So I got back late last night from seeing the great American eclipse. I went to a national forest down near Carbondale, IL. For those who don't know, I live in a suburb of Chicago. The drive there and back was terrible, and traffic was abysmal. My family and I arrived there at about 11:00 at night the day before and we set up tents along the road by a small clearing. I admit I didn't sleep much. Too much noise. I woke up really early and got ready for the day. So now that the mundane stuff is out of the way, let me try to explain how the eclipse went. I made some viewers out of solar filters designed for a telescope, since my eclipse glasses were counterfeit. The viewers worked quite well. The partial phase of the eclipse started at about 11:53 AM local time. As the minutes went by, I saw little bits of the sun start to disappear. It started in the upper right of the sun's disc. Over the course of about and hour and a half, the sun slowly shrank to a tiny crescent. Bit by bit, the sun vanished. As the sun went away the sky got dimmer and dimmer. The darkness was unlike anything I've ever experienced. We've all seen the sky dim when it's cloudy out, or near sunset. This was different. It wasn't like a cloudy day because the shadows were still clear. It wasn't like sunset, because the shadows were the normal length for 1:20 PM. As totality got closer, the color of the light seemed to change. I can only describe the light as silvery looking. Everything had a whitish, silvery tone to it. It's really hard to describe how it looked if you haven't seen it. It looked like those harsh white lights in a warehouse or stadium. About 20 seconds before totality, the light suddenly went from equivalent of a cloudy day right down to just after sunset. In literally seconds the light everywhere just went away. It was like someone turned a dimmer switch all the way down to the lowest level. The last bit of the sun vanished and it was time to take off the glasses. At about 1:21 PM totality began. Words cannot adequately describe what the total eclipse looked like. There aren't any adjectives to properly convey how I felt. It was the most amazing, incredible thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I literally, actually mean that. Nothing I have experienced before compares to the total eclipse, and I don't think anything I'll see later in life will compare. It is just that fantastic. There was the solid black disc of the moon in the middle, a bright white ring around the moon, and the corona surrounding it. Seeing the sun's corona was simply amazing. I saw the thin white wisps of gas surrounding the sun, but that doesn't describe it well. You can see picture online of the corona, but they cannot convey what it's like to see it in person. The only way I can describe it is that it was like looking at the face of God. Nothing can possibly compare to it. If you didn't see the total eclipse in person, you need to see it next time. If you thought it wouldn't be a big deal, you were wrong. If you thought it wasn't worth the time or the hassle, you were wrong. If you thought just seeing the partial eclipse was good enough, you were wrong. I cannot stress enough how incredible the experience was. The first thing I said was "Holy shit!". Lucky for me, there's another total eclipse in 2024, and it will also be visible in Carbondale, IL. It seems that Carbondale is now the nexus of the universe. I will be there in seven years. And anyone that has the ability to go see it next time must do so. It will change your life. Now, I do have a few photos I took. I use my Galaxy S7 with a 12x telescope attachment and a solar filter. The pictures ended up pretty good. Taking them was a pain in the ass. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the sun during totality. I wasn't going to waste my two-and-a-half minutes fiddling with the camera. I simply stared at the sun the whole time. It was over way too fast. Now for the pictures, click them for a bigger version. Here are a couple pictures of the surroundings during totality. Unfortunately, the pictures don't really convey how dark it was. Like I said before, it looked like just after sunset. Not coompletely dark, but more like twilight. Here's another photo I took of the shadows of the trees and leaves projected onto the ground. Notice how the bits of light between the leaves are shaped like little crescents. This is because the gaps between the leaves act like little pinhole projectors, which project the crecent of the sun onto the ground. Another cool effect just before and after totality was shadow bands. The were these little rolling bands of shadows undulating across the ground. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a picture of it. It was eerie. So that's it for now. Just remember, I cannot stress enough how awesome this was. If you have any opportunity to see a total eclipse in the future, do it. I guarantee you won't regret it.