Setting up lawn chairs and donning special eclipse glasses, visitors at the Springfield Museums made their way to the North Lawn Monday to take in the solar eclipse.
Starting earlier in the morning with a slate of events, the “Great American Solar Eclipse Party” continued throughout the afternoon.
An assortment of specially filtered telescopes gave visitors a chance to see the moon making its way across the sun — and long lines formed.
Among them was 9-year-old Lamont Howard Jr. and his family, who were lined up to be some of the first to see the start of the eclipse, all the while glancing up through their eclipse glasses.
When asked what he looked forward to seeing the most, the Springfield resident told WAMC he wanted to see “the moon covering the sun as much as it can.”
Among the scopes was a large, reflecting telescope - set up and adjusted by David Gallup, a planetarium educator at the Springfield Science Museum and president of the Springfield Naturalists' Club.
Speaking with WAMC, Gallup said even with a few wispy clouds in the sky, conditions were perfect for witnessing an eclipse Monday.
“The sun will shine right through them,” he said. “We're very lucky here in the Northeast, because some people have traveled thousands of miles and, voila, the skies changed from clear to cloudy, like Texas.”
An audio option was also available in a nod to accessibility – dropping octaves as the light grew dim through the afternoon, as explained by Joel Cummings, a docent at the Science Museum and at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
“So, with full-sun – you hear it?” Cummings asked the crowd around him as the device let out a synthetic hum.
“Now, as the sun dims from the eclipse, it’ll change tone - so, a full eclipse – see, it gets lower and lower and lower,” he said as he gradually held his hand over the sensor, causing it to shift to deeper sounds.
Described by the museum as a sonification box designed for the blind and low-vision community, officials said the object translates the eclipse into sound using a sensor to detect changes in light and generate corresponding audio.
By the end of the day, 630 visitors stopped at the Science Museum Monday, with 500 people taking in the eclipse on the North Lawn, according to the Springfield Museums.
For Gallup, an event like this can offer up all sorts of educational opportunities and curiosity for the general public.
Earlier in the day, Gallup observed hundreds of people filling the six planetarium shows previewing the eclipse.
“People are curious and it’s wonderful to see people doing this because they can connect with nature around them and this phenomenon that’s going on called a total solar eclipse – not here, but almost here – 93 percent.”
