If you live within driving distance (this link has a map of the range of the eclipse), and aren’t already planning on seeing the eclipse, allow me to urge you to do so. An annular eclipse is so much more beautiful than a full eclipse; the quality of the light is such that the entire world seems dipped in silver, shimmering and dancing.

Unless you have the proper equipment (welder’s goggles, eclipse glasses, or a properly filtered scope of some sort), you can’t (or rather, shouldn’t) look directly at the sun. With an annular eclipse, you really don’t want to, in my opinion. Instead, find a spot in the woods, where the leaves are sparse enough to let light through, but thick enough that the light comes through in patches. This is where you want to be for the eclipse.

It will get dim, but not really dark, almost as if the sun had been blocked by a cloud. But while a cloud will diffuse the light, the eclipse transforms it. There are not beams of light; there are circlets, shining rings. As the wind moves the leaves, the circlets dance, coming together, drawing apart, larger and smaller depending on how high the leaves are. It is stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful.

And then it is gone. And won’t be back for over a decade. The last one in the US was in 1994, on May 10th–I remember it well. It was a big day. Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president of South Africa. John Wayne Gacy was executed. I remember both, but I remember them because of the eclipse.

What I’m saying is, this is a memorable and worthwhile event. Go see it if you possibly can.