93% Solar Eclipse in Boston

The universe had this eclipse in April 2024 planned for millennia. The calculators at NASA have known aboutit for decades. We decided to celebrate this eclipse spur-of-the-moment, though.

We ditched our 3:00pm class — not really ditched though, no one was planning on going to class anyways — and walked over to Abby's daycare to get her out in time for the 3:29pm eclipse.

The sky already had a weird vibe. It looked like a sunny mid-afternoon but felt like sunrise without the orange glow.

We hung out on the quadrangle near her daycare and broke out a banana and soda. Abby love the banana and we sipped on the soda and watched her. It was incredible how different it felt.

It was more incredible to see all the students and professors sitting on the lawn, everyone out of their offices doing the same thing, looking at the same thing.

We'd walked through Harvard Yard and Science Center Plaza, and there were more people there than ever before. Even more people, and even more buzz then during Commencement, alumni reunions, or even when Obama visited. Thirty minutes before the eclipse they had given away all 4,000 pairs of eclipse glasses they had.

Iris and I took turns looking at the Sun and the Moon with the one pair we had. It was incredible. We could see the movement of the moon. The crescent slowly getting smaller and smaller. We saw the sky getting darker.

The brightness had the quiet quality of sunrise. The direction of the light gave it the look of mid-afternoon.

Abigail was a little confused at what were were looking at with the glasses and taking pictures of with our phone. She must have sense something was different, too. She kept looking around, observing the people around us. She tried putting the eclipse glasses on, and we even tried holding it on her head. She had so much fun just playing with us. She still had a good time.

1800 miles way, my sister was in Dallas, along the path of totality. The timelapse she had was incredibly. We watched the timelapse as the moon began to move off of peak eclipse. It was incredibly. In Dallas, it went completely dark.

In Boston, we had a glimpse of what that would feel like. We talked about it a bit, imagining what being under totality would feel like. The next time a total solar eclipse would happen in United States would be when Abby is around our age. The next times a total solar eclipse would happen in the world are 2026 and 2027 in Europe.