“The full experience really is only going to be visible in that path of totality,” Hammergren says. It’s everything that’s going around you.”Ĭhicago will miss out on these phenomena, not only because of the city’s lack of cows, but because the sun must be completely covered in order for them to occur. Birds will start going back to roost, cows will start heading back to the barns, the temperature will drop until the light from the sun returns, winds will pick up. “The animals, of course, don’t know what’s going on,” he explains. Stars and planets will shine in the sky in the middle of the day, according to Hammergren. Viewers of the total solar eclipse will find themselves in the darkness cast by the shadow of the moon-in Carbondale, for nearly three minutes.

We normally can’t see the corona because, on most days, the sun’s bright surface renders it invisible to the human eye-like a whisper lost in the cacophony of a crowded room. One reason for its splendor? A total solar eclipse reveals the diaphanous outer atmosphere of the sun-the corona, a “wispy, streaming” sight, says Hammergren. It really is that dramatic a thing to witness,” he says. “These events are so rare as seen from a given location on Earth, that the individuals who see this eclipse, they’ll be telling their grandchildren. Considering this is one of the few eclipses where the 'path of totality' (locations that can view the total eclipse) will cross the entire continental U.S., that's a big deal.Īccording to Mark Hammergren, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium, it’s going to be an absolutely spectacular sight. On the afternoon of the 21st, skygazers in Carbondale will witness a longer total eclipse-about 2 minutes and 40 seconds-than almost anyone else in the country. Carbondale is one of the best places in the country to view it. Here's what you need to know to make that choice. On Monday, August 21, Chicagoans have a tough decision to make about how to take in the rare cosmic coincidence known as a solar eclipse. Should you head south to Carbondale, Illinois, where tens of thousands of people are expected to converge for the total solar eclipse-and watch as the entire sun disappears behind the moon? Or stay in the city, where about 10 percent of the sun will stay visible?

Lunar eclipse 2017 in chicago