Savannah prepares for solar eclipse, the celestial event of the century

You've heard about the night, but Monday will be the day that the lights went out in Georgia.

With the much-hyped total solar eclipse of 2017 just around the bend, many Savannahians are either finalizing travel plans, securing a spot to watch in town or scrambling to get a pair of eclipse glasses.

And with good reason - it's the first coast-to-coast total eclipse since 1918, and the next won't be until 2045. The next time a total solar eclipse will even come close to Savannah will be in 2052.

The "path of totality," where the moon will cover 100 percent of the sun, is about 70 miles wide. The path leads diagonally across the country from Oregon to South Carolina, exiting the continent near Charleston. We won't be able to see the eclipse in its totality, but the Savannah area will get as close as 98 percent coverage. The only time it is safe to look at an eclipse without special eclipse glasses is during 100 percent totality.

At its closest, the path of totality misses Savannah by about 70 miles, but a group of Savannah's eclipse chasers say the drive is worth it.

For these die-hard skygazers, it's really no choice at all. The Savannah-based Oglethorpe Astronomy Club has no events planned locally for eclipse day.

"The club is not doing anything locally because Savannah is not in the path of totality," said the club's Kevin Bell. "We're scattering to the wind to go to various different places to catch the eclipse in totality."

For those staying in Savannah, the moon's shadow will first touch the sun about 1:15 p.m. and will reach its maximum coverage about 2:45 p.m., before ending at 4:09 p.m. That is, if the weather holds up. Right now, the National Weather Service says there is a potential for numerous showers and thunderstorms near the Georgia and South Carolina coast. And with the rain come clouds, which make viewing the eclipse difficult. The NWS forecast reports conditions for viewing will be on the low side of fair in Savannah.

Still, there's a chance the clouds will break. And the rarity of the celestial event, combined with its close proximity to Savannah, has the area buzzing. Eclipse fever has spread.

Savannah Riverboat Cruises will be casting off for a special lunchtime eclipse viewing cruise, featuring a lunch buffet and a captain narrating the event.

Woof Gang Bakery locations in Savannah will be offering a 30 percent discount on all non-consumable items.

Tanger Shopping Outlet in Hilton Head Island will be hosting a scavenger hunt, featuring brightly colored "planets" (bouncy balls) that could land the Tangernauts a $5 Tanger gift card.

Even Applebee's locations in Georgia and Alabama will be offering a special eclipse cocktail on the day of the event.

Eyes on the skies

Because Savannah will not experience a 100 percent total eclipse, it will not be safe at any point to look at the sun. But there are plenty of ways to enjoy the show.

Many local retail stores have been selling eclipse viewing glasses that allow skygazers to watch as the moon's shadow crosses the sun without hurting their eyes. It's important to note that these glasses are not the same as regular sunglasses.

Even if you've purchased a pair of eclipse glasses, make sure to check that they conform to the transmission requirements of ISO 12312-2, the safety standard for looking directly at the sun. Amazon recently recalled certain glasses advertised as meeting these requirements and refunded those who purchased them.

A popular place to find glasses for many Savannahians is the library.

The Live Oak Public Library System received 1,000 eclipse viewing glasses to distribute free with its educational programs from the Space Science Institute and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The program teaches kids and parents about the science behind the eclipse, and the public's interest has been very high.

Effingham Children's Librarian Linda Bridges said more than 70 people showed up for her first family eclipse party earlier this month in Rincon. Since then, the numbers skyrocketed. On Thursday, the Southwest Chatham Library had about 450 people show up for the event, and the library had to start distributing the glasses on a one-per-family basis.

Stephen Whigham, LOPL interim executive director, said he was happy about the large turnout.

"We've had overwhelming demand, and we're really happy about that. But we have had a shortage of glasses. I suppose that's the price of success," Whigham said. "It's a nice problem to have, but we only regret that we didn't have more."

Even congressmen are excited. U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler, attended the event at Southwest Chatham Library. Carter said he was there "interacting with the kids."

"You know, you can learn so much from them. They're so excited about next Monday and what's going to be happening," Carter said. "This is a great program that the library has set up here, and they're kind of making them earn the glasses. They're making them do a project before they can get them, to make sure they understand exactly what's going on."

