Solar Eclipse in Carbondale, Illinois: When You Can See Total Eclipse Along Path Of Totality

CARBONDALE, IL — The longest period of darkness during the Aug. 21 solar eclipse — 2 minutes and about 40 seconds — will take place in Carbondale, a town of 26,000 people in the southern tip of Illinois that will see as many as 50,000 to 100,000 visitors for this most-hyped celestial event that has the nation buzzing and desperate to find solar-eclipse glasses. Even NASA is coming to town to see the sun blotted out.

When the moon slides between the Earth and the sun, the skies across the United States will darken for the first time from coast to coast in a total solar eclipse since June 1918. The path of totality — the vantage points where the eclipse will be fully seen from the ground — stretches 2,500 miles from Oregon southeast to South Carolina and straight through Carbondale.

Across the country, about 200 million people are within a day's driving distance of the path of totality. Monday's eclipse is the first in the "social media era" to pass over such a heavily populated area.

The partial phases of the eclipse start at 11:52 a.m. Central time and run through 2:47 p.m., with total eclipse of the sun happening at 1:21 p.m. on the Southern Illinois University campus, where NASA will be broadcasting live, airing telescope feeds, and sending up a scientific balloon. (Sign up for email and news alerts from Illinois Patch.)

As darkness falls, provided the weather cooperates, other celestial bodies in the sky may come into view. The sun's corona will be in full view, too.

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Strangely enough, the path of totality for the next solar eclipse across America, in April 2024, also will pass through Carbondale. Space.com has dubbed Carbondale the "Solar Eclipse Crossroads of America," and locals are loving the attention.

SIU, home of the Salukis, is even selling special eclipse parking passes. (Paved lot spots already are sold out.) Tickets for Eclipse Day at Saluki Stadium, which seats 15,000, are sold out. A 20-person suite at the stadium sold for $10,000.

“This is the biggest event we’ve ever done,” SIU physics professor Bob Baer told Time magazine. “It’s bigger than homecoming.”

SIU students returned to town for fall semester this past weekend, too. To make a few extra bucks and accommodate the visitors, SIU rented out dorm rooms in a vacant residence hall for $400 a night.

Every hotel room, cabin and campground for miles around is sold out. Illinois State Police believe more than 100,000 visitors could possibly land here for eclipse day. Many people also have flocked to nearby Shawnee National Forest to view the eclipse, and on Sunday the U.S. Forest Service announced that three additional campgrounds were opened on a first-come, first-served basis: Lake of Egypt, Oakwood Bottoms and Pennant Bar Grasslands. As many as 300,000 campers may be in Shawnee, according to a forest service spokesperson.

Emergency preparations for eclipse weekend began more than a year ago among police, fire and emergency responders and healthcare providers, Southern Illinois Healthcare communications director Rosslind Rice told the Daily Egyptian.

Scenes From Carbondale

Check out some tweets and videos from Carbondale today:

top photo: Jim Blair walks Saluki dogs past a solar eclipse exhibit on the campus of Southern Illinois University on Aug. 19, 2017 in Carbondale, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)