What Delmarva will see during the Aug. 21 total eclipse
You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone more excited on Delmarva about Aug. 21's total solar eclipse than Gerardo Vazquez.
"If you are in the totality, you have to look up," said Vazquez, an astronomer with Salisbury University. "It will be one of the most spectacular things you will ever see. If you are in your house watching TV and there is a total eclipse, get outside.”
He is taking pains to ensure he and his family will be in the right place that day. Vazquez plans to travel more than 500 miles away to Columbia, South Carolina, which will be directly beneath the moon's shadow.
Delmarva won't be quite so lucky, but the peninsula still will be privy to a rare sight. Skyward gazers will be treated to a partial eclipse, with about 80 percent of the sun's surface obscured by the Earth's lone natural satellite, he said.
“If you are observing with the (viewing) glasses, you will see something beautiful. You will see part of the sun covered," Vazquez said.
The downside of staying put is the eclipse won't be all that noticeable. In areas where the sun will be totally blocked, the entire sky will grow dark "like a sunset or a sunrise in all directions," said Vazquez, who viewed a total solar eclipse in Mexico in 1991.
But on Delmarva, the sky will dim only slightly. The change will be so insignificant that it may go undetected by those unaware of what is going on, Vazquez said.
The event is being dubbed the Great American Eclipse because it is the first to sweep across the entire country in 99 years. Not since 1970 has an eclipse been accessible to so many people in America, experts say.
The eclipse will start on the West Coast in Oregon and trace a 67-mile wide path east across the country, finally exiting the East Coast in South Carolina.
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The first point of contact will be at Lincoln Beach, Ore., at 9:05 a.m. PDT. Totality begins there at 10:16 a.m. PDT. Over the next hour and a half, it will cross through 12 states. The total eclipse will end near Charleston, S.C., at 2:48 p.m. EDT.
From there, the lunar shadow finally leaves the U.S. at 4:09 p.m. EDT.
At any given location, the total eclipse will last for about 2 or 3 minutes.
Outside the narrow shadow track, a partial eclipse is expected to be visible from all of North America, parts of South America, western Europe and Africa.
That's where Delmarva enters the picture. In the Salisbury area, according to NASA, the moon will begin passing in front of the sun at 1:21 p.m. and reach the maximum eclipse at 2:46 p.m. The sun will be back to its full self at 4:04 p.m.
The peninsula's less-than-optimal location for viewing isn't stopping some people from observing the event locally. For example, the Wicomico Public Library's downtown Salisbury branch is hosting a viewing party starting at noon that day. Kids will be able to create their own pinhole projectors to view the eclipse safely.
Vazquez's comments came Tuesday evening at a lecture series at the library, sponsored by NASA. When he asked whether any of the 50 or so listeners had seen a total eclipse, two hands shot up.
Andrew and Daria Pogan drove from their home in Montgomery County, Maryland, to the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina to view the 1970 eclipse.
"It was amazing," Daria recalled. "It got really, really dark. It got quiet and all the evening bugs came out. You could hear them."
The couple has since retired to Wicomico, just outside Quantico. But they won't be here for this eclipse either.
Like Vazquez, they said, they plan to head to South Carolina for a better view.
The USA Today Network contributed to this report.
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