The eclipse is coming

Do you know what you're going to be doing on Aug. 21?

I'm pretty certain I know what you'll be doing that day. How, you ask, can I predict the future for everyone reading this? The answer is simple.

On that date, a total solar eclipse will sweep across the heart of the United States, from coast to coast, turning day to night for people lucky enough, or who traveled enough, to be in the path of totality.

Luckily for folks living in northwest Arkansas, the journey to totality is a short drive due north, to St. Joseph, Mo., the heart of which is just north of the center line of the eclipse. At that point, totality will be two minutes 40 seconds. The north half of Kansas City will experience totality for a few seconds -- so the farther north you go between those two cities, the more totality you'll get.

If you've not started planning, do it now. Hotels may already be booked up. Officials are predicting terrible traffic in all major cities in the path of totality, so planning where to go and getting there ahead of time is important.

Knowing when the eclipse starts is important. Because the shadow of the moon moves during the eclipse, the time of the event is dependent on the viewer's location. Move a few dozen miles west or east, the time changes.

Thankfully, there's a website out there that allows you to click on an interactive link to view a prediction for that location. The shortened link to the site is bit.ly/2uVsBvb.

In St. Joe, the eclipse starts at 11:40 a.m., reaches totality at 1:06 p.m. and continues in totality until 1:09 p.m., and ends at 4:34 p.m. Maximum eclipse for that location is at 1:07:46 p.m. The entire eclipse at that location lasts nearly five hours!

If you can't or don't want to travel to totality, you'll still experience the eclipse -- just not totality. Here in Bella Vista 92 percent of the sun will be covered.

If you happen to be standing in The Weekly Vista parking lot in Town Center West, the eclipse starts at 11:42, reaches maximum at 1:12 p.m., and ends at 3:40 p.m.

WORDS OF WARNING: That does not mean it's safe to look at the sun. I know 92 percent sounds like a lot, but you'll still damage your eyes.

So how can you safely view the eclipse? My favorite way, and by far the easiest, is to position yourself under a tree and look down.

What? Look down?

Yep.

The sun-dappled ground under a tree is the perfect spot. That's because the dappling is actually the image of the sun repeated over and over. Those images are created by sun shining through tiny gaps in the leaves. Because the sun is round, the images on the ground are all round. When the eclipse starts, the sun is no longer round because a bite is being taken out. Thus, that sun dappling turns into hundreds of images of the eclipsed sun.

An easy way to directly view the sun is to buy sun-safe solar glasses. These inexpensive glasses have cardboard frames and lenses made from a material the blocks so much of the light that it is safe to look at the sun.

These can be ordered online, but if you're going to do it, do it fast. There is a local option, in Springdale. Explore Scientific, a maker of excellent telescopes, sells these sun-safe glasses. The address is 1010 S. 48th St., Springdale. That's in the building behind the Springdale Cracker Barrel.

Another very simple way to view it is to take a large piece of cardboard and punch a tiny hole in the middle of it. When held up so one flat face of the cardboard faces the sun, that pinhole becomes a tiny lens, projecting an image of the sun. To see that image, simply hold a piece of paper (gluing it to another piece of cardboard helps) under the shadow cast by the cardboard. An image of the sun will appear on the piece of paper.

There are other ways to do it, but those mostly require telescopes and proper sun-safe filters.

Once again, I caution NEVER, EVER, NEVER, LOOK AT THE SUN!

Until there's a full eclipse. Once the moon completely blocks the sun, look and you'll see the corona, the outermost portion of the sun's atmosphere only visible during a total eclipse. I've never seen it because I've never experience totality. Photos of it show a shimmering, bright, wispy cloud.

There's one thing that can interfere with your eclipse viewing: clouds. If Aug. 21 is cloudy, then there won't be much to see. Intermittent clouds are fine, but complete cloud cover is bad.

While it's been a long time since the U.S. has had a total eclipse, that's changing. And for people in northwest Arkansas, the next eclipse, on April 24, 2024, will be spectacular. We are just on the edge of totality. Fort Smith is just outside the band of darkness. Russellville is only a few miles off the center line, where totality will be 4 minutes.

And, if you're around town on Aug. 12, 2045, you'll be in nearly the prefect position to see it because all of Bella Vista is in totality, but only for two seconds. Literally, two seconds. But the short drive to Fort Smith offers much more: 6 minutes of totality.

If you're going to view the eclipse next month, start planning for it now.

While amateur astronomers typically set up locally for astronomical events and offer their telescopes to anyone who wants to look, this is different because it's so close. Everyone I know is traveling to totality to take advantage of the rare closeness. That means that people are going to be on their own.

Mark you calendar for Aug. 21. Get ready, The Great American Eclipse is coming.

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Kent Marts is publisher and editor of The Weekly Vista. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

Editorial on 07/19/2017