On the ground in Nashville, scores of people have set up folding chairs and tripods to view and capture Monday\u2019s total solar eclipse. Thousands of feet…<\/b>
\nOn the ground in Nashville, scores of people have set up folding chairs and tripods to view and capture Monday\u2019s total solar eclipse. Thousands of feet above the city, however, the scene is more serene.
We\u2019 re in an eight-seater Hawker-1000, thanks to private jet charter service Victor. Captain Adam McCoy and First Mate Robert Work crafted a flight plan to chase the eclipse (like the pros) : We\u2019 ll careen around a loop northwest of Nashville and then cut a southeasterly route towards Charleston \u2014 all at 500 mph.
Just as on Earth, the moon\u2019s movement turns the sun into a chunky crescent, then an impossibly slim sliver as the moment of totality (1: 30 p.m. Central time) draws near.
But unlike on the ground, we can see hundreds of miles in all directions. We\u2019 re above the clouds, so nothing obstructs the view. Well, nothing except the silly-looking glasses.
The sky grows midnight blue as dusk sets in, a sunset without a setting sun. We check ourselves, exclaiming, \u201cIt\u2019s only early afternoon!\u201d
McCoy and Work bank the plane back and forth, like a seesaw, for the clearest views. Our in-flight photographer, Joshua MacLeod, has affixed a solar filter to his DSLR. The best my iPhone 6 can capture is a blurry golden orb, but it\u2019s actually a relief. In an age where social media compels us to record and share every moment, it feels luxurious to just sit and watch without the pressure of documentation.
Totality is reached above the Tennessee\/Georgia border, and the crown of light is all that\u2019s left of the sun. It\u2019s like nightfall, and the mood is hushed.
The silence breaks when a crescent of light appears again, on the other side of the center of our universe.
We\u2019 re not the only ones who took to the skies to view this natural phenomenon. Some flew to cities in path of the totality to watch from the ground; others joined us in the air on carefully selected commercial flights. Demand is high.
A few even had private jets chartered. In the Nashville airport before takeoff, a group from San Antonio was chowing down on biscuits, preparing for their chartered private flight. \u201cI took a day off work for this, \u201d one woman said excitedly.
(An exciting option, if not exactly an accessible one: A round-trip flight like ours \u2014 which left from Teterboro in New Jersey, landed in Nashville, and then made the eclipse loop-di-loop before returning to Teterboro \u2014 might run about $20,000 divided eight ways, according to David Young, Victor\u2019s senior vice president of North America.)
Reviewing his photos as we fly north, MacLeod discovers he couldn\u2019 t quite capture the totality, which lasted for about one minute and 50 seconds almost directly above us.
It\u2019s fitting, really \u2014 a sign of how ephemeral the eclipse was.
For something like this, you just had to be there.
The author was a guest of Victor.<\/p>\n

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