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- Daria Bishop
- DO: Wear proper eye protection to view the eclipse.
Peter Shea of Burlington has been fishing since grammar school, but on August 21, 2017, he caught something he'd never seen before. "Holy mackerel!" the trout fisherman exclaimed as he caught sight of the sun, obscured by moon shadow and reflected in the pond in which he stood.
That glimpse of a partial solar eclipse made a deep impression on Shea, now 76. His mindset shifted from the piscine to the celestial. He'd already expressed his passion for trout in many books on the subject, some published by his own company, Wind Knot Publishing. Now he focused his new passion on producing a book to celebrate a much more unusual phenomenon for Vermont — a total eclipse of the sun in 2024.
The slim volume, Vermont's Total Solar Eclipse: April 8, 2024: Event Guide & Souvenir, contains the essential information about the eclipse, which is almost a year away but already engendering a lot of excitement. According to news reports in early April, lodging is being booked in the diagonal path of the "total" across northern Vermont and watch parties are already forming.
Shea's guide instructs readers on how to make their viewing successful as well as safe. The main no-no: Don't stare — with the naked eye. Included with the book is a pair of glasses made of a flexible resin called black polymer that blocks harmful ultraviolet rays.
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- Daria Bishop
- DON'T: Burn your eyes by looking at it directly
Shea has worked at many things in his life, including cofounding mapping company Northern Cartographic and serving as director of corporate support at Vermont PBS (now Vermont Public). He's also a well-known raconteur, meaning that he can charm a speckled brown straight into a hot, bacon-greased skillet.
To hear Shea tell it, astronomy is not so different from fly-fishing — both require exquisite focus. Seven Days caught up with him on dry land to discuss the Big One.
SEVEN DAYS: Are you an astronomer with a fly-fishing hobby or a fisherman with a cosmology fixation?
PETER SHEA: I read a lot of physics, [and] I understand only a small percentage of what I read because I don't really have the math to back it up. But I enjoy it — especially cosmology. It's not a professional but a personal interest.
SD: How did that come about?
PS: I was fishing a pond in central Vermont with a friend the day of the 2017 partial eclipse. It was over 90 degrees and it was so bright, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and I think we were penciled in there for about 65 percent coverage or obscuration of the sun. We noticed a slight dip in temperatures. I was watching the water — I wasn't about to look at the sun. I saw the reflection, and I yelled, "Holy mackerel!" I knew that the eclipse coming up in Vermont was total, and I made a resolution that I'm going to do something about it.
SD: Why is this "total" a big deal?
PS: Well, for one thing, it has not been observed in Vermont for almost 100 years. The last time we had a total eclipse was in 1932, and we had tens of thousands of people and scientists visiting the state here to record it. The other thing is, if you don't catch this one, you're going to have to wait more than 50 years to catch the next one. These are very rare occurrences.
SD: So this will be your first experience with totality?
PS: I am so excited, I can't even see straight. The sun looks a lot smaller than you'd think. It's a fireball, so you can't properly see its size.
SD: Your book includes "official 802 solar glasses." Why are they special?
PS: They just block everything out except the brightest light that can penetrate. You can look at the sun with these — otherwise, you could burn your eyes easily. The glasses knock out probably 99 percent of light. As it progresses in Vermont, the eclipse is gonna run about two and a quarter hours from start to finish. You'll be able to watch at various points. But once you hit totality, it turns to complete nighttime. You can take off your glasses, and all you'll see is this obsidian disk surrounded by a shimmering corona.
SD: Best places to watch?
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- Coutesy
- Vermont's Total Solar Eclipse: April 8, 2024: Event Guide & Souvenir by Peter Shea, Wind Knot Publishing, 12 pages. $12.95.
PS: If I had the legs and inclination, the top of Camel's Hump would be my pick; Mount Mansfield's another. You can't beat with a stick the Burlington waterfront and the ECHO Center. Knight Island State Park is good. It's gonna go right through St. Albans, and the dead center line is gonna go right through the [Northwest State Correctional Facility]. A great time for a jailbreak.
Montpelier is going to have a full totality, as will St. Johnsbury. Barre is right at the edge. It's interesting, because parts of Barre will be in totality for about 30 seconds, but the southern part of town won't see totality at all.
SD: What if it's cloudy?
PS: Oh, I don't think it has to be particularly clear; it could be partly cloudy. So I think wherever you are, it won't be ignored. I mean, it will turn to nighttime — it's nothing subtle, like a partial eclipse. You will not be able to ignore it.
SD: Describe the "diamond ring" effect.
PS: Just as the moon completely obscures the sun, the very last bit of light is going to be a singular point. It's going to be up there at around 11 o'clock on that disk. It's just a single point of light, and the ring around the sun is observable. It gives the appearance of a diamond ring.
SD: And then there's "Baily's beads."
PS: Just before the light goes completely total, the diamond ring has disappeared. You see shimmering little, little, tiny balls. This is not personal observation; I have not seen one. So this is what I've read. These little, tiny beads. It's the mountains and valleys of the moon, the irregular surface of the moon, that create this effect.
SD: How will ambient temperature be affected?
PS: You're definitely going to have temperature drop; sidewalks and buildings tend to retain some heat. But you're definitely going to feel like the whole world walked into the cooler.
SD: And what about the fish — how will they react?
PS: It's unfortunate that the totality only lasts for a little over three minutes in any location. The fish are going to think it's dusk, and that's a beautiful time to fish. I remember fishing out in Yellowstone Park during the big fires out there in 1988. There were ashes falling out of the sky and the smoke was thick, so it produced a dusk all day long.
So I would predict, for those three and a half minutes, those trout are going to think it's nighttime and are going to get interested in feeding for a while — and probably be shocked when the light comes back.
This conversation was edited and condensed for clarity and length.