Santa Rosa clouded out of eclipse

Billed as a unifying national experience, the total eclipse of the sun was visible Monday across the entire United States, except, it seemed, for the majority of Sonoma County, where a dense cloud cover lasted well past the eclipse’s 10:15 a.m. peak.

In Santa Rosa, hundreds of people crowded Old Courthouse Square, intending to observe the moon’s passage across the sun through solar telescopes and eclipse viewing glasses courtesy of the Robert Ferguson Observatory at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Instead, disappointed attendees gathered around smartphones and tablets watching video feeds from Oregon under darkening skies as the eclipse approached its totality.

Had the skies been clear over downtown Santa Rosa, people would have seen 78 percent of the sun obscured by the moon for several minutes during the eclipse’s local path, which started at 9:02 a.m. and ended at 11:37 a.m.

Millions of other Americans gazed in wonder at the spectacle, with the best seats along the so-called path of totality covering 2,600 miles across the continent from Oregon to South Carolina.

It took 90 minutes for the shadow of the moon to travel across the country. Along that path, the moon blotted out the midday sun for about two wondrous minutes at any one place, eliciting oohs, aahs, whoops and shouts from people gathered in stadiums, parks and backyards.

It was, by all accounts, the most-observed and most-photographed eclipse in history, documented by satellites and high-altitude balloons and watched on Earth through telescopes, cameras and cardboard-frame protective eyeglasses.

At the White House, despite all the warnings from experts about the risk of eye damage, President Donald Trump took off his eclipse glasses and looked directly at the sun.

The path of totality, where the sun was completely hidden by the moon, was 60 to 70 miles wide. But the rest of North America was treated to a partial eclipse, as were Central America and the upper reaches of South America.

NASA reported 4.4 million people were watching its TV coverage midway through the eclipse, the biggest livestream event in the space agency’s history.

NASA solar physicist Alex Young said the last time earthlings had a connection like this to the heavens was during man’s first flight to the moon, on Apollo 8 in 1968. The first, famous Earthrise photo came from that mission and, like this eclipse, showed us “we are part of something bigger.”

About two dozen cars parked along the side of Geysers Road Monday morning, their occupants hoping to avoid the overcast skies clouding out much of Sonoma County from seeing the eclipse. There, 2,600 feet above sea level, 46-year-old Ana Von Hirtz, her husband Paul Von Hirtz, 59, and son Oliver, 5, watched as the moon blocked out 79.2 percent of the sun just before 10:15 a.m., with Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” blasting from their car’s speakers.

Paul Von Hirtz works in geothermal energy, hence his hunch that the Geysers - the world’s largest geothermal field - was high enough above the cloud cover for a clear view.

“He’s a science nerd, and so he has his barometer and he’s watching the fog levels,” said Ana Von Hirtz, who, for the record, defines herself not as a science “nerd,” but definitely a “fan.”

Oliver, who starts kindergarten at Sonoma Country Day School today, takes after his father’s scientific fascination, tinkering with chemistry sets at home. Someday, his mother said, he’d like to be a doctor.

“Nerds are making a comeback,” Ana Von Hirtz said.

Together the family of three watched the eclipse through viewing glasses with friends.

“It was very, very cool,” she said. “The kids took it very seriously and kept their goggles on. We were stoked.”

Mary Scott, 74, came up to Santa Rosa from Berkeley, pulling her grandson Theo Ebling, 8, out of class at the Santa Rosa French-American Charter School for the occasion.

“We supported the scientific truancy,” she said.

They were joined by the third-grader’s other grandmother, Debbie Ebling, 68, who lives in Santa Rosa, and together they were prepared to watch, armed safely with NASA-approved eclipse viewing glasses.

“But it’s turned out to be a bust,” Scott said.

On the southwest corner of the square, a group of sixth-grade students from Kenwood Elementary School took temperature measurements every five minutes with digital thermometers to see how it might change during the different phases of the eclipse.

And while the results weren’t definitive, the measurements did seem to indicate a slight dip.

According to the National Weather Service, Santa Rosa’s temperature fell during the eclipse by 1 degree, from 61 degrees at 10:13 a.m., down to 60 at 10:23 a.m. and then back up to 61 degrees 10 minutes later.

Among the Kenwood Elementary School sixth graders were 11-year-olds Jon Parkman and Barron Jepsen, docents at the observatory who helped planned the class trip.

While the cloudy weather was a disappointment, Parkman and Jepsen were impressed by the turnout, and hopeful it might inspire in some new interest in astronomy.

“I’m glad people are still here. They’re still doing stuff. They’re learning,” Parkman said. “I’m glad that this many people are willing to come out for something like this.”

The Earth, moon and sun line up perfectly every one to three years, briefly turning day into night for a sliver of the planet. But these sights normally are in no man’s land, like the vast Pacific or Earth’s poles.

This is the first eclipse of the social media era to pass through such a heavily populated area.

The last coast-to-coast total eclipse in the U.S. was in 1918, when Woodrow Wilson was president. The last total solar eclipse in the U.S. was in 1979, but only five states in the Northwest experienced total darkness.

The next total eclipse in the U.S. will be in 2024. The next coast-to-coast one will not be until 2045.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.