Training Log Archive: Nadim

With a poor forecast of cloud cover and rain in the Charleston, SC area, Peggy, Max, Samantha and I drove to Hopkins, SC, which is outside of Columbia. We watched the eclipse on the grounds of the Harriett Barber House, a property that came to be owned by slaves and is now a park. A gathering of +100 people were there in a field. There was some food to buy, and music playing. We met our friends, the Trawicks, whom we've known since Max and Miles Trawick played together in pre-school. It was neat that they had decided independently to drive to the same general area. We coordinated getting to Hopkins.

The eclipse was great to see! In some ways it was much brighter than expected. Getting lunch was slow so I didn't get setup to take pictures until minutes before totality. We had 2 minutes 32 seconds--it went by so quickly!. I did lose some time fumbling for camera controls in the darkness but I did take in the view and enjoyed it too. The images were nicer than expected with bright whites on the edges. The light circling around the entire edge of the black moon was obviously sunlight but it was unexpectedly very white, like the much further stars appear to be in the night. I seemed to see some solar flaring as well as the corona. The picture below doesn't do justice to what I was seeing.





The drive home was not so fun. Peggy drove 4 hours in the traffic and that only got us to just short of the SC/NC border. We ate dinner and I drove almost 8 more hours with some detouring to get around the worst traffic--there was a lot of flat in the Low Country. I pulled into home at 2:59am.