Dorchester Times: UPDATE: Dorchester One Of Best Places In U.S. To See Today's Eclipse

Monday, August 21, 2017

UPDATE: Dorchester One Of Best Places In U.S. To See Today's Eclipse

Today, Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, parts of this country will see day turn to twilight as the sun disappears behind the moon, causing the temperature drop rapidly and revealing massive streamers of light streaking through the sky around the silhouette of the moon.

Today, a relatively select swath of America will fall under the path of a total solar eclipse. And Dorchester, Nebraska will be right in the heart of this unforgettable (and extremely rare) occurrence.

In Dorchester, the moon will be in the sun's path starting at 11:36 a.m. and continue for 2 hours, 52 minutes. The total eclipse will start at 1:01 p.m. and continue for 2 minutes, 34 seconds

To give Dorchester residents a great view and experience, there are three great options to view the eclipse in Dorchester:

* DHS Football Field: Students and community will gather at the Dorchester School football field (Nerud Field) for the event. Bring a blanket and view the eclipse from the field in your hometown. The concession stand will be open with "eclipse food" such as Starburst, Moon Pies, Sunkist, Bomb Pop Rockets, Sun Chips, and more! Hot dogs and walking tacos, as well as soda, Gatorade, and popcorn will also be served over lunch. The stand will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the proceeds going to the school library.

* Tyser Auto Sales lot on main street. This will be a community potluck lunch, with Greg Tyser providing pulled pork, brisket and stuffed cabbage. Everyone is invited, and encouraged to bring goods to share will fellow eclipse watchers. Come on out beginning just before 11:30 a.m.

* Saline County Museum: The Saline County Museum in Dorchester, just off Highway 33, will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday. The museum will offer wide open space to see the eclipse.

The so-called Great American Total Solar Eclipse will darken skies all the way from Oregon to South Carolina, along a stretch of land about 70 miles (113 kilometers) wide. People who descend upon this "path of totality" for the big event are in for quite an experience.

We are fortunate that Dorchester will be one of the best places in the nation to view the Aug. 21 eclipse.

Here are the facts on the total solar eclipse in Dorchester:

The eclipse event will begin at 11:36 a.m. on Aug. 21.
The total eclipse (sun being fully blocked by the moon) will start at 1:01 p.m.
The total eclipse will last roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

You will need ISO- or NASA-approved eye protection to view most phases of the eclipse.

The Times staffers are not astronomers, astrophysicists, or experts regrading the cosmos, but we know that the basics of a total eclipse are that the moon goes in between the sun and the earth -- and as the moon "moves" across the face of the sun.

You will need to be in that path in order to see the "total" eclipse. Dorchester is nearly in the heart of the total eclipse path. Click here for the 2017 solar eclipse map.

Here is what one solar eclipse expert wrote:

"We cannot stress this enough -- if you're in the path, you see what is perhaps one of the most phenomenal sights that human eyes can convey to a brain! If you're not in the path, even by only a mile or so (!!!!!), you will come away wondering what in the heck we even bothered to make this site for! And you will have completely missed the whole show. People fly to the remotest deserts, jungles, islands -- frozen, desolate, and mosquito-infested places -- just to be in the path of a total eclipse. So please, please, please: walk, run, fly, drive, hike, roll, thumb, or cycle yourself into the path on eclipse day, and you will not regret it! Miss it, and you'll have to wait till the next one in the USA (not till 2024). Take it from us -- do not think that you're "close enough" to the path to see something cool. Look at the maps ... please, please get yourself there by whatever means are necessary! Even if it's 1,000 miles or more! People will come from all over the world to see this grand spectacle."

The experts encourage people to look at the eclipse videos to prepare yourself for what you'll experience. But they warn that these videos are NOTHING compared to what you will see with your own eyes during totality.

One experienced eclipse viewer wrote this:

"I've kissed the Blarney Stone, and seen the Grand Canyon, Victoria Falls, Ayers Rock, the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, the West Edmonton Mall, the Pyramids in Egypt, the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Stonehenge, the giant Sequoia Trees, Victoria Falls, Death Valley, the Panama Canal, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Meteor Crater, Yellowstone, the North Pole, the Midnight Sun over the Arctic Ocean, Shakespeare's grave, the Alps in Switzerland, the Grand Mosque in Istanbul, the geysers in Iceland, the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel tower, the CN tower, Sydney Tower, Shanghai Tower, Auckland Tower, Berlin tower, the Ring at Bayreuth and the Met, the Berlin Philharmonic playing Mahler, and my kids being born -- and I'm not kidding: A total eclipse is a spectacle to rival them all."

3 comments:

AnonymousJune 24, 2017 at 9:39 AM
Are either of the restaurants going to have eclipse specials that day? Like the Blackout Burger, Blackness Burito, Eclipse Enchiladas, or Blackhole Sun Salad????
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UnknownJune 24, 2017 at 10:23 AM
Your statement "You will need eye protection to view all phases of the eclipse." is not entirely accurate. While for most of the eclipse you need to have the solar glasses on, during totality you have to take off your glass to see anything including the Corona of the sun or "massive streamers of light" as mentioned above.

Also please google search for solar eclipse glasses as the link provided is the most expensive I have ever seen them online. People will be selling them the day of but probably for even more. Or better yet check out one of the local clubs in your area as you can pick them up there for FREE or a maybe around a dollar.

Admission is always free.
Branched Oak Observatory
--Open June 24 8pm-12am
--www.BranchedOakObservatory.com
--www.facebook.com/branchedoakobservatory/
Hyde Memorial Observatory
--Open Every Saturday night
--www.hydeobservatory.info/
Prairie Astronomy Club
--Meets last Tuesday of the month
--www.prairieastronomyclub.org/
Omaha Astronomical Society
--Meets first Friday of each month
--www.omahaastro.com/

Traffic is going to be extra dense that day. Estimates are that between 1.8 and 7.4 million people will travel to the path of totality. It will be worse in larger cities that have activities planned.

Brett
Board of Directors
Branched Oak Observatory

Vice President
Prairie Astronomy Club
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."