Solar Eclipse 2017: The One Piece Of Equipment You Just Can't Forget

Author's Note: This is the second in a five-part journey I am taking across the solar eclipse 'path of totality.' That's the roughly 70-mile-wide band that will stretch across America – from Oregon to South Carolina on August 21st. Along that lucky strip of the continent, eclipse viewers will get a rare and brief look at the sun… in total darkness.

Marcy Curran

Marcy Curran's husband Marty, who she says she “suckered into being the president of the club” [Cheyenne Astronomical Society] after he got hooked on astronomy at a star party.

Wyoming native Marcy Curran has been staring at the sky since she was a little girl. There are few things she loves more than relaxing in a chair under the night sky, and when long-lost stars and constellations reappear in her telescope, she says it's a bit like running into an old friend again.

So when Curran returned home to Cheyenne after college and found out her local star-gazing club had gone dark – she sprung into action, and founded the Cheyenne Astronomical Society, circa 1986.

Since then, she's watched Venus and Mercury pass in front of the sun, and she examined the smash marks on Jupiter after Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the planet in 1994. She even took an extra gig teaching astronomy classes for 21 years at the local community college.

But she's still never seen a total eclipse of the sun. Good thing she only lives about an hour away from this year's solar eclipse path of totality:

NASA / Google Maps

See more of the eclipse path at: http://ift.tt/2sPkC48

Her biggest piece of advice for the uninitiated star-gazers out there hoping to glimpse this year's big eclipse? Bring a chair.

“This is kind of a long process” Curran says. “I fear that people are going to think – wow, this is taking forever.”

Curran says that newcomers to astronomy may be surprised just how much waiting around is involved in a star party: “It takes probably about an hour before it reaches totality,” she says.

Then, it's a brief moment of total solar blackout that U.S viewers won't see again until 2024, and it'll be over in a flash:

“Totality is going to be so quick” Curran says. It'll last less than two to three minutes, depending on where you're watching. So she suggests star-gazers don't waste their narrow window trying to get a good photo.

“Unless you really know how to take photographs of this, I recommend you don't even try,” Curran says, because "if you're trying to make sure you've got one decent shot, you're not enjoying it."

Her advice? Instead, just “set back and enjoy the show.”

For more of the best science & technology coverage, follow me on Twitter @hilarx.

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