Prepare for the epic total solar eclipse hitting the US in 2017

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You may have seen a solar eclipse before, but the odds are good that you haven’t witnessed anything like the total solar eclipse that will roll across the contiguous United States a little over two years from now. In fact, if you haven’t already started making your plan for the first great American eclipse of the century, you might already be behind.
If you’ve seen an eclipse in the US, it was probably just a partial eclipse, which astronomy enthusiasts will tell you is nothing compared with seeing a solar eclipse in totality, when our star goes completely black save for its eerie corona, the sky dims and stars can become visible in the daytime.
The last time such a thing was witnessed in the US was 1991…