If you're on a quest for a rare and fiery ring this weekend, you won't have to journey to the darkest depths of Mordor.
But you might have to go to Elko, Nevada.
On Saturday morning, the moon will pass directly in front of the sun for more than 6.6 million people from Oregon to Texas. But during this rare solar eclipse — the first of its kind in the Western U.S. since 2012 — the moon is at apogee, or farther from earth than normal. That means it won't appear large enough to completely blot out the sun. Instead, the result is an annular eclipse, also known as a "Ring of Fire" eclipse for the thin band of the sun that remains visible around the moon.
The phenomenon kicks off early. As the sun rises over the West on Saturday, viewers will notice a black disc — the moon — slipping over the earth's life-giving star from above as early as 9 a.m. Mountain Time (8 a.m. Pacific Time, 10 a.m. Central Time ). For viewers in the path of totality, inside the antumbra shadow cast by the moon onto Earth, the moon will gradually slide to the center of the sun. The phenomenon will last only a couple minutes before the moon appears to glide off the other side of the sun.
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And it will move swiftly across the continent, with total eclipse visible in Eugene, Oregon, at about 9:17 a.m. Pacific Time; in Elko at about 9:22 a.m. Pacific; in Four Corners at about 10:30 a.m. Mountain Time; and in San Antonio, Texas, at 11:52 a.m. Central Time. Since the moon never fully shields the sun, special eclipse-viewing glasses are needed for the duration.
The rest of the U.S. and almost all of North America will be in the penumbra, or a partial shadow of the sun. Viewers in those places will see the moon pass across the sun without perfectly covering its center. Locations closer to the path of the antumbra will see a greater degree of partial eclipse. Viewers in Missoula, for example, will see slightly more than 70% coverage of the sun. Viewers in Buffalo, New York, will see about 25%. About 80.7 million people, or roughly one-quarter of the U.S. population, live within 300 miles of the path of the eclipse.
NASA created an interactive online map for tracking the eclipse path, accessible at svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/webapps/eclipse-explorer/.
From Oregon to Texas: The viewing path
At about 9:17 a.m. Pacific Time, the full Ring of Fire eclipse will begin in Eugene, Oregon, and will last for approximately 3.5 minutes. At that time, the sun will appear at 18 degrees above the horizon at an azimuth of 121 degrees, or in the east-southeast sky.
By 9:22 a.m. Pacific, the path of total eclipse will wash over Elko, Nevada, where full eclipse will last about 4 minutes. Locations slightly south of Elko, such as Carlin, will get 4.5 minutes. During that time, the sun will appear at 24 degrees above the horizon in the southeast sky.
The eclipse will pass over the Four Corners area of the Southwest from 10:30–10:35 a.m. Mountain Time, and will appear at 32 degrees above the horizon in the southeast sky. (Most of Arizona does not observe daylight saving time and is currently one hour earlier than Mountain Time. The Navajo Reservation in the state's northeast corner and around Four Corners does observe daylight saving time and will be on Mountain Daylight Time.)
By 11:52 a.m. Central Time, the eclipse will pass over the San Antonio, Texas, area for nearly 4.5 minutes. The sun will appear at 46 degrees above the horizon — approximately halfway between the horizon and directly overhead — in the south-southeast sky.
From there, the eclipse path will glide off into the Gulf of Mexico. Varying degrees of a slowly diminishing partial eclipse will remain visible for the entire U.S. until about 11:36 a.m. Mountain Time. After that, the sun will gradually appear whole for U.S. viewers from west to east, beginning with the Pacific Northwest. Southern Florida will experience a partial eclipse until just after 1 p.m. Mountain Time, or 3 p.m. Eastern.
Eclipse tourism at prime viewing spots
The celestial rendezvous of moon and sun is already drawing eclipse viewers to some places in its path, even in remote towns like Elko, a mining and railroad town nestled north of the Ruby Mountains on an old cutoff of the California Trail in Nevada's desolate northeast corner.
Sarah Wrenfrow, operations manager at Iron Horse RV Park in Elko, said Wednesday that "We’ve been sold out on RV spaces for over a month" because of the eclipse.
The park boasts 107 spots, slightly more than half of which are open for nightly and weekly stays. The rest of them are home to seasonal or year-round RVers. And there are cabins available to rent.
Wrenfrow said it's unusual to be booked solid in October. This weekend, in fact, is the only time this month the park will be full. And they're not the only ones. She said that everyone who has called the park or its affiliated hotel in town has said they can't find any available lodging in the area.
"It’s my understanding that all forms of lodging in Elko are completely sold out," she said. "I heard that Battle Mountain is also sold out."
The California Trail Interpretive Center in Elko is hosting an eclipse watch-party starting at 7:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
Elsewhere, the impacts of the eclipse weren't as clear.
Melissa Jegglie, who oversees reservations and the campground store at Albany/Corvallis KOA campground in Oregon, just north of Eugene, said Wednesday that the campground is sold out this weekend. But that's normal, she said, because there's an Oregon State University football game and it's parents weekend at the school. She wasn't sure if any campers were there for the eclipse.
"Even without the eclipse we’re normally pretty packed," she said.
On the southwest edge of San Antonio, a worker at the front desk of Best Western Plus Palo Alto Inn & Suites said Wednesday that the hotel didn't see any rise in bookings for the weekend. He wasn't aware of this weekend's eclipse until two days ago, he said.
Eclipse repeat come 2024
Although stunning in its own right, Saturday's eclipse is somewhat of a preview for an upcoming eclipse in spring. On April 8, 2024, a true total solar eclipse — where the moon fully covers the sun and reveals a "corona" of plasma around the veiled star — will sweep across the U.S. from Texas to Maine. It will be the first total solar eclipse across the U.S mainland since 2017, when the so-called Great American Eclipse briefly turned day into night from coast to coast.
San Antonio's northwest side and a swath of Texas immediately west will fully experience both the Oct. 14 and April 8 eclipses. Although this weekend's Ring of Fire eclipse may not result in as much fanfare there, April's total eclipse seems to already be drawing large amounts of hopeful viewers.
At the Best Western, "we're almost completely sold out" for the April 8 total solar eclipse. "Those were selling out about a month ago."