Eclipse committee chair briefs business leaders of what to expect next April

The Adirondack Sky Museum and Observatory purchased local billboard space on upper Park Street to promote next year’s “Totality in Tupper” to passing motorists this summer in the hope they may return here for it.

by Dan McClelland

Earlier this month Seth McGowan, president of the Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory, presented details of the total solar eclipse coming next spring to over a dozen community and business leaders here. The solar eclipse is at the heart of an event called “Totality in Tupper” next April 8.

Mr. McGowan’s presentation was organized by the Regional Office Of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) to brief business owners here on some of what they may expect when thousands of people come here for the once in a life time celestial event.

The program began with some video footage of a similar event that was held in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in the summer of 2017 which drew thousands to the rural community for the best view of the eclipse.

“There are two sectors of the community who we wanted to talk to this evening about the coming 20-24 eclipse,” Mr. McGowan began after the five-minute video. He said one group was the community at large- “everyone who lives here”- and the second the business owners and managers.

He said the event has been dubbed “Totality in Tupper”- the 2024 eclipse.

“The event is not only an Adirondack Sky Center event- although we are all about eclipses- this is a community-wide event!”

A number of people attended the community briefing on line, it was noted.

He said his organization has a number of partners working with it in planning the big event- ROOST, the town and village of Tupper Lake, The Wild Center, the Goff-Nelson Library, the local school district, Adirondack Frontier (the county) and Tupper Arts, among others. Tupper Arts generously donated the space for the meeting that evening and some refreshments for the guests.

For about six months a planning committee, consisting of about one dozen volunteers representing various groups has been meeting at least monthly developing plans for it.

He explained the goal of the sky center: “to bring the wonders of the universe to everyone.” He added that “you don’t need to be an astrophysicist to be stunned and study and enjoy the heavens above.”

Mr. McGowan said his organization hosts regular public observing programs at its roll-off roof observatory at Little Wolf- typically on Friday nights.

“We also do private star-gazing parties.” He showed a photo of a young man looking through one of their telescopes at the heavens above, with his parents standing around him. “We do a lot of outreach to schools,” using their portable and inflatable planetarium.

“We go to the schools all across our region, doing these sorts of programs” where the kids get a view of the planets and the solar systems of the universe. They love it!”

The organization also conducts summer programs and after-school programs for students here at their headquarters on High Street.

“One of our keystone events will be the 2023 annual astrophotography conference, which takes place over the course of four days here in Tupper Lake. We have people from all over the country coming each year to take advantage and photograph our dark skies! We teach...we learn from each other...it’s a great experience!”

He also mentioned the sky center’s online series where some of the most knowledgeable scientists in the field of astronomy present lectures.

He also showed a slide of an overhead view of their Little Wolf site, and the coming museum and planetarium proposed there.

Moving on to the topic of the evening, he said what happened in Hopkinsville in 2017 “is key to us” in preparation for the big solar eclipse this coming April.

The retired teacher and school administer offered the audience what he called “an astronomy lesson”- how eclipses are made and why 2024 the eclipse is going to be so different than anything we’ve ever seen in Tupper Lake before. He called it “the baking” of an eclipse.

He showed slides of two types of eclipses and their mechanics. “A solar eclipse is simply when the moon gets in front of the sun and casts a shadow on the earth. There’s all sorts of solar eclipses,” noting he would explain some of them later.

“Eclipse is just a vocabulary word that means something gets in the way of something else so that you can’t see it.”

The other type of eclipse is a lunar eclipse. “That’s when the earth gets in front of the sun, if you were standing on the surface of the moon.”

“Lunar eclipses happen all the time and they are no where near exciting for that reason as solar eclipses.”

“There are a number of things that need to be in place for a total solar eclipse to occur,” he continued.

He said the earth is not “up and down” but on a 23-degree tilt. He said it’s lop-sided essentially, and it spins around that way as it rotates around the sun. The other things that needs to be in place is that the moon doesn’t orbit the earth in a perfect circle. There is a five plus-degree tilt to the moon in its orbit around the earth.

“So you can only imagine the geometry that has to be in place for the moon’s shadow to be cast on the earth.”

