“I had seen a partial eclipse in 1970. A partial eclipse is very interesting. It bears almost no relation to a total eclipse. Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane.”
Annie Dillard
In her essay Total Eclipse written after she saw the total eclipse in 1979
St. Petersburg, Florida averages 248 sunny days a year and August 21, 2017 was one of those days. A total solar eclipse would have been spectacular, but Florida isn’t scheduled to see a full solar eclipse until August 24, 2045.
I was on the University of South Florida—St. Petersburg campus yesterday during the partial eclipse and took the photo below of student Antonio Permuy who was wearing his David Bowie shirt as a nod to the 1979 eclipse—the last total eclipse seen in the contiguous United States.
Another photo I took yesterday was of a statue of Christopher Columbus at St. Armands Circle in Sarasota, Florida. Columbus pulled off one of the greatest eclipse ruses back in 1503. In fact, it may have saved his life.
After some ship and provision problems, and a mutiny of his men, Columbus used his almanac to trick the locals in what is now Jamaica into thinking that he (or his god) could bring about a lunar eclipse.
When the moon disappeared briefly and appeared, let’s just say that the tension between his men and the islanders went away and they made sure Columbus and his men were taken care of until repairs could be made and other provisions arrived. At least, that’s the way I heard it.