As the next solar eclipse approaches on April 8, several groups of Hillsdale students plan to visit the path of totality in Ohio, including a group led by Associate Professor of Physics Michael Tripepi.
Hillsdale County should witness a maximum solar coverage of 98.6% around 3:11 p.m., according to NASA’s Eclipse Explorer tool. While 98.6% is a high percentage, scientists in a recent NPR article said seeing the complete eclipse is much more impressive than even a 99% partial eclipse.
Sophomore physics major Paige Lettow said Tripepi’s group will drive to a viewing location two to four hours away, though the destination is not yet finalized.
“It’ll all depend on the weather,” Lettow said. “Wherever the weather’s nice, we’ll go.”
Lettow said she looked forward to seeing the upcoming eclipse now that she has more experience in physics.
“The last solar eclipse was in 2017, and I saw that one,” Lettow said. “We were in the path of totality then as well, but I’m really excited to see it again now, having more astronomy and more of a physics background.”
Hillsdale physics students will gather solar data during the eclipse with a radio telescope called DLITE Ohio, which Hillsdale physics students built in Montville, Ohio.
“Before, during, and after the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, DLITE Ohio will be used to observe how the ionosphere reacts to the sudden removal of radiation from the sun,” according to Force Courier, a newsletter of the Hillsdale physics department.
Lettow, who has visited Montville twice to help construct DLITE Ohio, said she is looking forward to seeing the department’s work in constructing the telescope begin to be rewarded with data on the sun’s corona and the earth’s ionosphere.
“When there’s a solar eclipse, it’s the best opportunity we have to study the ionosphere because it’s affected by the sun,” Lettow said. “You can make artificial eclipses to study the ionosphere, but a real solar eclipse is an amazing opportunity that you rarely have, so we’re taking advantage of how close we are.”
Other Hillsdale students will also make trips to witness the eclipse in Ohio. Sophomore Helen Rogers said she plans to drive to Cleveland with four friends to watch it.
“We’ve had nebulous plans all semester,” Rogers said, “but it took a while to find a group of people who were willing to skip class on Monday and also to find someone with a car.”
Junior Henry Ahrabi said in an email that he has been looking forward to watching the eclipse with a large group of friends since the beginning of the fall semester. Ahrabi said his group plans to drive about an hour and a half to Ohio.
Though the trip will involve missing parts of their regular Monday schedules, Ahrabi said the rarity and beauty of total solar eclipses make the inconvenience more than worth it.
“A solar eclipse is supposedly visually amazing — ancient cultures usually explained it by something eating the sun — and this will probably be the only one I will ever have the chance to see,” Ahrabi said. “The chance to see one of the most dramatic natural phenomena on Earth at the slight cost of three hours in the car and missing a couple of classes is a bargain.”
