On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse crossed North America from the Pacific Coast of Mexico to the island of Newfoundland, off the eastern coast of Canada. At its longest point, in the center of totality, the Moon covered the Sun for exactly four minutes and 28 seconds.
In the months leading up to the 2024 eclipse, experts predicted that millions of people would migrate to the path of totality to witness this extraordinary event. Tiny towns across the continent braced themselves for tourists, advising residents to stock up on food and gasoline in case of shortages. Highway signs warned travelers to prepare for extended delays. Some people who lived on the edge of totality drove two or three hours from their hometown just to experience one extra minute of darkness.
Part of the beauty of a modern solar eclipse—indeed, the only thing that makes it possible to travel to the center line—is that we understand the science behind the phenomenon. Knowing exactly where and when the darkness will hit, we can anticipate it with excitement and pleasure.
Among ancient people, for whom the sudden disappearance of the Sun provoked fear and dread, those four minutes could not have passed more slowly.
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More than three centuries ago, in 1715, another solar eclipse hit the scene smack-dab in the middle of the Age of Enlightenment. Just two decades earlier, Isaac Newton had published his Principia, ushering in the eponymous era of Newtonian physics. The Sun, Moon, and stars—once seen as mystical celestial bodies—had been reduced to mere balls of rocks and gas, subject to the same laws of motion and gravity as the rest of us on Earth.
Newton set in motion a reshaping of the universe: from a mysterious, unknowable cosmos into one governed by data. With enough data points, early Enlightenment thinkers hypothesized they could anticipate the future movements of every object in the universe.
The 1715 solar eclipse was noteworthy in many respects. It was the first eclipse to pass over London, England in more than 500 years. It was the first time the path of totality could be mapped in advance thanks to the new laws of astronomy and physics. It was, therefore, the first eclipse to attract tourists. And the first to inspire scientific investigation.
Astronomer Edmund Halley, most famous for his discovery of Halley’s Comet, was also a data visualization pioneer. He published the world’s first weather map, which depicted trade and monsoon wind patterns across the globe and was subsequently used by sailors as a navigational tool. He is also recognized as the first to plot two variables against each other on a Cartesian plane (as seen in his bivariate plot of barometric pressure and altitude) and the first to use contour lines on maps.
Halley saw the upcoming solar eclipse as a chance to test out Newton’s theories of gravity and motion. He published a pamphlet that claimed the darkness was neither an evil omen nor a divine event, but in fact the “necessary result of the Motions of the Sun and Moon.”
Halley’s pamphlet included a map that depicted the path of totality as seen from above—the first of its kind ever recorded and one which sparked a “golden age of eclipse maps.”
Halley also kicked off the first citizen science project in modern history. In his pamphlet, he addressed the “Curious” people of England, urging them to watch the sky during the eclipse and record their observations: “The Curious are desired to Observe it, and especially the duration of Total Darkness, with all the care they can; for therby [sic] the Situation and dimensions of the Shadow will be nicely determin’d…”
In the end, about 25 people answered Halley’s call, sending him the times that totality began and ended in their specific location, along with a short description of what they saw in the sky. Halley himself wrote about his own experience in a mix of both scientific and poetic observations: “by Nine of the Clock . . . the Face and Colour of the Sky began to change from perfect serene azure blew [sic] to a more dusky living Colour having an eye of Purple intermixt, and grew darker and darker till the total Immersion of the Sun…”
Halley used the data he collected to correct the path of totality on his map, setting the stage for countless future scientists and eclipse chasers.
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Leading up to the 2024 total solar eclipse, I prepared myself as best I could. I booked a weekend cabin along the path of totality, bought eclipse glasses for my whole family, and stocked up on Moon Pies, Sun Chips, and Cosmic Brownies. I vowed not to take pictures during totality, desiring instead to stay fully present and “in the moment.” After all, the eclipse would likely be the most photographed astronomical event in human history; there would be plenty of opportunities to download iconic images later.
But nothing could have prepared me for the experience of totality: four minutes of darkness, of disorientation, of complete awe and wonder. Four minutes of walking a strange, fine line between science and mysticism. Four minutes of feeling connected to birds and squirrels, to everyone else who was watching the sky at the same moment, and even to the ancient Vikings, who believed eclipses resulted from a monster devouring the Sun.
