WD> I'm going to camp-out just outside the eastern entrance of Yellowstone WD> Nat'l Park near Pahaska Tepee around August 21st to view the North WD> American 2017 full solar eclipse.
Great!
A solar eclipse is awfull. I was lucky to have one within driving distance in my lifetime. When I was 13, I stumbled on a book in the school library that had a list of predictions of solar eclipses until 2000. I saw that a solar eclipse was predicted for 11 August 1999, to be visible in Dutch Limburg. Albeit not a completelt total eclipse, but a ring eclipse. I decided I was going to see that, even if I needed to walk to Limburg.
40 years later, the calculations had been updated. The centre of the eclipse was not in most southern part of The Netherlands, but a couple of hundred km more to the south. In Normandy. More to the south is also closer to the moon. And so the eclipse was not ring shaped, but total with an eclipse magnitude of 1.029.
I settled down on a camping in Pommereval near Neufchâtel-en-Bray, less than a km from the central line. I was there about for or five days before the event. It looked like the fun would be spoiled by the clouds, but magically the clouds opend up half an hour before t=0. It was great, something I will never forget!
Try to be at the site a couple of days early. Not just to secure a good viewing spot, but making contact with others interested in the phenomena is part of the fun.
And last but not least: be carefull! Do not look directly into the sun without proper protection! Do not waste time in trying to make fotographs. There are thousands of others that can do much better. It only lasts a few minutes. Use that time to see it with your own eyes.
