Plan ahead to see the 2024 solar eclipse

Forward thinkers may want to start plotting and planning where they want to be on April 8, 2024, to view the next total eclipse of the sun.

Actually, Michael Bakich has already done the plotting for us. He is a senior editor at Astronomy magazine, based in Waukesha, Wis., near Milwaukee.

He has put his readers on notice, as a public service, because the totality of the 2024 solar eclipse will eclipse that of the Great American Eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017, by well more than a minute at the centerline of the path.

Bakich said he wants to start building the buzz early, so more Americans can “experience the awesome wonder of a total solar eclipse” on April 8, 2024. It’s just five years down the road.

“The length of totality varies from one eclipse to the next,” he said. “The reason is that Earth is not always the same distance from the sun, and the moon is not always the same distance from Earth. The Earth-sun distance varies by 3% and the Earth-moon distance varies by 12%.”

As it works out, Bakich reports the April 8, 2024, eclipse with maximum totality of 4 minutes, 28 seconds will be 67% longer than the one in 2017.

“Only totality reveals the true celestial spectacles…the sun’s glorious corona and 360 degrees of sunset colors,” he said.

Bakich said the 2024 eclipse center line will run diagonally southwest to northeast piercing 14 states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

“Those wishing to observe the 2024 eclipse from the same location that the center line crossed during the 2017 eclipse should head to the Village of Makanda, Ill., which lies just south of Carbondale,” he said.

The people of Makanda are already counting down, having cashed in from the tourism traffic that the 2017 eclipse generated for the village with an official population of 561. Makanda’s 2017 blackout lasted 2 minutes, 40 seconds. The 2024 eclipse will be a whopper – lasting 4 minutes, 8 seconds.

The community’s roots date back to 1845, when a construction camp to build the Illinois Central Railroad Chicago to New Orleans sprouted up. The village is named for a legendary Native American chieftain, Makanda.

Historians determined there were “five principal tribes that inhabited the southern Illinois territory in the 1700s – the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Mitchigamie, Peoria and Tamaroa. Only the Kaskaskia and Peoria continued to exist in the early 1800s.” Chief Makanda’s true ancestry remains a source of intrigue.

Today’s Makanda has grown into a trendy arts community, according to Kim Miller, a reporter with the West Palm Beach (Fla.) Post. She was there on assignment for the 2017 eclipse and interviewed Nina Kovar of Visions Art Gallery. “This place has always been a funky elbow in the road, and we know how to party,” Kovar said.

In 2017, the party was at the end of the reddish-orange painted line through Makanda that defined the center line for the eclipse. It led eclipse seekers right into the front door of artist Dave Dardis’ place, The Rainmaker Studio, and into his “secret garden” out back…where the band played on and on.

Byron Hetzler of The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale described Dardis’ 2017 eclipse marker: “It looks like the mast of a ship, coming right out of the sidewalk, complete with a crow’s nest, a pirate’s flag, one of Dave’s giant praying mantises and a commemorative plaque.”

Pray tell what the local artistic sculptor and jewelry maker will come up with for 2024?

An immediate challenge, however, is the center line of the next eclipse isn’t coming through Dardis’ property. In fact, the line crosses Cedar Lake in Makanda. The body of water is a 1,750-acre reservoir that was created in 1974 by the damming of Cedar Creek, a tributary of the Big Muddy River, which in turn flows into the Mississippi River.

Cedar Lake is within the Shawnee National Forest and welcomes kayaking, canoeing and fishing. The small print shows that small outboard motors are allowed (not to exceed 10 horsepower). Depending on the size of the boat, a 10-hp motor would putt-putt along at about 15 miles per hour, give or take.

That’s perfect…for the 2024 CLEF (Cedar Lake Eclipse Flotilla). For spectators, it will be a 4-minute quickie…but still a once-in-a-lifetime experience in the sky and on the water.

We’ll put a bug in the ears of Makanda Mayor Tina Shingleton as well as those of Dave Dardis. Dardis told reporter Miller that he declined the popular eclipse-driven pandemonium in 2017 to have him crowned “King of Makanda.”

He said in jest that he’d just as soon be known as “Prince Dave”…and declared the royal beverage in the Principality of Makunda to be Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Dagnabbit. That’s a man who appreciates the finer things in life.

Ready to make your solar eclipse 2024 plans to be in Makunda?

Not so fast, warns Michael Bakich. Consider all your options first, he advises…including the weather.