Starting Saturday morning around the 8 o’clock hour, the moon’s shadow will start passing over the sun – at its peak darkening it down to about 75% of its normal brightness for Southern California viewers.
The good news is that like most celestial phenomena – it will be quite visible from wherever you are hearing this right now. That means you don’t have to venture into the national park to spot the eclipse – the solar eclipse will look essentially the same no matter where you choose to view it.
The last show in the sky was the Perseid meteor shower – which resulted in the largest single visitation event in the history of Joshua Tree National park – raising over $130,000 in gate fees, but unprecedented amounts of visitors caused damage to areas of the park and filled streets with cars until the early morning hours. There’s no indication that this phenomenon will see those types of wild numbers – the eclipse will only last a short time Saturday morning before brightening back up to normal by 11 o’clock.
If you’d like to get out into nature while viewing the eclipse but don’t want to battle lines into the National Park – there are plenty of spots to surround yourself with the desert and simultaneously avoid crowds.
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