The Great 2024 Solar Eclipse

Yesterday morning dawned clear and warm. At that point of the day, I had no intention of going eclipse watching. However… Sitting at the breakfast table at about 8 AM, it became clear to me that Joan really wanted to see the big event. (After forty four years, even the slowest learner can pick up the clues!!!).

We were in the car headed north by 10 AM. Keeping to the back roads, we never ran into significant traffic as we headed north towards Lancaster, New Hampshire. (There was fairly heavy, but moving, north-bound traffic on I-89 as we crossed it.) At 3 PM we pulled into some poor farmers hay field hard by the Connecticut River and the Mount Orne covered bridge (about five miles south of Lancaster). There were already several hundred cars there.

The sun was about 40% occluded by the time we got set up. Although totality was brief (about thirty seconds) it was definitely an interesting experience. In no hurry to leave, we hung around until most folks had left before heading south.

We needed to be in Lebanon for dinner and a concert (the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britian) at 7:30 PM and ran into no significant traffic snarls on this leg of our trip. The concert was great!

After the concert was over (roughly 9 PM) we expected to take I-89 a couple of exits south before taking the secondary roads due south towards home. However, south-bound I-89 was still jam-packed and crawling five plus hours after the eclipse! Making a rapid change in our route south (it helps to know the area well), we traveled secondary roads home and arrived there about 10:30 PM without a hitch.

Here are a few photos; all made without using any filter on the camera. I ‘lost’ a few exposures due to not paying attention to the shutter speed as things got slowly darker but I made only about two dozen exposures total.