Eclipse: Astronomer helps guide viewing

BEREA — During the eclipse totality when the sky went dark, Venus could be seen as a star to the bottom right of the sun, and Jupiter was a star to the upper left. I know that because Baldwin Wallace University had the inspired idea to bring an astronomer to its community event on Monday. The school invited people to sit in the stands of the campus football stadium during the eclipse and invited Gary Kader, director of the school's Burrell Memorial Observatory, to provide commentary. As oldies mentioning the sun or the moon played over the stadium's PA system, Kader periodically interrupted to provide astronomical lore. He explained that while the Moon always is casting a shadow from the sun, the shadow usually doesn't fall on the Earth. And he mentioned that past eclipses have been used to date historic events, such as a battle that allegedly took place between Lydia and the Medes on May 28 in 585 BC. The crowd in the stadium cheered when the totality arrived. The forecast of negative effects from the eclipse didn't prove true, at least in Berea. There were no bumper-to-bumper traffic jams, and the signs that had popped up much of the area, warning people not to park in the grass, turned out to be largely unnecessary.