Hamilton draws crowds to watch total solar eclipse

Apr. 8—Monday afternoon's total solar eclipse brought crowds to events in Hamilton and around Butler County.

Three college friends were in Marcum Park in Hamilton to see the Party in the Park for the total eclipse.

Hamilton was within the path of totality and experienced about 90 seconds of total darkness.

Eric Klaus, of Chicago, Ed Roberge, of California, and Dom Smith, of Cincinnati, were Northwestern University classmates and came to town for Dom's birthday this weekend.

They were playing Catan waiting for the eclipse activities to begin. (Smith said he won the game "very handily").

Klaus said he wanted to visit is friend, and celebrating his birthday and seeing a total solar eclipse seemed like a good time.

Also, he said, "I've never seen an eclipse before."

He even missed the partial eclipse in 2017.

Roberge, a Chicago native, said he missed the last eclipse, too

"My family saw it and they only had great things to say, so I wanted to come to this one," he said. "I heard all the nighttime creatures come awake during the 2 minutes, 3 minutes, so it'll be kinda cool to hear the crickets and animals, so I'm most excited for that."

Smith, who was also at Marcum Park with wife Grace Justinvil, said he's excited to see the what's known as the diamond ring.

As totality approaches, a faint ring, or solar corona forms around the moon. As the crescent sun shrinks to a jewel of sunlight, a diamond ring forms in the sky. Seconds after that, the sunlight breaks up into several light points called Baily's beads.

Justinvil 's best friend, Arielle Kililis, of Florida, wasn't going to miss this event.

"I just love everything to do with our solar system is really special," she said. "I'm just a nerd. I'll watch stuff like this on TV for fun, so being able to see it for yourself is pretty cool."

People described how the sky darkened as the moon covered the sun during Monday's total solar eclipse.

One person said it reminded them of the start of a horror movie. Another said it seemed like they were wearing sunglasses.

Natalie Policani and Matthew Hing live in the Marcum Apartments and were out in the park for the eclipse event.

Hing, a physician at Kettering Health Hamilton, said it was "majestic." Policani, who's a mental health counselor at Foundations Counseling, said it was "a really strange phenomenon for it to go dark and light, and it was so fast."

Hing, who grew up in California, has a vague recollection of some similar event when he was in elementary school. Though he can't fully remember it, he said, "it's coming back to me." After the eclipse, he planned to call a family friend to talk about it.

Monday was the 13th birthday for Valentina Valencia Canizles, a Mason student who called this special day "really cool to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

She was at Marcum Park in Hamilton to see the total solar eclipse with her parents, Francisco and Noelia, and her 11-year-old brother, Leo.

She recalled last time there was a partial eclipse in 2017, when she didn't get to see it live.

"I didn't watch that one because we were at school and we have to have forms to go watch it. My mom signed the form wrong," she said, adding she was in a classroom by herself watching it on television.

Noelia said she felt terrible and looked up the next one, finding out it was supposed to take place on 13th Valentina's birthday.

"It was a perfect day to celebrate my daughter's birthday," said Francisco.

After the eclipse, Valentina was in awe of the experience, saying it was "so pretty" and "beautiful."

"Everyone was laughing and so excited for it, and it was a happy sight to see," she said. "It didn't go full pitch black, but over time you could see the change in the darkness."

Though she said it was "worth the wait," the newly minted teenager said she won't stop giving her mom a little bit of grief now and then about the permission slip mix up in 2017.

A group of friends whose kids go to preschool together were up in Marcum Park because it was close to the path of totality.

Hollis Adams, one of the siblings of the preschoolers and just turned 8 a few days ago, called it a "once-in-a-lifetime experience."

Parent Logan Conner said they weren't sure what would happen, saying he and the others have read up on what could happen.

"It's all up in the air," he said. "You really don't know. From everything I read, you can see the pictures, you can have someone explain it to you, but you can't fully comprehend it until you see it yourself."

Melissa Roesch and her fiancé Gabriel Marinescu came up from Huntsville, Alabama, to visit her parents, Dave Roesch and Kim Filkin, of Lebanon, Ohio.

Not unlike what Conner said, Dave Roesch said they came Hamilton because "You have to experience it because pictures won't do it justice."

Melissa said she was disappointed in the 2017 partial eclipse, hoping it would have been more dramatic. Like others, though, they said they don't know what to expect this time around with the total solar eclipse, including the crowds and the suggestions they heard on TV news to "prepare like its' a disaster."

Dave Roesch compared the eclipse to the hype around the preparation for Y2K, the fear computer infrastructures would have the inability to distinguish dates correctly when the calendar turned from 1999 to 2000.