In Photos: Total Solar Eclipse Dazzles Skywatchers Across North America

08.04.2024 - 23:39 / forbes.com

Did you see the total solar eclipse? Despite clouds in some regions, some sky-watchers in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada were able to get clear views of a totally eclipsed sun for as long as 4 minutes 28 seconds in what was the longest totality viewed from land since 2010—and the longest in the U.S. since 1806.

Here are some of the best images from across North America.

On Monday, April 8, as many as a million Americans traveled into a narrow path of totality—the dark central shadow of the moon—to experience an eclipsed sun for three to four minutes. The moon partially eclipsed the sun across North America, but only within a 115-mile path of totality were onlookers able to experience totality.

A sensory experience like no other, eclipse chasers were able to experience darkness in the day for a few minutes, plunging temperatures, witness strange animal behavior and—if skies were clear—have a breathtaking naked-eye view of the sun’s corona and see a beautiful “diamond ring effect” around the moon. For those that had cloudy skies, the darkness was more profound and the experience equally as eerie.

The narrow path of totality crossed parts of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. the path entered Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

At the Mexico-U.S. border in Texas, totality lasted for 4 minutes 26 seconds, longer than during any total solar eclipse in the U.S. since June 16, 1806, in Salem, Massachusetts, which experienced one for 22 extra seconds.

A total solar eclipse is rarely experienced twice in a lifetime in any specific location. Historically, totality occurs in the same place about once every 366 years. However, parts of Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky got lucky on Monday. Those in Perryville and Cape Girardeau in Missouri, Paducah in Kentucky, and Carbondale in Illinois experienced a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, and April 8.

The next total solar eclipse in the contiguous U.S. is on August 23, 2044, in Montana and South Dakota, though a lunar year later, on August 12, 2045, a total solar eclipse will cross parts of 12 U.S. states from California to Florida. The next total solar eclipse in North America is March 30, 2033, in Alaska.

For more about North America’s total solar eclipse, check my main feed .

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.