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I too was in the totality. It was a little more awesome than I thought it would be. Not awesome in the sense of “that was an awesome cheeseburger,” but awesome in the sense of catching a brief glimpse of our place in the cosmos. For two-and-half minutes, I was fully aware that I was on a small planet with a smaller satellite, orbiting an obscure star at an oblique angle to the center of a backwater galaxy, nearly 14 billion years after the Big Bang. Also, it was beautiful. Millions of stars, caught unawares, quickly shaving and putting on a brief cameo; birds, and even a couple of bats, taking off (and sounding off) in mass confusion; roosters crowing; the temperature suddenly dropping and sending the less hearty to scramble for a sweater. Also, my sister-in-law Michelle made some great chili, and my brother-in-law Tom kept passing around some good Vermont cheeses on slices of seeded baguette.

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> It turns out it was grossly, almost criminally, undersold.

AMEN!

Even many of the descriptions along the lines of, "It was a moment of awe as I considered my place in a vast universe, etc." undersell the absolute wonder of the moment.

For me, the absolutely black and white body in the center of a dark night sky and almost broke my brain. It was akin to everything I understood or have experience about the world being thrown out the window.

I drove from California to AR to see this, my first eclipse, and it was 100% worth it.

Also, I love your photo, b/c unlike most photos that zoom in on the eclipse and the white corona, it shows the entire context. Although it was exactly where I expected it to be, I was completely shocked that the dramatic appearance was just right there in the middle of the sky.

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Very cool! We saw the same eclipse in very different locations but came to a very similar conclusion about the cosmos and so called “coincidences”

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