For the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8th, 2024, Space Club did a road trip to Québec! Originally we planned to go to somewhere near Columbus, Ohio, and see the Air Force Museum near Dayton, but 4 days out, the forecast was showing clouds there, so we rapidly rebooked and ended up in a hotel in Sherbrooke, Québec. From there it was just over an hour scenic drive to a beach near Lac-Mégantic. Here’s an awesome video in three parts:
The first section is a time-lapse showing the exciting run-up to the darkness of totality, with us screaming :-). The second bit shows the shadow bands, which is some waviness in the light which occurs immediately before totality, and looks really neat. The final section gives you a view of the 360deg bizarre twilight, and a look through the telescope at the sun during totality.
Here’s a gallery of photos of the eclipse:
The Space Club Meetup group also had an Eclipse Event, which allowed many other groups of people to find each other and plan their own trips; we were happy to be able to facilitate this for people, and over 100 new members joined the group!
The next Total Solar Eclipse which is reasonable to go see will be on August 2nd, 2027, best locations across the top of Africa. Or, there is another on July 22, 2028, best locations in Australia.