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.
I see God’s work in allowing the sun’s and moon’s relative size and orbit to allow eclipses in the first place. In some millions of years the moon will be too far away to enable complete coverage of the sun. Can’t remember if some orbital decay affects this, also.
Was it dark enough to fool the crickets?
I was fortunate to have seen the one in 2017. It’s surprising how much light a small sliver of the sun puts out. A couple of minutes before totality the crickets did get fooled.
There’s an annular eclipse going through the western USA Oct 14 2023.