A Goleta shopping center patio was packed with people Monday morning all looking up to the sky to bear witness to a rare event: a solar eclipse.
This is the first total solar eclipse in North America since 2017, and the last one until 2044. The eclipse in October was a partial solar eclipse.
While Santa Barbara wasn’t in the path of totality, astronomers, space lovers and other spectators said they still enjoyed the show.
“It’s a pretty big event,” Jasmine Kova said. “It doesn’t happen that often, it’s just something to be a part of.”
Kova said it was exciting looking through all the different telescopes and watching the eclipse happen at the Camino Real Marketplace watch party hosted by The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and The Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit. Organizers sold safety glasses to view the eclipse and local astronomers came out with telescopes to give onlookers an even better view.
“It’s exciting,” Kova said. “There is a little bit of adrenaline when you look into the telescopes and see that it’s happening,”
Kova and her friend Sam McKinney said they enjoyed seeing so many people come out to view the eclipse.
“Especially in our day of entertainment all over the place and social media, it’s nice when people just leave that alone, they come out and they do things together, and are celebrating a natural phenomenon,” McKinney said.
McKinney said he would have preferred to see the total eclipse but still enjoyed being part of the watch party.
From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. people were able to come by, ask questions, and safely look at the eclipse through telescopes and specially filtered glasses. The best view for Santa Barbara County was at 11:11 a.m. when the eclipse was at 55%.
While Santa Barbara wasn’t in the path of totality, the eclipse swept across the United States and thousands of people traveled to major cities such as Dallas, Little Rock, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Burlington to be in the path of totality.
Shaokang Li brought his camera to the Goleta eclipse viewing party and attached a black safety filter in order to take pictures of the eclipse and give others the chance to see it.
“It’s definitely better than being alone,” Li said. “Everyone’s here, everyone’s interested in this kind of phenomenon.”
Li said he enjoyed showing people the images captured on his camera and answering their questions about how it works. While Li’s main hobby is photography, he was interested in the eclipse because of how rare it is.
“I’m not really into astronomy but the eclipse is pretty rare so I wanted to come out and see it,” Li said.
A total solar eclipse won’t be seen in North America again until Aug. 22, 2044, but totality will only occur over North Dakota, Montana, and Northern Canada.
However, on Aug. 12, 2045 there will be a total solar eclipse spanning coast to coast across the lower half of the United States.
