Partial Solar Eclipse Locally Entertains Hundreds on MTSU Campus
As the solar eclipse peaked at 93% totality locally just after 2 o’clock Monday, April 8, on the Middle Tennessee State University campus, several groups of mostly MTSU students began cheering the rare, natural phenomenon.
It had been seven years since the 2017 Great Tennessee Eclipse brought 100% totality for about two minutes on campus and it will be 20 years until the next solar eclipse crosses North America.
Students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni and families with children out of school for the day converged on campus for the Great American Eclipse 2024. While it appeared weather might dampen things, Mother Nature delivered a mix of sun and clouds to the early afternoon astronomical event.
At the eclipse’s peak, the sky darkened slightly. Some people said birds stopped chirping and bees momentarily quit pollinating clover in the grass.
Hundreds of people — many of them MTSU students — showed up, far exceeding expectations. They congregated at the MTSU Uranidrome, the naked-eye observatory on the edge of Walnut Grove, and the nearby telescope-equipped observatory on the west side of campus and in the MTSU Quad in the heart of campus.
Among them was Becca Kinturi, 18, a freshman visual communications major from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, who said she was yelling, “‘Go sun,’ giving it encouragement. The one in 2017 was a lot better. I was expecting it to get completely dark (it didn’t). It was still cool.”
Taking eclipse photos with her cell phone along with many others, Victoria Gamez, 20, a junior microbiology major from Winchester, Tennessee, said the gathering near the observatory “feels like community. I went to the one in 2017 in my hometown and it’s kind of like this. The eclipse is beautiful.”
Devin Smithwick, 21, a senior audio production major from Duluth, Georgia, said he “hadn’t seen this many people hanging out. It’s cool to see people coming out and enjoying themselves.” He brought a laptop, “checking to see where the eclipse is in other places.”
Freshman digital marketing major Jaylee Claud, 19, of Smyrna, Tennessee, said she “loved to see everybody come together. It’s nice outside, but the clouds are getting on my nerves. They keep covering the sun.”
The MTSU Department of Physics and Astronomy handed out more than 650 eclipse glasses. Professor Eric Klumpe opened the observatory for more than two hours, answering questions and sending the telescope’s eclipse image to two large screens outside the observatory and one inside.
The next solar eclipse in the continental U.S. will be Aug. 23, 2044.
