I sure hope you had a chance to see at least some of the solar eclipse Monday. Where it was visible and clouds didn’t get in the way, it was quite the show!

I was one of the millions who jumped into the car and traveled to the band of totality. I put nearly 1,700 miles on my van and drove through numerous early road construction projects, but it was so worth it.

Our original plan was to drive to Corsicana, Texas, south of Dallas, but the weather forecast was just too dicey. So we instead drove to Cape Girardeau, Mo., but were blown away by the crowds.

There were so many people that cellphone service was nearly impossible. We managed to get a less-than-desirable motel room about 40 miles to the southeast of Cape Girardeau near the Kentucky border.

The next morning, we were up at 3:30 in the morning. We drove through a dense fog north on I-57 and settled in the little town of Anna, Ill. They have a huge city park, and we were the first people there. We found a perfect spot near the tennis courts. Gradually, we were joined by other eclipse chasers, but it was far from hoards across the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau.

The fog lifted, and the skies became absolutely clear. I had all my specially equipped telescopes and cameras ready.

At 12:42 p.m., the moon’s disk made its first contact with the lower right side of the sun. For the next hour and 16 minutes, as the moon slid across the sun, daylight eerily faded, and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. At 1:58, totality began with the stunning “diamond ring” effect as the last of the sun’s disk was eclipsed.

Attempting to put into words the four minutes and four seconds of totality is a challenge, but I’ll try my best. The experience was overwhelming, with some people yelling and others, like me, shedding tears.

The sun’s outer atmosphere was in clear view, subtly and slowly changing shape. What was truly surprising was that even with the naked eye, we could see bright pink prominences arcing above the sun’s surface. I was incredibly fortunate to capture a photograph of them. The skies were dark enough in the vicinity of the eclipsed sun that stars were visible, including the bright planets Jupiter and Venus.

The totality time passed all too quickly. As the moon’s disk began its retreat, we saw the diamond ring effect again. Shortly after, many folks around us were packing up and leaving, but we stayed until the very end, until the moon moved beyond the sun.

Then, we joined everyone on the highway and started for home. Traffic was torturous, but the memory of what we witnessed made it much easier to take!

Unfortunately, the next total solar eclipse in the contiguous 48 states won’t be until 2045, but if you don’t mind a long plane ride, there will be many other total eclipses worldwide. I’m interested in one over Northern Alaska on March 30, 2033. You can watch a total eclipse by day and northern lights by night!

Meanwhile, nighttime stargazing is still going strong. Since last December, the mighty constellation Orion the Hunter has dominated the southern half of the evening sky, but the times are a changin’.

Another bright and classic constellation, Leo the Lion, is perched high in the southeast evening sky, pushing Orion and his posse of other bright winter stars and constellations toward the Western horizon.

You can see this push going on from night to night this month. Leo has to push a little harder this year because the mighty planet Jupiter is residing in the same neighborhood of the sky as Orion this spring. Our Earth’s orbit around the sun is making this all happen. As our world continues its annual journey around our home star, we’re turning away from the direction of space where Orion and the other winter constellations reside and toward the stars in and around Leo.

Leo, while not as flashy as Orion, is still a constellation of distinction, one of the brighter ones in the night sky. Most people perceive it as a two-part constellation. The right side forms an easily recognizable backward question mark with the moderately bright star Regulus, the brightest star of Leo, marking the bottom dot of the query mark.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how the sickle of stars outlines the profile of a lion’s head, with Regulus marking the heart of the giant heavenly feline. To the left of the lion’s bust is a triangle of moderately bright stars that supposedly outline the lion’s derriere and tail, adding a touch of whimsy to this celestial masterpiece.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of "Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations," published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.