Looking To The Heavens: My 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Experience Trip Notes

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As soon as the 2017 total solar eclipse finished, I knew I was in trouble. How could I not make an effort to travel and see it again and again?

The celestial spectacle took my breath away. While pictures often make the northern lights look more spectacular than they are, pictures do no justice for a total eclipse, which looks far more amazing than any picture or video can capture. You simply need to see it with your own 2 eyes.

It’s eerie. It’s magical. It’s shocking. It’s beautiful. The sky looks like it’s breaking or has developed a black hole. It’s epic. It’s electrifying!

Frankly though, all the adjectives in the world won’t do it any justice. The gasps of the people around you are the only good way to comprehend it.

The odds that a planet’s moon should perfectly eclipse its sun are close to nil. It doesn’t exist anywhere else in our solar system. The Sun just happens to be 400 times larger than the Moon and 400 times as far as the moon to create the perfect symmetry.

To me, it’s yet another proof of G-d’s handiwork, there is no way something so perfect would exist unless it was intentional.

Lucky for me, the 2024 eclipse was scheduled to cross over my backyard. But would the weather hold out?

I didn’t want to take any chances, so a year ago, I booked an Avios award ticket to Dallas as a contingency plan.

Over the past few months, I decided to make a push for readers of this site to go see the eclipse. Some people have seen partial eclipses and assumed that a total eclipse would be similar. Others thought it would be the same as the daily sunset. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Clearly, non-DansDeals readers:

This is why you buy eclipse glasses early. Hundreds of people waiting outside @bhphoto to get a pair today! pic.twitter.com/LM9vbWSGFa

— DansDeals (@DansDeals) April 8, 2024

I went out to Mendel’s KC BBQ on Sunday with my brother and was thrilled to hear from so many people from out of town who came to Cleveland to see the eclipse because of posts on this website! The restaurant had a record-breaking night thanks to visitors from across the country. And of course, Unger’s Bakery sold out of the donuts that I always rave about.

Weather forecasts, and especially cloud forecasts, are notoriously inaccurate. They’re only worth looking at within a couple of days before an eclipse.

Cleveland’s forecast was mixed, but the forecast in Dallas was much worse, so I canceled my award tickets there. If I was going to roll the dice, it would be at home. Besides, I had brothers and brothers-in-law coming in from around the country to watch the eclipse in Cleveland. It didn’t take that much to convince all of them, I just had to remind them that if they missed it, they could catch the next one in Cleveland in 420 years!

Moishie Hersko, my partner on the kosher cruise to Antarctica and the proprietor of Kosher Horizons, came to Cleveland to photograph the eclipse as well. We photographed the 2017 total eclipse together in Boonville, MO when another Antarctica passenger went to S. Joseph, MO. Our reading of the cloud forecast paid off, as we got a wonderful eclipse viewing in Boonville, while S. Joseph had low hanging clouds that made viewing impossible.

Indeed, one of the keys to reading cloud forecasts is differentiating between low stormy clouds that totally block the sun, and high wispy cirrus clouds that are common on sunny days. Those high clouds tend to disappear as the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

While Moishie headed to the lakeshore for 360 degree views of sunset, we set up our watch party right in my backyard. The party was coming to my house and that’s exactly where I planned on staying if the weather looked good.

Live view from the backyard, hoping for a good show! pic.twitter.com/TdNYCaLSPi

— DansDeals (@DansDeals) April 8, 2024

The show didn’t let anyone down. It never does.

And it was on April 8th. The same day that Jews bless the Sun every 28 years, with the next one due on April 8th, 2037.

For the partial eclipse, we took a colander and watch as the circles reflect the eclipsed sun:

And when the moon eclipsed the sun, the temperature on the balmy spring day plummeted, the crickets chirped, and everyone gasped in awe at the heavens.

As promised, the high cirrus clouds melted away for a perfect eclipse viewing excperience.

There are places you travel to and wonder what all the hype was about. But I haven’t read a single regret from anyone that traveled for the total eclipse. The experience is that magical.

Well, other than for folks who got clouded in, in some parts of Texas and New York. But for most people, reality was much better than meteorologists predicted.

You can view the satellite video of the eclipse racing across the country below. As you can see, the clouds were really only a factor in Texas and New York.

Other regrets came from people on the so-called Delta eclipse flights that I wrote about negatively. The NY Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Washington Post all covered the negative reviews from that flight. From those reports, it was exactly the epic fail I predicted it would be. As I wrote, eclipses are designed to be experienced from the ground, folks!

