“Oh, it’s like a crescent moon with the sun. Oh, it’s moving so fast. That’s so cool.”
With protective glasses covering her eyes, Sienna describes the near total solar eclipse. This is her six years ago as an 8-year-old witnessing her first.
“Whoa! “It’s a moon! It’s the moon!”
“It’s cool.”
Her little sister also tried making sense of the astronomical phenomenon.
“Norah, what do you see? A moon. What’s the moon doing? Um…it’s just standing there.”
That was August 21, 2017.
“So, I’ll be 14 when this happens again, and Norah will be 12.”
And Norah’s observation today? “Well, it’s rare what makes it so cool. And it’s just like the sun is going away and the moon is covering and it gets dark in the daytime. Yeah, how dim is it right now? It’s pretty dim.”
At 3:11pm, daylight turns to a brief dusk. From a nearby marsh, frogs begin croaking as the moon eclipses nearly 94% of the sun.
“Is this once in a lifetime? Could be. That’s why you need to enjoy this while you can. Yeah.”
West Michigan’s next total solar eclipse is September 14, 2099.
“We’ll be like 90. Yeah. No. We’ll be like 100.”
