2024 Total Solar Eclipse: California left in the Dark.

On April 8th, a scheduled total solar eclipse is set out to leave a strip of the United States in complete darkness throughout the day.

Oswaldo Hernandez-Perez, Contributor ♦ April 11, 2024

Baily’s Beads is named after British astronomer Francis Baily, who discovered the eclipse phenomenon. This effect looks like beads of light poking out from around the Moon’s shadow. It happens because the Moon’s rugged terrain allows sunlight to pass through before totality. Photo taken in Jasper, Indiana by Mason Foley.

The previously reported Solar Eclipse occurred on Monday, August 21st, 2017 and was unseen in California because of the cloudy weather here in Santa Maria.

For those who may not know what a total solar eclipse or an eclipse in general may be, we asked one of our science teachers to explain it. “It’s just two big rocks and a star and one rock is casting a shadow on the other” Mr. Wieman, Science teacher at Santa Maria High School.

The moon casting a shadow on the Earth by covering the Sun, AKA a total solar eclipse.
Image from NASA.

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Although, people here in SMHS expected to see the eclipse, California was once again not in the path for the total eclipse to affect the sky as it did in other states. Here is a link to see the path the total eclipse took.

The eclipse that California would have the ability to see is known as a partial eclipse. In this type of eclipse the sun is given a crescent shape similar to the moon throughout the lunar cycle.

An image of what a partial solar eclipse may look like from California.
Image from Greenvile Online.

Normally when an eclipse happens it is advised to wear “solar viewers”, sunglasses which are specifically meant for looking at the sun.

Another way of viewing the eclipse without damaging your eye retina would be to create a pinhole projector.

A pinhole projector used to safely view the solar eclipse.
Photo credits to AccuWeather.

A pinhole projector could be created using two pieces of paper and a pencil. Poking a hole in one paper and placing the other on the ground, you are able to see a small hole of sunlight casted on the paper in the ground. In the hole, there is a shadow that comes from the moon covering the sun light.

Mr. Cheney, Government/Economics teacher at Santa Maria High School created a pinhole projector and the Eclipse was easily viewable by the small sunlight on the paper.

“Its just two big rocks and a star and one rock is casting a shadow on the other” Mr. Wieman, Science teacher at Santa Maria High School.

Below there are a few attempts to capture the total eclipse sent in by breeze staff members.

A picture sent in from SMHS students who saw the eclipse during third period.

Rodrigo Garcia

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A picture taken using the eclipse glasses over the camera lens of a student’s camera

Rodrigo Garcia

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A picture taken an hour before the eclipse. The smaller dot is believed to be the moon before it was close enough to cover the sun.

Rodrigo Garcia

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We also received images of what the total solar eclipse looked like from Indiana.

Baily’s Beads is named after British astronomer Francis Baily, who discovered the eclipse phenomenon. This effect looks like beads of light poking out from around the Moon’s shadow. It happens because the Moon’s rugged terrain allows sunlight to pass through before totality. Photo taken in Jasper, Indiana by Mason Foley.

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Upon nearly reaching totality in the eclipse process, the visible sun becomes one bright spot of sunlight resembling a giant diamond ring in the sky, with the Sun’s atmosphere forming the ring’s band. Photo courtesy of Mason Foley.

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Solar flares are visible in a total eclipse. As seen from Indiana. Photo courtesy of Mason Foley.

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About the Contributors

Oswaldo Hernandez-Perez, Contributor

Hey! My name is Oswaldo Hernandez-Perez, but you can call me Waldo. This is my last year at Santa Maria High School as I am now a senior. I enjoy listening to music and filming my friends skating on my free time. I haven't written anything too promising lately, but I am excited to write a lot about our community and school this year. I feel confident that I will be able to contribute to the breeze in a helpful manner. I have experience in filming and I would love to interview people about their thoughts on our community. I am currently taking journalism because I am interested in writing stories and informing others on news and whatnot. I feel honored to be a part of The Breeze this year. I appreciate Mrs. Van D for giving me a third chance to one of her many classes lmao.

Rodrigo Garcia, Contributor

My name is Rodrigo Garcia. This will be my first and final year as a Breeze Contributor as I am now a senior. If I would've known about the Journalism class earlier, I definitely would've joined. As I mentioned already, I'm a senior, Class of 2024. Some goals that I have while working on the Breeze is to hopefully release more podcast episodes, get even more articles published than before, and hopefully start doing some video production. I've always been pretty decent with handling video production so once we hopefully start to do videos, I could be a helping hand with it. Some stuff I like to do in my free time is draw. I usually prefer to draw digitally on my computer. Traditional drawing, not so much. I don't mind it, but I usually sketch when it comes to traditional drawing. But in all honesty, I love all things art. I even try to read books to understand the past history of art. I also love to play video games. I've been playing video games for most of my time being alive. I don't play very often because of school and other stuff I prioritize but I still try my best to make time to play a game whether if it's by myself or with my sister, it's all fine with me. I like to do voice acting/voice impressions. As someone who's been watching TV for years there's no doubt that the interest of mimicking voices was something I liked. I'm pretty good with doing voices from cartoons from the 60's to early 2000's. If you know some kind of show, chances are I might have a voice impression for that. I also love to go on walks. I'm not the sporty type of person but I always appreciate a nice walk, especially in the afternoons. I try to take long walks with my dog, but he gets easily distracted by the slightest noise or thing so he's all over the place, making it pretty annoying even to just walk to the other side of the area. I really hope we get a lot of work done this year to keep the staff and students informed of all types of media. As well as getting creative not only here on The Breeze, but on campus as well.