On DDF you can read some excellent mini trip reports from shulem92, Aerial Dag, S209, yuneeq, ushdadude, haltkup, aishel, Traveler718, cgr, YesThatsMe, avromie7, and more tips from yuneeq. One key tip was to either spend the night in the eclipse location, or leave right after the end of totality to beat the post-eclipse traffic.

I spent the 2017 eclipse glued to my camera, so this time I didn’t focus on photographing it, though I did take a few pictures from the backyard.

I did take some drone photos of everyone watching the eclipse, but mostly relied on Moishie Hersko to take care of the photos, who never fails to deliver.

That way I was able to enjoy the nearly 4 minutes of totality, which while longer than I experienced in 2017, went by in the blink of an eye.

Though my wife Mimi got a great pic on her Pixel 8 Pro:

And local friend Adam Levine got a great shot on his S23:

Of course, Moishie had the winning shots with his rig:

From his Lake Erie vantage point, he saw the 360 degree sunset:

For the partial eclipse he used a solar filter for his DSLR and shot in aperture priority, f-11, ISO 200, and let the camera determine shutter speed based on how much sun is visible. As the eclipse progressed, he moved to ISO 800 to maintain a fast enough shutter speed.

During totality, he removed the filter and shot in aperture priority, f-9, ISO 800, 1/160sec, -2.0 EV.

Cookie or Pac-Man?

Almost there…

Bailey’s Beads is a phenomenon that takes place a moment before totality when you can see the sun’s light peak through the valleys on the moon:

And then, 4 glorious minutes of totality:

And another treat. Massive solar prominences are seen shooting off the sun. Each prominence is multiple times the size of Earth:

Just before and after totality is the diamond ring:

Photographer Kendall Rust caught AA flight 2246 cross over the moon in Jonesboro, AR during the eclipse for this stunning shot:

Another good suggestion from Moishie is you use binoculars with a solar filter instead of eclipse glasses. Have too many eclipse glasses? You can donate them at any Warby Parker store through 4/30.

Our Kosher Antarctica chef, Shua Lurie, now works at Mendel’s BBQ and was working at the fantastic Mendel’s kosher stand at the ballpark for opening day during the eclipse. Here’s his video from there:

I went with my brother Dovid and some of our kids to the game afterwards, where even the mascot was eclipse ready.

Plus, a new menu at the ballpark’s kosher stand, with chili dogs, pulled beef sausages, and delicious knishes in addition to pastrami dogs.

Enjoying a fantastic chili dog and an incredible Po Girl sausage, loaded with cole slaw, pulled beef, potato sticks, and Mendel’s award winning BBQ sauce.

The entire stadium was buzzing about the eclipse experience, with everyone sharing how it exceeded their expectations.

And we got a nice little flyover in middle of the National Anthem.

It was quite the day in The Land!

Pictures and video do this event no justice. But these rare events remind us of just how perfect and wondrous G-d’s world is.

Want to catch the next one?

On August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse will touch Greenland and Iceland with 130 seconds of totality, Portugal with 110 seconds, Spain with 105 seconds, and Palma de Mallorca with 96 seconds.

The one after that will be on August 2, 2027, and it will be a glorious one. Gibraltar will experience 4.5 minutes of totality, Tangier nearly 5 minutes, and the pyramids of Luxor will bask in nearly 6.5 minutes of totality.

And after that on July 22, 2028, Sydney, Australia will get nearly 4 minutes of totality, while Queenstown, New Zealand will get nearly 3 minutes.

Want to see it in the US? On 3/30/33, remote parts of Western Alaska, such as Nome, will have 2.5 minutes of totality.

But if you want to see it on the mainland US, you’ll have to wait for 8/23/44 for a mere 100 seconds of totality in Montana.

But that will just be a tease for the real next mainland US event, on 8/12/45. Oregon, Nevada, and Utah will get nearly 5 minutes of totality, Colorado Springs will get just over 5 minutes, Tulsa will get over 5.5 minutes, Tallahassee will get nearly 6 minutes, while West Palm Beach will get just over 6 minutes and Boca Raton will get over 5 minutes. Nassau will get over 6 minutes as it continues into South America.

But if you don’t want to leave NYC, you can always wait until 5/1/79 when NYC will be treated to just over 2 minutes of totality.

Will you try to view a total solar eclipse in the near or distant future? Did you see the eclipse? Share your experience in the comments or on DDF!