Over the weekend before this year’s total solar eclipse, I flew up to South Dakota to visit my son, daughter-in-law and grandson for our grandson’s 4th birthday. When I realized that I would be missing the solar eclipse, I was a little bit bummed, but then I thought about other possibilities…
Astronomers and I assume many really smart scientists from NASA had figured out the exact flight path of the moon and the sun. They knew exactly when and where the total solar eclipse would be best seen and television stations shared all this data on their channels and online.
I found this awesome solar eclipse map off of CBS’s website and shot a quick photograph of it.
It helps prove what I saw from the air!
Flying home from Sioux Falls, South Dakota
I had a wonderful time visiting my son Peter and his son. We worked on finding a bicycle with training wheels for our grandson for his big 4-year-old birthday. The birthday party was a lot of fun! Milo had a a small group of friends over and Hot Wheels were THE PRESENT this year.
But like all fun vacations, the time always comes when we have to go home… On Monday morning before flying out around 1:30p.m., Peter and I took a walk around The Falls at Sioux Falls. He took me to the airport around noon and we hugged our goodbyes for this trip.
A date with the moon
We took off at 1:38p.m. and this photograph is stamped at 1:42p.m. by my iPhone. At this point, we were about 3,000′ off the ground. I know this from my high school days when I took flying lessons as part of Air Explorer Post 747 from Cameron Park, California.
When you are 3000 to 5000 feet off the ground, the cars look like Matchbox cars. 😉
Our pilot was full throttle, like any other take-off. This one was different, though, as we weren’t taking off at the usual 30 degrees. We were at an attitude of 45 degrees… Can you see it?
If you look at the space between the two ailerons here on the end of the wing, it is a ray and you can use it compared with the horizontal surface of the ground to figure out the angle of the aircraft as it moves forward and upward through its longitudinal axis.
The pilots were gunning for the moon!
Normally the pilots level out at 10,000 feet and then again around 20,000 feet as they talk to the air traffic control towers. Then once the plane reaches its cruising altitude, the pilots let off the gas and cruise along towards their destination.
This flight?
Our pilot NEVER LET OFF THE GAS!!! They hauled it to get to where we would meet up with the moon’s shadow… in just 14 minute… at 1:52p.m.
Thank you American Airlines crew of flight 2872 for an ultra cool ride!!!
Our first look at the moon’s shadow coming from west to east as we were flying north to south, zoomed in.
Here is the moon’s shadow zoomed back out. You can see the crescent curve (or at least I think I could see it…).
How did I verify the moon’s shadow?
It took me about a week of staying up late and reading and reading some more, but I found CBS’s website had the flightpath of the solar eclipse ~ this photograph above.
CBS also had the International Space Station’s video of the moon’s shadow moving across the earth. Did you know that the moon was moving between 1,100 to 5,000 miles per hour?
That’s 83.33 miles per minute at 5,000 miles/60 minutes.
This is where we were in the sky. I like to look at the compass on my phone to see what our heading is sometimes during a flight. It’s interesting to think about highways in the sky!
I thought about posting but then thought about “bad guys” using it against us, so…
I will not share the photograph that I do have with coordinates (to protect our airlines), but here is what the map looks like to match what showed on my phone.
We flew over Dixon first , then Allen, Nebraska. You can see the two names on the map above.
I figured we were roughly 500 nautical miles from the total eclipse at Poplar Bluff, Missouri beginning at 1:56 p.m. This was the closest we would get to it.
Our pilots got us right where we needed to be to see it. We were directly in the 75% path for the solar eclipse. People sitting on the left side of the aircraft could see the solar eclipse as the pilot slightly tipped up the left wing when it was time.
Taking our equation from before: 5000 mph/60 minutes = 83.33 miles per minute.
83.33 mpm/60 seconds = 1.3888 miles per second. In 2 minutes, the moon’s shadow would reach Missouri for their total eclipse:
83.33 mpm x 2 minutes = 166.656 miles away. Okay, my guess of 500 miles might have been off (and it’s getting late and my brain is frying…). But if you divide the Unites States by half: 3500 miles across from the Pacific to Atlantic Oceans divided by 2, that’s 1750 miles. That’s right about where we were in Dixon, Nebraska. Divide again and you get 875 miles. So is Poplar Bluff 875 miles away?? Is it 166 miles?
Who knows? I’m toast, but this was fun to try and decipher how many miles we were away from the total eclipse! Thank the Lord for military pilots!! I will always happily travel with any former military pilot as they sure know how to plot a course and get to any point they need to. 🙂
It was really cool seeing the moon’s shadow moving towards us as it was zooming along to meet up with the sun just two minutes later! And you can see how dark the skies were getting up there.
The cabin crew were able to take short turns and go up into the cockpit to see the eclipse from the pilots’ point of view.
I got to see a solar eclipse as a kid growing up in Hawaii. I remember poking a hole in a shoe box top and closing it so the shadow would appear inside the box over the sunlight poking through the hole. All you had to do was lift the lid a little to see what was going on. I’ve heard of others using just a plain piece of paper. 🙂
It’ll be another 22 years (I think) before another total solar eclipse comes to North America and it looks like it will swoop up over Canada and around the North Pole.
I’m really glad we got to experience this one ~ whether on the ground or in the sky. Really cool!
And here is a photograph of open land down below us so you can see that most clearly I was photographing the moon’s shadow crossing across nothing but clouds. 🙂 Hope you enjoyed this little once in a lifetime view!
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From this space nerd, signing out,
How neat and something you thought you were going to miss turned out to be a fun view. It must have been an exciting flight and moment!
Happy you had a nice visit with your family!
First of all, you are way, way, WAY smarter than I am to figure out all this math, distance and science! It’s clear to see that you are a teacher and you must be awfully good at it! Very interesting!
And from a more emotional view — that had to be the most fantastic experience. I can only imagine. It was pretty fun to watch from the ground but you have a view that no one — or few — had. What an experience!
Your son is very handsome and I’m so glad you had the opportunity to spend the time with him — and have this terrific event!
Barb, Your Solar Eclipse/Moon shadow post was VERY interesting – what a special viewing you had!! Thanks so much for sharing it! Also, thanks again for featuring my “A Blue and White Mother’s Day Tablescape” – it is such a joy and honor to be featured on your website! – Patty
Thanks so much for sharing this experience with us, Barb. What a fantastic experience and a great way to pass the time in an airplane. Happy you had such a lovely visit with your son.
Lynne