| SvennoJ said: It's just one of those things that the power of the internet / tv has diminished for real life experiences, just like the northern lights or looking at the night sky nowadays. The real thing feels kinda meh compared to the countless enhanced close up pictures and HD/4K slow motion or timelapse videos. Overhyped! |
I understand what you mean about current technology producing 'better than real' images - it doesn't just raise expectations, it skews expectations, and so sets people up for disappointment.
The eclipse I saw was in August 1999, and I'd been waiting for nearly 2 decades to see it, ever since I was a kid. I'd seen plenty of eclipses on TV and gorgeous photos of them, so I thought I knew what to expect, although granted, it was 1990's technology.
What I experienced just blew me away - not just the spectacle in the sky, but all the changes going on in the immediate environment, too, and none of it I had expected to see.
There had been nothing to prepare me for the seeing the pink prominences, the uneven edge of the moon and details on its surface, the enormous white streamers coming out of the sun, the changes in the temperature and atmosphere, the ground looking like it was actually rippling, a huge shadow racing across the hills towards us and the quietening of the wildlife.
But then, I didn't really notice in the hype running up to the 2017 eclipse much mention of these amazing things, either. This could be because that despite today's technology, everything you can experience during a total eclipse is still beyond capturing in a single visual image or video, no matter how many k pixels it has. 
We're fed so much high quality crap through the internet these days that what they feed us is all we look for, and we're forgetting to experience this natural phenomenon and appreciate it for what it is, the way you experienced the Milky Way as a kid.
For your next eclipse, 99% will not give you the the full effects of totality - you won't be able to see the corona, streamers, etc. and you'll still need eye protection. But weather permitting, you'll experience changes in the environment, a significant lowering of light (it will be like twilight), and you'll be able to project the extent of the eclipse very easily onto the ground through a hole in a piece of card. But if you can get into the line of 100% totality, right into the middle of that narrow, 70 mile wide path, then it will be well worth it.
I hope you have a better experience next time around.
I have 9 years to wait - Iceland or Spain in 2026 - I might do Iceland, because there's a second one in Spain a year later.