David Wilson, 10, came to the library on Thursday to earn a pair of glasses and learn a little about the eclipse.

"I'm excited to finally see it and to have these (eclipse glasses) on and see all around the eclipse for the first time," Wilson said.

Once in a lifetime

The eclipse has been billed by many as a once in a lifetime event. But not for Steve Collins.

"Some of us that have lived this long have already seen one," Collins said. "I had to look it up myself, and it was March 7, 1970."

Collins has lived in Savannah his whole life. He was 26 years old during the 1970 eclipse, and things were going well for him back then. He was married in 1964, and he and his wife had their first child in 1970.

"It was exciting, because I was 26, and it takes a lot to excite you then, particularly with science. But I was interested in it and I went out and watched it."

Collins said it wasn't a total eclipse, but he still remembers the drastic lighting changes that came with the celestial event.

"It did get dark, maybe for a minute or two. It doesn't last long, as far as the full darkness goes. It gradually gets dark and then gradually lightens back up," Collins said. "It wasn't totally dark. It was about like it would be on a regular day around twilight here."

The strangest thing that happened, Collins remembers, was how the birds reacted when the sky darkened.

"I do remember that the birds didn't like it," Collins said. "They all started flying off, maybe to roost. I couldn't figure it out. That was one thing that grabbed my attention."

This year, Collins plans to gaze up at the sky once again as the moon's shadow overtakes the sun, and it would be difficult to find a more serendipitous day for him to enjoy his second eclipse - the event falls on his 74th birthday.

"It's pretty exciting. A lot of my friends are giving me a hard time about it."

He plans to enjoy his celestial birthday gift from the comfort of his home on Monday - truly a twice in a lifetime opportunity.

Student space

Perhaps the most ambitious local eclipse project comes from St. Andrew's School in Savannah. Students will not be taking the day off.

But a small group of students will be traveling to South Carolina for a moment they've been planning for nearly a year.

It started with an eclipse day idea from Aaron Greenall, a math, physics and design technology teacher at St. Andrew's.

"I wanted to send a (weather) balloon into space, and I thought, how can I get this done without having to do it myself?" Greenall said. "I thought, 'Oh, school students, they might find this idea interesting."

Greenall was right. He mentioned the idea in class, and the whole class responded with excitement, but also skepticism.

"A lot of students early on said, 'We like the idea, but we're not very good at science,' or 'We don't understand the maps,' or 'We don't know how to program the computer," Greenall said.

Greenall explained to the group that being involved in the scientific process is a multifaceted undertaking. The project would require science journalists, photographers, marketers, fundraisers, logistics coordinators and more.

More than 30 students signed on for the club, each was assigned to one of four subgroups: physical builders, software engineers, marketing and logistics/journalism.

There were plenty of roles for students to fill and much work to be done - including finding a catchy title.

One of the students suggested "St. Andrew's Space Administration," and it stuck.

The team met before and after school, offering up their own time for the project. There were no class requirements, no grades, only the opportunity to send a weather balloon to space.

Sydney Bacon is on the journalism and marketing team at SASA, and helped plan fundraisers for the project. Bacon and the rest of the team raised $2,000 to help buy proper equipment and cameras for the weather balloon's journey into the atmosphere.

For Greenall, raising money for the project outside of school was an important part of the process.

"There are priorities, and sometimes competing priorities, and for this project, I wanted to be able to say that we would be student-led," Greenall said. "We wouldn't ask for money and take it from other places in the school, instead, we would, as much as possible, let the students go out and raise the money on their own."

Johan Breglar was a member of the software engineer team and programmed the tiny Raspberry Pi computers aboard the balloon to gather the data they need.

"I coded them so that when they were in space, they would take pictures and data such as the temperature and air pressure," Breglar said. "It's pretty much what I've been working on all year."

Breglar said he hopes that the data the team collects from the weather balloon will be a starting point for a large pool of data from the community.

"The intention is to get a bunch of data, and later on other people in the community will pitch in," Breglar said. "We'll pool all those together and maybe write some sort of scientific paper with all that data."

