Astrovelo

When we watched the total solar eclipse in 2017, I knew the next one was going to be in April 2024 and was excited about it as it will be visible from close to home. Sometime in 2021, when I read about the Annular eclipse in October 2023, I wanted to go watch it but, thought that it was going to be impossible. October is when schools are back in session and kids activities are going at full throttle. Then it dawned on me that in October 2023, I don’t have to think about all these things as my son will be at college and we will be empty nesters.

A few months ago, we started planning our first empty nester trip. Driving to this event was too far and as we started looking at possible airfares and travel time, San Antonio won over Albuquerque. After taking a 6:10am flight (which meant leaving home at 3:30am), we reached San Antonio by lunch time. After some sumptuous Tex-Mex food at Market Square, we searched for a possible eclipse viewing site for the following day. The long barracks at the Alamo seemed to fit the bill. Nice open area with the proper clearing to view the entire eclipse. Planned to get there early enough to beat the crowds and to allow enough time for setting up the equipment.

On the morning of the eclipse, we decided to have breakfast at the oldest restaurant in San Antonio called Schilo’s. Because of a little snafu with my omelet order, it took a long time for getting our food. I was getting concerned about finding a good spot for viewing but, we reached the Alamo well ahead of time. Just as I got everything setup, the clouds thickened. It looked like all the efforts of making the trip were going to be wasted and we won’t be able to see the eclipse. Thankfully, within 30-40 minutes, the clouds started to break up and although we missed the start of the eclipse, we were able to see it till the end. Some of the early shots with clouds were quite dramatic.

Of course the total annularity was spectacular. It lasted for more than 4 minutes. This is the first time I experienced it and probably will be the only time in my life.

I have posted some composite images of the eclipse earlier and also made a 12 second time-lapse video from images taken over 9 minutes or so around total annularity.

One more nice thing happened during this trip. I got to meet with @pratik in person. He drove down to San Antonio from Austin with his family to meet us for lunch. I have known him for almost 20 years through various interactions/platforms on the internet but had never met him in person.

Overall, the trip worked out nicely. Now I am looking forward to viewing the next Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024.