On Thursday of May 9th, a series of five or six solar flares began on the Sun. A flare is a release of huge amounts of energy due to local changes in the magnetic field. The flare itself lasts from a few minutes to an hour and a half, depending on its intensity. In the case of more energetic flares, different phenomena often occur, such as protuberance eruptions or mass ejections. The latter are called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). It is a cloud of plasma, accelerated in the coronal region (the outer part of the sun’s atmosphere) and then ejected into interplanetary space.

I have a fantastic job. Most of the time we work remotely, but once or twice a year we meet in person. This time the venue was going to be New York. Someone threw out an idea - why don’t we move the meeting up a few days and catch the eclipse? I have a nice boss too.

The eclipse trip is a logistical nightmare. The memes about being able to check the eclipse route by checking where hotels and airbnb’s are fully booked are true. Many months before the event itself, we had to decide on a location. We chose Albany, New York, as our home base and booked a coach. Unfortunately, the company demanded that the itinerary be determined 72h before departure. With considerable cloud cover for most of the USA and deteriorating forecasts, this cost us a lot of nerves.