On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse passed over a swath of the U.S., darkening skies from Texas to Maine. Thirty-six community scientist teams along with four professional science teams assembled across the path of totality, not just to view the celestial wonder, but also to collect data about the Sun’s upper atmosphere, or corona. On the evening of April 23, a little over a year after this scientific effort, a documentary about it will debut at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) Mesa Lab in Boulder. 

Titled Gathered in Darkness, the 26-minute film follows teams participating in the Citizen Continental-America Telescope Eclipse (CATE) 2024 project. The documentary gives an inside look at how the teams collected over 47,000 images of the corona. The resulting data are allowing scientists to better understand where and how light is coming from the Sun as well as gain a better sense of the structure of the solar corona. 

“It’s not a small task to condense a large-scale project into a show of less than half an hour, but I’m really excited about the end result,” said Daniel Zietlow, NSF NCAR educational designer and the documentary’s filmmaker. “While the film covers what the CATE 2024 project is and the value of science and data collection, it more importantly follows the community scientists who were involved in the project. We see how they prepared, their perspectives on solar eclipses, what it's like being involved in a community science project, and their reactions to the eclipse itself.”

After the screening, attendees can hear from Zietlow and the lead scientists from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and NSF NCAR as well as get a sneak peek at some of the data that were collected. This is a celebratory in-person event at the NSF NCAR Mesa Laboratory with an additional option to attend virtually. Attendees are asked to pre-register and get their tickets soon as the in-person event is expected to sell out.

“Total solar eclipses are relatively rare, offering unique opportunities for scientists to study the hot atmosphere above the Sun’s visible surface,” said SwRI’s Amir Caspi, principal investigator of the project. “But more than that, through CATE 2024, the eclipse offered a bonding experience between scientists and communities along the path, sharing in this incredible awe-inspiring event. We hope the public experienced a new interest in, and appreciation of, the Sun and its mysteries.”

The CATE 2024 project was jointly funded by NSF and NASA and led by SwRI. 

Details 

What: Film premiere of Gathered in Darkness, a documentary about the CATE 2024 mission
When: Wednesday, April 23, 2025 from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. MDT
Where: NSF NCAR Mesa Lab (1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO) and virtual
Who: Recommended for Ages 12+
Cost: Free

More information: https://edec.ucar.edu/events/gathered-in-darkness 

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