The earth rotates around the sun every 365 days except leap years and the moon rotates around the earth every 27 days. “All of those factors go into the recipe of making eclipses!”

He said add to that recipe the ingredient that the moon doesn’t orbit the earth in an exact circle- but as an ellipse, and sometimes its farther away from the earth than at other times.

“The same is true of the sun, so add another quarter cup of the earth varying in distance, as it orbits the sun. Some times its closer, some times farther away.”

He said too the earth’s tilt doesn’t change, regardless of where it is around the sun.

The faces we see of the moon in the evening sky is dependent upon where it is in its 27-day orbit around the earth, he explained.

“So there’s lot of stuff going on” to result in a rare solar eclipse.

“On average the moon is 238,000 miles from earth- but sometimes it’s farther away and sometimes it’s closer!”

“The same is true of the sun- sometimes closer, sometimes farther away. Some times it’s 91.4 million miles away, some times 94.5 million miles away. On average it’s 93 million miles away!”

Another factor is that as things are closer or farther, they appear to get larger in view, or smaller.

In a total solar eclipse, the sun would be the farthest away and would appear smaller and the moon is closest and appears larger. “The moon at that point appears to be the same size as the sun in the sky.”

He said there are two times in the course of a year when the moon’s five-degree tilt and the sun’s orbit intersect, and they are called nodes. They are the times when eclipses happen, he explained.

“So they are all the ingredients in the recipe for solar eclipses. Let’s do the math!”

“The sun is about 400 times wider than the moon, but it’s also 400 times farther away.” In an eclipse they appear about the same size in the sky, however.”

If the 23.5-degree tilt of the earth and the 5.14- degree tilt of moon are factored in and it occurs at a node, and the sun is farther away and appears small and the moon is closer and appears larger, we get a smaller sun and a bigger moon, then we get a total solar eclipse, he told the group. He said all those conditions are necessary for the rare eclipse to occur.

“This is rare and it hasn’t ever happened in Tupper Lake... ever!”

He said, however, there was a partial solar eclipse in 2017 which brought a number of eclipse fans to town. “We weren’t in totality, although we were in the penumbra of the eclipse. The moon that time moved across the sun but didn’t completely cover it.

Many places around the country also saw partial eclipses that year. Much of the country will experience partial eclipses in 2024, but Tupper Lake and places near it will see total eclipses.

“An annular eclipse is the opposite of a total eclipse when the sun is closer and appears slightly larger and the moon is larger because it’s slightly farther away and appears smaller. We get this ring of fire around the sun!”

He said while this phenomenon is no where near as spectacular as a total eclipse, “you do get these really intensive rings” around the sun, which you can see with proper eye protection. He noted one of these will happen this October.

What will happen next April in Tupper Lake is that the sun and the moon will appear to be the exact size and the moon will eclipse the sun, he told the audience that evening.

He also listed the phases of solar eclipses where eye protection is absolutely required.

“Any day when the sun is out, always use eye protection to view it, not just sun glasses,” he emphasized. “You need to wear specially-approved eclipse glasses.”

“You can use these glasses to look at the sun tomorrow, if the sun ever comes out again in Tupper Lake,” he joked, referring to this summer’s many overcast or rainy days.

He showed a chart of the partial eclipses leading up to a full solar eclipse and then the partials following it, when special glasses must be worn to look at the sun. He emphasized that the only time glasses need not be worn is when the moon fully covers the sun in a full solar eclipse. A full solar eclipse expected here next April will be for about three and one half minutes- the longest span of most communities in the northeast.

“For children, I tell them to leave their glasses on for the entire experience!”

The Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory has purchased thousands of eclipse glasses that will be given to every student in the North Country free of charge, he told the audience. The glasses also sport the new “Totality in Tupper” logo.

Also we have worked with ROOST to develop special glasses that will be offered for sale to everyone in the region, which carries on it an Adirondack regional logo, he announced that evening.

“We’re buying these glasses in groups of 50,000 pairs,” he said of the orders being placed.

He said the version of the glasses which will carry only the Tupper Lake logo will be only be sold to visitors in Tupper. Although the sky center is buying them “at an extremely low price” there will still be a marginal profit and those profits will be used by the sky center to pay for the free glasses for all students in the North Country.

