A total solar eclipse is coming to northern New Hampshire on April 8. The last time one was visible in the Granite State was in 1959. For many of us, this year could be the one chance in our lifetimes to be in the path of totality.
So, for March’s Big Question we asked: Where will you be for the total solar eclipse?
Many of you got in touch with us about your plans for the big day. Below are some of your responses.
Amanda - Nashua: I work at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. On the day of the eclipse, I am going to be here all day long, which is super exciting, getting ready to see everything and hearing the ‘oohs and ahhs’ from everybody. It's sad that we won't be quite in totality, but it'll still be a really awesome experience. There's a lot of really great and creative ways to see the eclipse. I always love looking through a telescope. Telescopes are one of the best ways to see really fine details on the sun, but just looking through eclipse glasses has just been so awesome.
Ward - Concord: We moved here a few months ago and for the eclipse we're going to be driving up to Sherbrooke, Québec, to be in the zone of totality and spending a couple of nights there. We decided to do that because by the time we checked, Burlington was pretty full, but we could find a place to stay in Sherbrooke, and so we're doing that. One of the disadvantages of Sherbrooke is that all of the events are in French, and our high school French just isn't that good from 40 years ago. So, we'll probably just stay at the hotel we're staying at and look at the sky from there. We have seen a partial eclipse before, but never a total eclipse. We have eclipse goggles. We even have a pair of two-power eclipse binoculars that will let us see the sun a little better.
Ruth - Canterbury: Well, we are going to be leaving New Hampshire, actually, even though New Hampshire is within the path of totality. When I started thinking about this months ago, I thought, that's pretty cool, right in our home state. But, I know northern New Hampshire a little bit, and there's not a lot of roads up there, and there are a lot of trees to block the view of the sky. And I thought, I think there might be a better place. So, we have friends out in the Adirondacks that we visit periodically. So, we're going out there to Saranac Lake, and they have a lot more facilities and big lakes and open sky. And I thought, you know what? The chances of it being cloudy are probably pretty good. I hate to be a downer, but I thought at least if it's cloudy, we'll be with our friends and have fun.
Dan - Manchester: The last time we put a lot of effort into seeing the eclipse, and this time I suspect we'll do the same thing. And it's always a good time to have a lot of friends in northern Maine. That's possibly where we'll be going.
Emily - Dover: I will be near Houlton, Maine, to view the solar eclipse with my father and his wife and uncle and sister-in-law. I have never seen a total eclipse before, and from what I've read on it, this is probably the one in my lifetime that I'm going to be able to see without having to travel and make other plans. So, I want to take this opportunity to see it now. My partner is like, 'If we can't make this, so what?' I'm like, 'No, we've got to see this.' And I'm hoping the weather works out, too.
Caitlin - Chichester: My boyfriend, Wyatt, put on our calendar possibly five years ago that we were going to have a date on the day of the eclipse to go see the eclipse. We've been together for seven and a half years, so this was fairly early on. He's like, 'We're doing this.' So, friends of ours bought a cabin up in Pittsburg a couple years back, and for anybody that doesn't know, Pittsburg is smack dab in the path of the eclipse for totality. So, we asked them if we could join them and that's where we'll be. So, we will be with probably a mob of people in Pittsburg to watch the total eclipse.
Additional reporting by Emily Quirk.