The team also hopes to capture photographs of the eclipse and the balloon's flight data, such as pitch, roll, altitude, barometric pressure and any change in temperature that may occur during the eclipse.

SASA had a firm grasp on their project, but there was one glaring obstacle: gravity.

What goes up must come down, and that applies to the weather balloon as well. How would the students be able to find the weather balloon's payload once it inevitably returned to terra firma?

"It will probably land really far away," Breglar said. "We want to be able to track it and not lose it because it's hanging in a tree somewhere for someone else to find in 10 years."

Enter JCB. The global manufacturer of construction and agricultural equipment has its headquarters in Savannah, and a few JCB employees have kids that attend St. Andrew's.

"When we got wind of the project, we knew one of the challenges was tracking the weather balloon," Chris Giorgianni, vice president for product support and government and defense, said. "When you put a weather balloon up and it moves around at those altitudes, it could go anywhere."

Giorgianni had a solution. JCB equipment is outfitted with a system called LiveLink. The system tracks the machine's hours of operation, health alerts, operator behavior, fuel consumption - an all-around logistics and diagnostics system.

It's also able to ping its GPS location - something that would prove invaluable to retrieving the SASA weather balloon.

SASA partnered with JCB, and the project was back on track. As the balloon goes up on Monday, the LiveLink system will ping its location back to ground control until it reaches 10,000 feet. Eventually, the balloon will burst and fall back to Earth, and start pinging location again once it falls within the 10,000 feet range.

With JCB's tech, the students will be more likely to recover the data they've worked so hard for, but the team is more excited than nervous.

"I'm pretty happy, because we've been working on this for about a year- a bit more. To see all that work out is pretty amazing. There's not many words to describe it," Breglar said. "And actually launching the balloon, that'll be even better. That'll be amazing."

"I'm very excited to see the results," Bacon said. "It's been a lot leading up to it, and now that it's here, it's kinda crazy that we about to finally be able to launch the balloon."

SASA will be traveling to Camden, S.C., to launch the balloon, within the eclipse's path of totality.

Their fingers are crossed for good weather conditions and a successful launch and reentry, but Greenall said he will be proud regardless.

"These students, it really has been a project designed and led by them. We've never done anything like this before. I've never designed anything like this before. I gave them an idea, and they have run with it. They've gone from nothing to a project that, everyone who hears it, is so impressed by it." Greenall said. "I couldn't be prouder."

Other events

Savannah Country Day school will have a variety of eclipse-related activities throughout the day including educational assemblies that focus on astronomy and classroom discussion about eclipses before they get a chance to view the event.

Fort Pulaski on U.S. 80 east of Savannah will have an "Off the Path" Eclipse Party and will offer arts, crafts and Junior Ranger activities for children, plus programs about science and the history of past eclipses around the world. Free glasses are being provided while supplies last.

The Garden City Library is having a special Eclipse 101 meeting from 2 to 3 p.m. with a viewing.

The National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler will have Operation Eclipse on Monday, and kids will get free admission with an adult. Visitors will get a chance to head to the Memorial Gardens to watch.

The Jinx will host a concert fronted by the Fabulous Equinox Orchestra that starts at 6:30 p.m. at 127 Congress St.

Hardeeville will host a viewing event from noon to 5 p.m. behind Hardeeville City Hall, 205 Main St.

There will be a boat tour on Palmetto Bluff and Hilton Head from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The trip will depart from Shelter Cove Marina on Hilton Head and Wilson Village in Palmetto Bluff. Call 943-686-6996.

South Carolina has many events in store including a Yonder Field Solar Eclipse Festival in Bowman, which promises a fun day of inflatable raft races, an eclipse viewing, music, food and more. The space is at 180 Log Cabin Road in Bowman. Officials in Columbia and Charleston are promising great views in various parks along with viewing at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in Columbia, the South Carolina State Museum and many more locations throughout the area.

And if you can't get outside, The Weather Channel is planning wall-to-wall coverage, and the eclipse will be also shown throughout the day at the NASA website: www.nasa.gov/eclipselive.