Photo by Howard Owens
Jesse Hawley, a student from Pennsylvania studying at Alfred State College, was setting up his video equipment at DeWitt Recreation Area on Cedar Street Monday afternoon in preparation for — you guessed it — the total solar eclipse.
He chose to record the eclipse in Genesee County by tracking where the moon would be: dead center, he said.
And so I saw Rochester and Buffalo and stuff like that. And I figured that there would be high population density places. And then I found Batavia,” Hawley said to The Batavian. “I thought, I’m sure we can, you know, have a picnic and like not have to squeeze in. So I thought it'd be an ideal spot to come here. And it looked like a really nice park. So I mean, even if it's cloudy, it's nice to have a good picnic.
“It seems like there's some young kids and another family that we're spending time with. And so I think they're having fun, you know, turning the football and playing on the playground and stuff like that. So it's working out for everyone, I think.”
Hawley used to study physics and astronomy, he said. That’s when he obtained a lot of equipment including a telescope and solar binoculars, which he kept even though he’s now into art and design.
“And a lot of my work is inspired by natural phenomenon, like plasma. I do a lot of neon work. And so biophysics, like my studies of that, continue, but now they're in my artwork, and I do a lot of sculpture and sound and video and a lot of stuff,” he said. “So, yeah, but you know, I have these tools and there's a crazy event happening and so I brought it all out and set it up and I have lots of friends who can help with the setup and yeah, so I think that'll be a lot of fun once it starts happening.”
Have you ever seen an eclipse before?
“In I think 2017 in Erie there was a partial eclipse and that's when I was studying physics. So yeah, I was yes, helping facilitate a viewing of that. But I’ve never ever seen a complete eclipse. So I hope we get some break in the clouds to really see, and hopefully see the corona of the sun. That'd be amazing,” he said.
So what are you anticipating?
“If it keeps up then clouds, and it'll just get darker than usual, which I think that'll still be like a very novel event to happen, it will become quite dark in the middle of the day,” he said.. “But it would be really nice if the clouds were not there and we really could see the outline of the sun.”
Howard Owens contributed to this article.
