On Aug. 21, students, staff, faculty and alumni gathered on the Sixth Floor Library terrace to watch the solar eclipse.
There was a lot of excitement leading up to the eclipse, people searched everywhere for the special eclipse glasses, public libraries handed them out and local businesses sold out of them way quicker than expected.
Some students weren’t able to find eclipse glasses. Chris Freeman (J.D. ’19) created a DIY solar eclipse viewer using a cereal box, white paper and a tin foil. The DIY solar eclipse viewer allowed him to safely watch the eclipse even though he didn’t have the protective glasses.
Atlanta only experienced a partial eclipse at 97 percent totality, so the sun’s light was not completely blocked.
Collin Ciepiela (J.D. ’19) “was disappointed that is didn’t get as dark in Atlanta as it did up in Rabun County, which was in the path of totality, but it was still an awesome experience. And watching it up on the terrace with so many other people was a lot of fun, it really demonstrated the great sense of community that we have here.”
Anna Howard (J.D. ’19) also viewed the eclipse from the terrace. She agreed that it was a unique experience, “we were able to get a great a view of the eclipse from the terrace. Also, it was cool to see all the people from the Georgia Pacific building and other nearby office buildings gather out in the street and Woodruff Park, everyone was taking a break from their busy days to watch.
"Atlanta hasn’t been in the path of a solar eclipse since 1984, so for a lot of students this was the first time that we were able to view a solar eclipse during our lifetime,” Howard said.
Students also collected pairs of eclipse glasses to send to Astronomers Without Borders. They will inspect the glasses and send them to children in Asia and South America when they experience an eclipse of their own.