Before the eclipse
While the event didn’t actually start until 1 p.m. on Monday, people began to arrive with foldable chairs, blankets and even footballs at Heritage Christian School, part of Calvary Baptist Church, soccer fields around noon. They started looking for spots with the best views before walking around the field looking at the different booths of activities.
There were about seven tables set up throughout the soccer field. They held activities like different arts and crafts, different demonstrations and one table had masks made out of paper plates that kids could decorate. Some of the other activities included sun cookies, an activity that showed a model of the sun along with dark spots (dark spots on the sun’s surface) and solar prominence (arcs of gas that are beyond the sun’s surface). There were also demonstrations along with tactile books to show what would be happening during the eclipse.
Reagon “Ray” Coursey, a freshman physics student, was the one demonstrating what would happen. She had a replica made out of a yard stick with models of the earth and the moon. Depending on which way the yard stick was pointed, it would show either a solar eclipse or a lunar eclipse.
In an earlier interview, Coursey said, “There are going to be interactive little books where you can guide people through how the solar eclipse works and I’m going to be stationed there…I’m going to be reading it to people and explain to them how things work.”
Along with the table activities, there were over four different telescopes set up across the field. Some were set up for people to view while other ones were for taking photos and videos of the eclipse.
NKU student Owen Messerly is a deep space astrophotographer who came out to film videos and capture pictures of the eclipse.
“Solar astrophotography has always been something interesting to me. My main focus is deep sky astrophotography,” Messerly said. “[The] planetarium just happens to have a couple of solar telescopes which I’m able to borrow.”
Messerly continued to explain how these kinds of photos are taken.
“It’s fairly straightforward, honestly, it’s a kind of a breath of fresh air coming from deep space astrophotography,” he explained. “You just kind of point it to the sun and go. It’s a lot easier.”
He moved throughout the different telescopes, showing them off to people and explaining more about them as people passed by until the eclipse started.
Partial eclipse
It wasn’t long before the partial eclipse started around 2:15 p.m in Findlay, OH. At the time, around 12 people began huddling around each other, closer to the telescope area, talking with excitement about what would happen within the next hour as they passed around different kinds of solar glasses to get the best view. At the same time, kids were running around wearing paper plate masks, each covered in different colors and stickers, while doing the red cup activity involving duct tape and the lens of glasses.
Though one activity table was empty as people moved closer to the viewing area in preparation for the soon total eclipse. It was the sun cookie activity table which was run by Becky Mason, a historian for the Ohio Lesbian Archive and helper for the event.
As people continued to move into groups she said, “This is really an ancient practice, to gather and watch this.”
Mason continued to explain how much she wanted to experience this moment because she missed the last one in 2017.
“I started my new job like five months ago, I immediately told them I would be taking time off in however many months to go see the solar eclipse because my high school didn’t let us go out and see it during the last one,” Mason said. “I wasn’t allowed to see it and I missed it. And I was not missing this one.”
Mason expressed how this opportunity allowed her to give back to the community.
Mason smiled when a little boy came up to the table and started to do the sun cookie activity. He looked around before grabbing a small oatmeal cookie and spread the frosting on it. He soon added the Twizzlers, sprinkles and what appeared to be Skittles before running off to join a group.
It wasn’t long after that, an announcement from Dr. Christa Speights, director of the Haile Planetarium, came telling everyone to prepare for the total eclipse which was starting soon.
During the eclipse
Speights started playing a video that helped direct what was going on during the moments throughout the total eclipse. It wasn’t long before the moon began to cover the sun even more. The area around the event became colder and darker. Everyone stood, peering up to the sky with their glasses on, and some started to pull out cameras to capture the moment. The street lights began to light upas the sky around became almost like a 360-degree sunset. Shadows on the ground became fuzzy and less focused as the moon continued to cover the sun.
“I knew coming here that it was only going to last for four minutes. And in my mind, I was like ‘Okay, four minutes. That’s not too bad,’” NKU staff member Onyinye Uwolloh said. “That’s a song and a half, that’s plenty of time.”
Then, Speights’ recording started to count down from 10 until it was safe to take off the eclipse glasses.
“There was just something about everyone standing and all of a sudden, it’s like we know obviously the moon has been moving all this time but there’s this, ‘Oh my god it’s happening so fast. It’s just dark everywhere,”” Uwolloh said.
As the sun was fully covered, there were lots of emotional outbursts. Some people fell to their knees while others had tears in their eyes. At the same time, Speights showed everyone where Mars was along with another star. As it ended, sunlight came back almost instantly. Everyone quickly put back on their glasses and cheered with phrases like, “That’s cool,” coming from all over the field.
Uwolloh added later on how happy she was to experience this event, especially since the next one near this area won’t be until the year 2099.
“There’s just something about seeing nature happening right in front of your eyes and knowing that the next time this happens, I might be dead, you know,” Uwolloh said.
Luckily, Speights has plans for the next upcoming eclipse in 2045.
“Oh, I already got plans for the 2045 eclipse that goes across the southern U.S. It’s going to be in Florida,” Speights said. “I have a friend whose school is, I think, on the centerline and we get almost seven minutes of totality.”
She said that she contacted her friend and plans to have a trip down there for the next eclipse.
“I told him, ‘We’re coming down here,’” Speights said.