Total Solar Eclipse of 2024

Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall3 Comments

by Carolyn Henderson

This solar eclipse of totality in Milam County is a rare event. They actually occur about every 18 months somewhere in the world, but it can take lifetimes before one occurs here again. There won’t be another total eclipse in the USA until August 23, 2044. The last time there was an eclipse of totality in this area (Austin to be specific) was 1397. That’s right, 1397, according to the Austin American Statesman.

Microsoft 365 stock photo

The total event will take up to 3 hours to complete. The actual total eclipse will last approximately 4 minutes, give or take 30 seconds. Where totality occurs, it will be completely dark for 4 ½ minutes. For those of us in the path of totality, which is 100 miles wide, we will see somewhere between 2 ½ minutes to 3 ½ minutes of total darkness. Our location is not at 100%, but we are only about 30 miles off, which gives us a full 3 minutes of chill bump-raising darkness.

According to NASA Astrophysicist Alex Young, the hype is true. He has seen 4 total solar eclipses. He says that every time he’s experienced one, he gets chills, like goosebumps, and all the hair on his arms stood up. He says he feels like a rush of adrenaline is washing over him. “Getting cold and getting dark happens so quickly that your mind is confused,” Young said.

So how long does the whole thing take? According to the National Solar Observatory, it will take about 2 hours and 45 minutes from start to finish. The moon moving in front of the sun will take more than an hour to complete. And then it’ll take more than an hour for the moon to completely move off the sun.

The best time to view this one in totality here will be 12:15 p.m. to 1:44 pm. Give or take a few minutes. It starts at 12:15 to12:30 and totality ends at 1:45ish.

So what’s the difference between the April 8, 2024 eclipse and the October 2023 eclipse that was best seen in South Texas? The October 2023 eclipse was an annular eclipse. An annular eclipse only partially covers the sun which creates the “ring of fire” effect. The eclipse today is a total eclipse. If you are in the “path of totality” (that’s the 100 mile wide path), you will see total darkness. As stated earlier, the time it stays totally dark depends on how far away from center you are.

According to NASA, a total eclipse needs the moon to be at just the right “eliptic” to the Sun. The eliptic is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky. The moon’s orbital tilt is why we don’t have solar eclipses during every new moon. The new moon is usually too high or too low to block out the sun. In an annular eclipse, the moon is too far from Earth to entirely block the Sun.

When a new moon passes between the Earth and Sun and the eliptic angle is right, a total eclipse occurs. During the eclipse, the moon’s shadow is cast upon the earth and travels across the surface at an estimated 1,950 mph, according to scientist in a Washington Post story. So if anyone is intending to try to keep up with it on the 195-mile stretch of  Interstate 35 between Austin and Dallas, good luck with that. All of that is in the “Path of Totality”.

Nearly 32 million people live in the Path of Totality. This one will cross the homes of more people in Texas alone than the last cross-country eclipse of 2017. It is projected to last longer, too.

If you miss this one, it won’t happen again in our area until Feb. 25, 2343. That’s 340 years away.

Above all else, wear eye cover that meets the requirements for certification by the government. There should be the following on the eyewear: ISO 12312-2:2015 Certification. Looking directly at the sun too long at any time can harm your eyes. It is particularly harmful during eclipses.

Bald Cypress and Montezuma Cypress

Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Alan E. Rudd

The oldest individual bald cypress tree (Taxodium distichum) in North America is likely to be one in North Carolina that has been aged by drilling a core to the center of its trunk to expose the number of annual rings. This specimen growing along the Black River is over 2600 years old and apparently still
looking mighty healthy.

The conifer family Cupressaceae, showed up in the fossil record over 200 million years ago. Bald cypress are modern North American members of this family that has over 130 species occurring across the northern hemisphere They traveled along as blocks of continental plates broke up and moved apart. Cypress trees in the Mediterranean look a good bit different than the bald cypress growing in our southern swamps and along riverside habitats in North America, but they are all related to those that lived on the super-continent Pangea.

Bald cypress

In North America tree scientists agree that we have two distinct species, bald cypress and Montezuma cypress (Taxodium mucronatum). As with all taxonomists there is skepticism and disagreement. This involves yet another variety dubbed “pond cypress.” We will leave the bickering about pond cypress to the paid professionals.

Montezuma Cypress

I have both Montezuma and bald cypress around my pond and have watched them develop differently for years. I observed my bald cypress in Burleson County to be flowering in late January. These trees have male catkins that are about 2 inches long which emerge from the end of last years twigs. Just below those pollen-emitting catkins are small female flower parts that resemble tiny pine cones. The amazing thing to me is that these delicate flowers bloom when it is almost a dead certainty that several hard freezes will arrive before spring. Across North America and as far north as Delaware bald cypress are shown to flower in January. Here in Texas the flowers are exposed for as much as 7 weeks before any new leaves begin to erupt in March.

