Astronomer: ‘Why I won’t drive during the eclipse’

CLEVELAND (WJW) — While many people are talking about the moment of totality, some pretty interesting things happen with colors, shadows, and “dark adaptation” just before and after a total solar eclipse.

Northeast Ohio will be one of the best places in the country to view the highly-anticipated 2024 total solar eclipse on April 8. There’s one thing local astronomer Jay Reynolds won’t be doing during the big event.

“Personally, I won’t be driving during the eclipse,” he said.

‘Weird source of light’

“There will be some odd visual effects caused by what will seem like a weird source of light starting 20 minutes before and after the solar eclipse,” Reynolds said.

Seeing red

Reynolds said color saturation will appear off.

“For instance, colors like red will lose their brilliance and appear faded, shadows will go from sharp to fuzzy before and after the eclipse,” he said.

Reynolds told NewsNation’s WJW that on a typical evening, it takes 45 minutes from the very beginning of a setting sun to become complete darkness of night, “but only five minutes to go from fading light to blackness during a total solar eclipse.”

Remember to turn on your headlights

“Nightfall in the middle of the day on April 8 will happen so fast in the last two minutes before totality, that many people with cars that don’t have auto-headlights, could forget to turn on their lights,” he said.

“Highways and roads will be darker than usual in the first minute of the nearly four minutes of totality because many streetlights don’t turn on immediately, they have sensors and gradually turn on as darkness falls,” Reynolds added. “But during 100% totality, we’ll plunge into darkness so fast, some streetlights will need a moment to go on.”

Not like dusk

“It’s not like dusk when your eyes slowly adjust to darkness, which is why some people can squeeze in one more golf hole just before it’s too dark, but the two minutes before a total eclipse turns to blackness so quickly, I wouldn’t play baseball catch at that moment,” Reynolds said.

The phenomenon of dark adaptation

“This occurrence (eyes adjusting to sudden darkness) could be likened to hitting the switch in a fully lit room, turning out the lights, and entering complete darkness,” said Amy Babiuch, MD, a retina specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Cole Eye Institute. “It’s disorienting and we struggle to navigate in those immediate moments following darkness.”

“In a total solar eclipse, by the time the eclipse has finished, our eyes will still be in earlier stages of dark adaptation and could cause a similar, albeit lessened, effect as we go from partial light to complete darkness in the moments of an eclipse,” she said.

Babiuch said if the total eclipse happens when it’s sunny, the retinas in our eyes will need longer to adjust to the darkness and less time to adjust if it’s cloudy.

The last total solar eclipse in Ohio was 1806, and the next total solar eclipse in Ohio will be 2044.