The outside temperature dropped, the dusk-to-dawn lights came on outside the Price Music Building, and slowly a sunny morning turned to dusk as the moon eclipsed the sun at 10:17 a.m.
“It was cool,” said Ruth Meeker, a sophomore music composition major. “It is the first-time that I have seen an eclipse. It was spectacular!”
With special glasses in hand, faculty, staff and students came together in the Quad to watch the solar eclipse.
“When I left my apartment it was warm outside, but as the moon covered the sun, it got cooler,” said Robbie McGowen, a junior English major.
The NCU campus experienced about 99% totality compared to 100% in Corvallis, Salem, and parts of the Oregon Coast.
“It was definitely interesting to see,” said Krystin Dodge, a senior history and Christian ministry major. “I looked at the eclipse through the lens of the astronomy class that I took with Dr. Carrigan.”
The next total eclipse of the sun will be in 2019, but totality will only occur in Argentina and parts of Chile. In the United States, the next total eclipse of the sun will be in 2024, but it will not be as visible in Oregon as the 2017 total eclipse.
“Somewhere in the world there is one or two solar eclipse every year, but few are a total eclipse of the sun,” said Brian Carrigan, Ph.D., associate professor of physics and mathematics. “To have a total eclipse in one particular place is pretty rare.”