My thought was people would travel to Indianapolis to catch the eclipse and stay way from a smaller city like Vincennes because it was a bit tougher to get to than Indianapolis. As it turned out, there was little or not traffic during the drive.  We stayed off of the Interstate and took secondary roads. As we got into town and drive to Vincennes High School, it looked like normal Monday morning traffic. Schools were closed in the totality path, so early bus traffic wasn't even an issue.
We got to our site as planned around 9:30am and began to setup.   First contact wasn't until 1:46 pm, so we had plenty of time to get ready, take some test images and wait for the event to begin.

I setup to scopes and had 2 hand-held cameras for the imaging.  I used a Explore Scientific ES80 refractor with a white light solar filter with an ASI294mc Pro camera. I took 10 frames every 1 minute, the changed to every 20 seconds as we got close to totality. I also removed the solar filter during totality.  The 2nd setup was a Lunt 50mm Solar Scope with QHY5III178M camera. The frames and time interval was the same as the 1st setup. The hand-held cameras were a Canon SL1 set at 1/60th sec with a 250mm lens and a Canon T3i set at 1/30th sec with a 400mm lens. 

 

 

Waiting for the Eclipse to Start		Computers and Scopes are Ready

Others at the Site	12 Min after 1st Contact	Totality from the Canon T3i

 

 

  Other Images from 8 April 2024

Here are a few more individual images from the Eclipse.
During totality a solar prominence was visible near the bottom of the sun.  It looked like a bright red spike coming out of the bottom. It is clealy visible in the H-A image.

Prior to Start - Prominence Visible	2 minutes after 1st Contact	30 minutes to Totality

Mid Eclipse	6 Seconds to 3rd Contact	40 minutes after 3rd Contact

 

 

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