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This nice animation of the August 21st Eclipse across America showed up on Astronomy Picture of the Day today. It is less than a minute in length and is a good graphic illustration of the path of totality.

The embedded video can be set to full screen for enlargement.

After the video finishes, there is another interesting video follow-up that animates the shadow of the moon as it crosses the country. You can see in detail where totality occurs with the shadow video.

The countdown has been underway here for almost five years since we first made our reservations at the RV campground near the centerline of the eclipse in Wyoming. Now, however, we’re down to the last few weeks before the big event. The Javascript countdown timer above shows the remaining time to the start of the eclipse (first lunar encroachment) in Arizona Time.

The date of the eclipse is August 21, 2017. The beginning of the eclipse is dependent on the location of the observer, but in our case is 16:22:20 UTC, The seven hour difference has been adjusted in the timer. Totality follows a bit over an hour later. The interactive eclipse map has moved to the NASA Eclipse pages:

https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/interactive_map/index.html

One year from today, we plan to be in Casper Wyoming to observe the August 21, 2017 total eclipse of the sun. We have been getting ready for the event for over four years.

“Ready” includes making reservations at a campground near the centerline of totality, planning the trip to include some optional, scenic side excursions and purchase of a couple dozen commemorative eclipse shades from Rainbow Symphony. We are also preparing to use the camera and telescope to record this spectacular event.

Image: August 21, 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Commemorative Shades. Click to enlarge.

This post from May of 2012 has a map of the path of totality and some details about the eclipse. I also did some on-line research and found Eclipsophile.com/Wyoming which forecast a 75% chance for clear skies in August. We’re hoping that it will be so.

Although the event is over fifteen months in the future, we ordered our special eclipse shades from Rainbow Symphony last week. This week, they showed up with the poster depicted at the right as a bonus. We ordered twenty-five pair of shades and plan on handing them out to family and friends as the event approaches.

Earlier, we made our reservations for an RV park near the centerline of the path of totality in Casper, WY. I’m sure the campgrounds are going to fill up very quickly as this is certain to be the most important and popular celestial event in our lifetimes. As spectacular as the Annular Eclipse was that we witnessed four years ago in Page, AZ, this one is certain to be more impressive, weather permitting.

The good thing about this eclipse is that nobody in the entire lower forty-eight has to travel more than a few to several hundred miles to get to the band of totality. Our trip, as currently planned, takes us over a 1,035 mile route with some extra miles due to sight seeing side trips along the scenic route through Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Image: All American Eclipse Poster; click to enlarge.