The Screens and the Sounds to Watch the Eclipse
The most thorough way to view the Great American Eclipse on Monday would be to start on the coast of Oregon at 1:15 p.m. ET, then drive across country to the coast of South Carolina at approximately 1,600 miles per hour.
That way, you could follow the eclipse at every step of its path across the U.S. Just don’t forget your protective glasses.
Or, if you’re too lazy to make that kind of an effort, you could watch it on TV.
The Science Channel will be the go-to spot for live on-air coverage, tracking the eclipse for its whole run from West to East.
Apparently Science secured exclusive rights, though there’s been no announcement from whom.
PBS’s Nova, in partnership with PBS’s Newshour, will follow the eclipse online, beginning at noon. PBS science correspondent Miles O’Brien will host the special, which can be accessed on Facebook.
The epicenter of Nova’s coverage will be Irwin, Idaho, where experts will gather with a telescope to explain the astrophysics of it all.
The Science Channel will focus its initial coverage on Madras, Oregon, a high desert with a clear view of the sky. (See Alex Strachan’s TV That Matters for more information.)
Science Channel experts will pick up the sun to spots in Idaho, Nebraska, Tennessee and South Carolina. The channel will also show pictures taken from the International Space Station, which is a view not everyone can get.
The eclipse, the first to cross America since 1918, will be visible for about 93 minutes.
Once it passes into the Atlantic Ocean, both Science and PBS will start quickly assembling highlight footage and commentary for specials each channel will air at 9 o’clock ET that night.
No protective glasses needed.
And as an eclipse footnote, there has been a small explosion in suggestions for appropriate popular music to accompany an eclipse.
Many of these lists simply seem to be rounding up songs about darkness or sunlight.
For that reason, and because most TV viewers presumably will be listening to commentary rather than muting the TV set and turning on the CD player, here’s a more compact playlist of songs directly related to an eclipse:
Eclipse – Pink Floyd
Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler
You’re So Vain – Carly Simon
Moonshadow – Cat Stevens
He Dark the Sun – Linda Ronstadt
Tyler, by the way, is a featured guest on a music cruise this week and has promised to perform Total Eclipse of the Heart during the total eclipse of the sun.