I took pictures, of course: terrible, blurry, amateur shots from my iPhone. I couldn’t stop myself—I felt an overwhelming compulsion to capture the strange sights and sounds around me and to document that I was there.
Afterward, I couldn’t help but wonder whether other people felt that same sense of connection… or that same compulsion to take pictures. These weren’t questions of physical science, of course; nonetheless, they were questions that could be answered with data. Following in the footsteps of Edmund Halley, I sent out a call on social media, asking people to share their own photos and stories from the eclipse. Naively, optimistically, I hoped to receive hundreds, if not thousands of responses. But I’m no great social media influencer, and after posting my Google Form link everywhere I could imagine, I ended up with 62 responses—a tiny fraction of the total population who watched the eclipse. But to my delighted surprise, they represented a broad swath of locations along the path of totality and contained all the depth and complexity of a strong qualitative dataset.
Initially, I created a Google map of the responses I received, a nod to Edmund Halley’s original visualization. But I couldn’t help but wonder if there might be a different way to present the data, one that might capture what the experience felt like.
So, I set out to analyze the rich mix of words and images that comprised my dataset. Using poetic inquiry, a qualitative process developed in the 1970s by multiculturalist and feminist researchers, I engaged in thematic analysis of respondents’ written submissions. A few themes that emerged in this process included feelings of transcendence (including connectedness to nature, humanity, and God), descriptions of the weather (especially the cool temperatures that accompanied the darkness), changes in animal behavior (dogs barking, birds roosting), and a communal feeling of celebration (gathering, cheering, public festivities). I highlighted certain “poetic turns of phrase” that appeared in participants’ responses; then I cut and pasted words and phrases to create 10 found poems that each represented a shared theme from participants’ experiences. (A condensed version of the poems, entitled “Six Ways to View an Eclipse,” appears in the online literary journal Unlost).
I also coded the photos that I received. Most people submitted some version of the Moon covering the Sun during totality; these photos were coded based on the size of the Moon, whether it was in the foreground or background, and what other elements appeared in the photo (such as people, buildings, or trees). Some photos depicted a photo from before or after totality, featuring a “crescent sun,” and a few photos included people without the Sun or Moon appearing at all. In the end, I selected 20 photos that collectively showcased all the different visual elements that appeared in the dataset.
In thinking about how to visualize this data, I wanted to create an opportunity for viewers to interact with the photos and poems in a novel way. After brainstorming several installation ideas with the team at Fusiform Props and Exhibits, I finally settled on the idea of printing the photos and poems using a special technique called lenticular printing. Lenticular printing is a technology that uses plastic lenses with ridges on top to display multiple, interlaced images at one time. The different images float in and out of visibility, depending on the angle from which the print is viewed.
Each of the final lenticular prints consisted of two photos and one poem, thereby displaying the words and images from multiple participants at one time. From April to June of 2025, the 10 prints appeared as part of a larger exhibition, entitled “Data Is Poetry,” at Artspace in Shreveport, LA.
During the opening reception, I watched as people walked past the prints on the wall. At first, most people strolled past casually at first, then did a double-take after realizing that the prints contained “hidden” images and words. They proceeded to adjust their own position, moving forward, backward, and side to side as they tried to see (and read) all the layers in the image.
I was reminded of my own experience from a year earlier and how earnestly I had watched the sky through my eclipse glasses, looking for the slightest changes in the Sun as the Moon passed in front of it. The data visualization, therefore, mirrored the eclipse itself—an astronomical phenomenon that shifted with mathematical precision based on angles and movement.
But the visualization also effectively symbolized our shared experience of the eclipse. Though all of the participants in the project had shown up for the same event, their view was necessarily determined, and limited, by their specific location and context. Only by compiling multiple viewpoints could we see the composite: a collective phenomenon that was as human as it was cosmic.
Callie Dean
Callie Dean is the director of applied research at the Institute for Nonprofit Administration and Research at LSU Shreveport. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Metadata (Bottlecap Press, 2025) and two forthcoming picture books: Marvelous Mistakes (Beaming Books, 2026) and Unstoppable Song (Lerner/Carolrhoda, 2027).
