2024 Solar Eclipse Totality | Citizen Science — video transcript

Izzy Bouchard: You guys have probably been prepping for a while.

Person 1: Oh, about 60 years. We know the drill.

Nikita Saini: Today is going to be the second time I see an eclipse. Fingers crossed.

Andrew Teller: We are lucky enough here in Jackman today that we are seeing a total solar eclipse. Assuming the weather holds out for us.

Shawn Laatsch: In 2006 I was in Libya for that eclipse with my wife and it was her first total solar eclipse. She thought it was going to be cool but I looked over at her during totality and tears were streaming down her face, and I was like, Gotcha! So I knew that was really cool.

We’re in Jackman because of course this is the centerline for totality. On that centerline is where you get the most amount of time. So I tell folks that the difference between a partial and a total is the difference between seeing a lightning bug or getting hit by lightning.

Today we’re here as part of a NASA citizen science project called CATES which stands for Continental American Telescopic Eclipse. We have 35 telescopes like this one set up all the way from Texas to Maine to capture the sun and the polarity of the Corona during the total solar eclipse.

Andrew Teller: We are lucky enough here in Jackman today that we are seeing a total solar eclipse. Assuming the weather holds out for us.

Nikita Saini: We had workshops in San Antonio in January and we had another workshop training at UMaine, where we trained two other teams that are working with us in Maine, there going to be stationed near Millinocket and Houlton, so I hope everything is going great for them today.

Shawn Laatsch: Each team is made up of citizens who are interested in this. Some of them are folks from the planetarium field but then there are folks who are high school teachers or history teachers and high school students and some college students that are involved. So it’s really a whole mix of people that are exploring this.

Crowd: Prepare for Totality!

Totality.

That’s it.

20 seconds.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  Totality!

(Music)

3, 2, 1, put your glasses back on.

Glasses back on.

Shawn Laatsch: Good job, good job.

Nikita Saini: We did it.