Just giving a heads-up to (safely) watch the eclipse (no supposed meanings attached) cross the USA for those of you interested things will get pretty dark along the line. I have an article link attached. The first thing I noticed is that across the USA at least this thing travels in essentially a straight line. Of course a straight line on earth is a great circle arc, but it's the same path a projectile, sound, or a light beam would take. We start in the Northwest USA in the Portland Oregon area and it travels almost due east which is the direction to Charleston South Carolina from Portland on the opposite end of the country. If we were to face due east from Portland and go about 1/4 of the way around the world, we'd end up on the equator actually closer to Brazil than the continent of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. Nevertheless, the eclipse ends closer to Africa once it passes the USA, which is a somewhat Northeast bearing (direction) from Portland. Why? The moon is on the ascending node which means it's not only moving generally eastward, but a tad northward as the alignment with the sun fads, thus moving the path north of the east-west line from Portland. Anyhoo, here are the maps.
National Eclipse - August 21, 2017
National Eclipse - August 21, 2017