Solar Eclipse in Utah

This is a once in a lifetime adventure we wanted to write in advance so you won't miss it. An annular solar eclipse is coming to Utah on Sunday, May 20th. This is the most famous variety of eclipse where the moon passes in front of the sun resulting in a "ring of fire" if you are in the range of totality. Here in Utah County we'll see about 80% of the sun eclipsed. Drive south past Richfield and you can see totality.

Here are a few details: In Orem the eclipse starts at 6:19pm. It reaches its maximum at 7:30pm. "Contact" will last until 8:30pm. These times only vary by a few minutes across the state, so you can see the eclipse near those times.

One very important point is that you CANNOT view the eclipse without special glasses. You can burn your retinas up in seconds causing permanent eye damage if you look directly at the sun even during totality. We picked up our glasses from Clark Planetarium at the Gateway for $2 a pair. You can look at the sun all you want while wearing the glasses. The glasses are extremely dark, and you can't see anything else through them at all, but the sun looks like an orange moon hanging in the air.

So Sunday, we are going to head south around 4:30 pm. We'll drive I-15 for a few hours and see where we get. Then we'll view the eclipse from there.

There hasn't been a lot of press coverage or interest in this activity which is surprising because the last time this type of eclipse was visible from the US was in 1994 (but in Maine!) and the next time won't be until 2023. I don't know how often we have this view so close to us, but it probably won't be in our lifetime.