With another total solar eclipse occurring in the US in 2024, there was no good reason why I would miss it. Planning for the eclipse started about a year out focusing firstly on an ideal location. With the path of totality running from the west coast of Mexico then through Texas and onwards to the north east of Canada.
I consulted the following website that provided a wealth of information around the best places to observe based on historical weather patterns. We settled on Texas as I could fly into Dallas Fort Worth and then meet up with some friends making the journey from New Jersey.
But where in Texas? We settled on a small town called Burnet that was only a small distance from the centre line.
The website provided by Xavier Jubier was pivotal in assisting us in making the decision, which would mean we would experience 4 minutes 27 seconds of totality.
In the days leading up to the eclipse we nervously consulted the weather forecasts and it looked like we would be dealing with some cloud cover. This was going to similar to the circumstances with the TSE in Alliance Nebraska. We decided that we weren’t going to chase clear skies simply take what the weather gods provided.
The day of the eclipse was similar to that of the days leading up with scattered cloud in amongst periods of bright sunshine. I setup in the early morning and waited for first contact of the moon passing in front of the sun that would start just after lunch.
Five minutes out with the darkness fast approaching the cloud cover appeared to get less and less. There was one last group of clouds covering the sun and we could tell that there was enough time for it to pass and that we would have unobstructed views. We were all so very happy.
Even though totality lasted for the four and a half minutes it was over way too quickly. By the end of it, high level cloud was beginning to cover the sun and moon blowing out the observation of the final diamond ring at C3.
In terms of the final pictures I was not as happy as previous observations. Not sure if it was down to the thin layer of cloud or a slightly out of focus camera setup though I was able to pull together the following images from the main event. Click the image to load a larger version.
Other links of interest include the following site that predicts what the structure of the suns corona during totality.