In May 1994 a major annular eclipse crossed over from SW to NE over all of the US. The path went right over my home in SE Michigan. Took some pictures, and enjoyed the oddity of the noon-time sun’s bright white light subdued in intensity only, not color. Can’t be replicated by cloud cover or time of day, only an eclipse.
My brother manufactures solar eclipse filters, has been doing so for decades. I can’t think on any other business that allows as accurate scheduling of demand for a product. 1991 in Mexico and Hawaii, 1999 in Europe as I recall, and of course 2017 and now the one coming up in 2024 plus a bunch of overseas ones I’ve forgotten about. I think he’s retiring after 2024, but he said that after 2017.
The moon’s shadow is always there but since the earth moon orbital plane and earth sun orbital plane are about 5 degrees off from each other the shadow mostly misses the earth. On average the shadow hits the earth about every 1 and a half years. If the orbital planes were the same we’d be seeing an eclipse every month.