I'm glad to see the prevailing optimism regarding this upcoming eclipse. Will any birds still be wearing their eclipse plumage for the occasion? I plan to watch the clouds roll in and envelop everything in a canopy of overcast, but that shouldn't effect the Niagara bench wines, except that the Riesling will appear a little less brilliant. Would there perhaps be comfortable viewing benches installed at some Niagara bench wineries? Vino del Sol anyone? I used to have a 'sun filter' back when the sun spots hadn't landed on my skin. That filter screwed onto a telescope's ocular (eyepiece) and served to block enough radiation, including UV, to make viewing the sun relatively safe. I have no idea whatever happened to that filter. Alternatively, I could mount a telephoto lens onto a tripod without a camera attached and project the eclipse onto a white surface secured to a second tripod but that sounds like trouble, in some form. I hope the event turns out favourably for everyone concerned. I may or may not see anything when the time comes, even if I actually manage to remember the date and time of the event, but I'm way past something as elaborate as 'making plans' that will ultimately be confounded by circumstance. With Charline's experience at capturing this sort of event I'm sure it will appear on the forum in due course, even if she has to rent a jet to fly above the cloud cover ... for Charline is a force to be reckoned with.
