Did you see the Eclipse coverage from 45 years ago?

Monday marked a very unique and special event that won't be seen for another 21 years, a total solar eclipse spanning most of the United States. While there was one back in 2017, it was much earlier before the 2017 eclipse that we had the last total solar eclipse.

1979 Solar Eclipse

This news clip from Texas news station NBCDFW went viral recently after it featured astronomers and reporters from 1979 discussing what people will expect from the eclipse, as well as how things in the eclipse will look in 2024 (aka April 8th).

I think my favorite part of this clip is the university professor detailing an experiment he was doing to project the eclipse onto a movie screen, and it ended up not working. It's just slightly awkward but still impressive enough to dismiss it.

Perhaps the most impressive part about this news clip however is how the crew managed to capture footage of the eclipse with 1979 technology. The way they did this was pretty smart. According to the clip, they layered two fully exposed photographic films to provide a screen to protect their eyesight.

The people of 1976 managed to film a pretty clear image of the sun and the eclipse, meanwhile when I attempted to take photos this year, I had very little luck. Clearly, they were onto something back then, and we should have been taking notes.

Seeing how things have progressed since this original coverage was recorded is pretty incredible.