He showed a very vivid photo of a total solar eclipse taken at the 2017 Kentucky event. It showed a tiny diamond-shaped ring or corona around the sun when the sun was not completely covered.

He showed another photo taken from space which showed a giant shadow of the moon cast on the earth.

Mr. McGowan said the corona of an eclipse is what the scientists love to study.

The dark shadow that moves across the country in an eclipse is called the umbra. “The area of darkness is where the moon completely obstructs the area of the sun.” The grey area beside the darker one is called the penumbra, where partial eclipses occur, he added.

The shadows just carve their way across the country during eclipses, according to Mr. McGowan.

“In 2017 it came in over Washington or Oregon and made its way out on the east coast.” That hadn’t happened in over 100 years, he stressed.

That year, he said, Tupper Lake was in the penumbra or grey shadow, while Hopkinsville, where he was, was in the path of direct totality.

This coming year, he said, the eclipse path comes across from Mexico and then Texas and moves diagonally across the country, eventually to New York State and Tupper Lake and beyond.

He said what happened in 2017 in Hopkinsville “became the role model.”

He said the community fathers “knew what was coming and prepared for it,” while most other places in the path of totality from Washington to the Carolinas didn’t.

For a time Hopkinsville renamed itself Eclipseville.

In addition to the thousands who packed that small Kentucky town for the eclipse, many others came to visit in the years that followed to see where it happened.

There the eclipse lasted two minutes and 41 seconds. “People that year flocked to the places of totality and Hopkinsville was one of the prime centers of viewing” because of the eclipse duration.

“In Tupper Lake in 2024 our totality will be three minutes and 33 seconds- almost a full minute longer than what was seen in Hopkinsville.”

“What happened was people went there.” His photos showed huge crowds and streets packed with people all looking through glasses at the eclipse. One of the photos showed a packed highway going to the rural community and even busier ones leaving it after two or three days of visits there.

He said in 2017 it took him and his wife Sue three hours to drive from Lexington, Kentucky to Hopkinsville on “the beautiful Bluegrass Parkway” before the event. Immediately after the event that same highway was so clogged with traffic, the return trip to Lexington took 11 hours, he has said in the past.

He said the community leaders in Hopkinsville turned their main street- which was very similar in appearance to Tupper Lake’s- into a giant festival with all sorts of street vendors and attractions. “They made a big deal out of it, and that’s another reason people went there to view the eclipse.”

He said the good publicity the small community enjoyed from the fact the visitors were treated so well lasted for years.

“It was fun. However when the eclipse ended, every car engine started” and people left in droves.”

He said he and Sue arrived for the event about three hours early and got the last spot in the Wal-Mart parking lot where they spent the night.

He said Wal-Mart was very accommodating, providing those packed in their parking lot with restrooms, food, whatever people needed.

“During the eclipse the store closed for a time to allow all the employees to view the eclipse. It was very moving and moving for everyone there that day in Hopkinsville.

He said but when the event was over the exodus onto highways not unlike Routes 3&30 was “absurd.”

The thousands who came for the event cleaned out the entire community. “McDonald’s ran out of food. Bathrooms ran out of toilet paper. Gas stations out of gas. This was all because of the influx of people who were not expected! It felt almost apocalyptic!”

He said too, however, it was almost a religious experience. Before the event the birds and the insects were making a lot of noise and when the darkness happens, everything goes silent.” He said a sort of stir occurs among the humans present and then they start to cheer, almost like a rock concert. “We were hugging people we didn’t even know...it was just that kind of experience! It was very ethereal!”

“People have asked me about what happens if it’s stormy or raining that day- because remember this will happen here in April.

“People who go to these things don’t care if they get their shoes wet. They’re coming for the experience.” He said they will come regardless of the weather.

He said the eclipse will be able to be seen even if the skies are cloudy and grey. At the Hopkinsville event, there was even thunder and lightening at one point.

Mr. McGowan said people went to Hopkinsville that year knowing the weather was going to be bad.

When the eclipse occurs it will be like night and the stars and the constellations in the sky will be visible.

Continued next week….