Eclipse Fun

For the first time since I was about 8 years old, I will have been witness to a solar eclipse. It should be going on very shortly. Redding, which is about directly south of Medford, will begin to get the eclipse at about 5:11.

I don't have any means to take a picture of it, but the pros will. I'd love to see what the eclipse looks like over Lake Tahoe.

It's not a total eclipse but an annular one. The sky won't go completely dark like it did when I was a kid, but it will be noticeable:

The event won't darken the sky as much as a total eclipse, in which the moon blocks the sun completely.

"It's a much subtler effect, but it is noticeable," said Griffith Observatory director Ed Krupp. "People who are attentive notice it will be darker than you would expect for that time of day. ... If you're paying attention, you certainly will see something.

"It will feel different, perhaps eerie," he added.

Although I don't remember the total solar eclipse in Oregon in 1979, it happened then. I just remember one from the sixties when I was young. The next total eclipse in the United States will be on August 21, 2017, five years from now. I fully expect to be alive then.