PLATTSBURGH — Like much of the North Country, Lisabeth Kissner and SUNY Plattsburgh’s Northcountry Planetarium have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of April 8, 2024.
That marks the date that the Plattsburgh area will be among the places to fall under a total solar eclipse, a natural phenomenon that is set to be viewed at countless events in the area.
ECLIPSE BASICS
There are several celestial cycles that need to line up for a total solar eclipse to take place, but the basics are rather simple.
“We intellectually know that the sun is much larger, but it’s further away; the moon is much smaller, but it’s much closer,” said Kissner, director of the Northcountry Planetarium and professor at SUNY Plattsburgh.
“So from Earth’s perspective, they appear the same size, and when the moon comes between us (Earth) and the sun during a total solar eclipse, the moon will appear to cover the entire face of the sun.
While a solar eclipse is often viewed as a rare event, it’s quite common on a global scale, with one occurring somewhere in the world about every 18 months.
It’s the path of totality crossing where you might be that is the rare part, Kissner said, with any given area on Earth experiencing a path of totality approximately every 375 years, though those intervals can vary.
“As an astronomer, we usually have to go to the location in which the totality is occurring, but, this year, we’re very lucky that this solar totality is going to hit here,” Kissner said. “It’s like it’s our turn.”
For it to be any place’s “turn,” several things have to line up.
There has to be a “new moon,” Kissner said, which only occurs once in every 29-and-a-half day lunar cycle, and the moon has to be crossing into the correct lunar node, or one of two points where the orbit of the moon and Earth’s annual path around the sun intersect.
Finally, the apogee and perigee cycle of the moon’s orbit around Earth will determine if it is a total solar eclipse or an “annular” eclipse.
If the moon is at its furthest point in its elliptical orbit around Earth, or its apogee, an annular solar eclipse will occur.
If it is at its perigee, or its closest point in its orbit to Earth, a total solar eclipse will occur. Perigee for April will actually occur on April 7, Kissner said, but April 8’s proximity to perigee is close enough to result in totality.
THE ECLIPSE
On the day of, the eclipse will begin at approximately 2:14 p.m., with the moon first starting to pass in front of the sun at that time.
“You’ll see the sun out, but you won’t see the moon at all, you won’t really know that the moon is there, until it overlaps the sun a little bit,” Kissner said.
The moon will continue to slowly creep over the sun until total eclipse begins around 3:25 p.m., with totality lasting approximately three-and-a-half minutes.
The last of the moon’s silhouette will exit the sun around 4:37 p.m.
Only during the three-and-a-half minutes of totality will it be safe to look upon the eclipse without eye protection, according to NASA’s entry on eclipse safety, viewable online at science.nasa.gov/eclipses/safety/.
At that time, the sun’s corona will be visible, the star’s “outer atmosphere, shining all around the Moon’s black disk,” NASA’s “What to Expect: A Solar Eclipse Guide,” says.
Kissner described the visual spectacle during totality as not just a ring, but that it includes spiky and lacy protrusions.
Eye protection must be worn at all other parts of the eclipse before and after totality whenever an individual is looking at the sun, as the sunlight streaming into the eye during the partial phases leading up to and after totality are dangerous to the retina, Kissner added.
“As the sunlight slowly gets diminished (from the moon crossing in front), your eye gets tricked into leaving your pupil wide open, in a very general sense,” Kissner said, which can lead to significant damage to parts of the eye.
EVENTS
To help SUNY students and the local community be ready to safely view the eclipse, the Northcountry Planetarium is hosting several total solar eclipse shows in the leadup to April 8.
The first of those shows is at the planetarium in SUNY Plattsburgh’s Hudson Hall at 6 p.m. tonight, which will be followed by a workshop to help people build solar filters for safely viewing the eclipse with devices like your phone, binoculars or camera.
Participants will also all receive a pair of eclipse glasses. Two more of these shows will happen Saturday afternoon and night, respectively. See the “If You Go” box for more details.
It’s been a long road of preparation for the planetarium and the students involved with it and the school’s astronomy club, the Galilean Society, and Kissner hopes that these events, and the events planned for the day of the eclipse, will help provide an opportunity for unity.
“For the students I think it’s a fantastic educational opportunity, but there’s the other aspect of it just being this awe moment,” Kissner said. “This wondrous natural connection, hopefully it will bring the campus and community together as a shared experience, a shared experience that’s been happening for thousands of years.”
Email Ben Watson
bwatson@pressrepublican.com