Flower

Contrast that with a Montezuma cypress located on the same pond 70 feet away. It sprouted leaves in early February and is in full-green glory on the same day that my bald cypress trees are still leafless. Montezuma cypress is the National Tree of the Republic of Mexico. In central Mexico and further south these trees never lose their leaves. The one in my yard holds it leaves much later in fall than the bald cypress, but eventually does drop them after hard freezes around Christmas each year. Burleson County, Texas isn’t Mexico City, but these trees have the ability to be either evergreen or deciduous.

Montezuma cypress flower

It has always fascinated me that bald cypress are present in abundance along swampy acidic streams
in East Texas and yet also along calcareous, alkaline streams in the Texas Hill Country. It is an adaptable plant that can thrive in both pH 4.5 or pH 9.5. I wonder if at one time in the past they extended completely across the south, through Texas and down into Mexico as a solid band? Maybe while we let the tree taxonomists argue we can imagine a scene in deep time when things looked very different on the continent now known as North America. This ancient lineage of trees has survived a roller coaster of changes and thrived during “ice-box earth” and in times when tropical warmth dominated the across the Arctic Circle.

Bald Cypress

These cypress trees are tough organisms.

Hogna Fantasy

Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Ann Collins

Long ago and not so far away lived a group who called themselves the “Hogna.” Sounds like a Native American tribe, doesn’t it? But, no, we who are better informed know them as a strain of arachnids, joint-legged arthropods. That’s “wolf spiders” for those of you who need a head’s up.

Anyway, it seems the leaders of the group were interested in genealogy and had heard rumors of some cousins that had disappeared from the family tree. These were the antelucana part of the tribe, and they wanted to reconnect with the cousins. They didn’t even know what to call them; they just knew they were Hognas.

Hogna antelucana (photo by E. A. Neubauer)

Fortunately, one day a young man by the name of Eric was discovered in their home territory. Now, Eric was a bit of a mystery to the Hogna, and the Hogna were an equal mystery to Eric. The Hogna were terrified of Eric in the beginning, because he was always running them down and swooping them up in a Tupperware container. Hogna aren’t jumping spiders, and the sides of the plastic containers were too slick to climb out of, so they were trapped. Nobody likes that feeling, do they? It wasn’t too long before they realized that sooner or later Eric would dump them out of the Tupperware, and they could once again go about the business of their daily lives.

Somehow or other those who were abducted by the Tupperware King were able to communicate their interest in their genealogy search. Eric couldn’t promise much since he wasn’t proficient in that kind of search. After all, he was a cross between an engineer and an ice skater! But he said he would look into it for them. Out came the Tupperware and even more of the Hognas got to experience the thrill of the hunt.

One fantastic day, Eric noticed some differences to the antelucana in a wolf spider he had caught. Maybe he was better at this genealogy thing than he had initially thought. He kept finding more of these Hognas with strange markings.

When he needed to see both sides of a spider (wolf spiders being on the larger side) it became a bit of a challenge to Eric as well as to the Hogna. Eric got the engineering part of his brain working on the problem and designed and built a contraption that would allow photographs to be taken without the discomfort of having the Hogna lie motionless on their backs while he took pictures and studied the differences between the cousins. (Some of us think he should apply for a patend for this device! What do you think?)

Well, time moved on, as it has a way of doing, and Eric became convinced that he had truly found the lost Hogna cousins. (He put a talk, with pictures, together and presented it to friends and folks who became staunch supporters of his research. He even presented his research at the Texas Master Naturalist State Conference.) He was becoming something of a celebrity in the world of spiders.

Russell Pfau, who is a professor at a college up in Stephenville, began paying attention to Eric’s research. Russell was able to confirm that our very own Eric had indeed discovered a new species never before documented (again, we are so proud!). Eric even found out what the branch of Hogna wanted to be called. Hogna incognita is the name/title they will be known as from now on. Somewhere in this discovery Eric Neubauer will be forever linked.

We are all so very proud of Eric for his dedication, persistence, and patience in his quest to prove his research was valid.

Way to go, my friend!

Happy Wildscape Surprises

Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

by Catherine Johnson

There were surprises at the Wildscape discovered on a quick trip to assemble a donated shade arbor.  The Mexican Plum trees that looked dead for a long time are back, as are thought-dead Blackfoot Daisy and Desert Mallow. 

Pink primroses are back, too. They bloom the second year from seed.  The grasses Debra cut are already two- to three-feet high. Rough-leaf Dogwood and Arroya Sweetwood are fine, but the tallest Anacacho Orchid suffered major damage. 

Some of the beauty you can see at the Wildscape

Gaillardia and Thistles are taking over as all manner of “Belly Botany” wildflowers. Come see the Wildscape before some of it has to go so that we can safely walk the paths!