For the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, Welsh pop legend Bonnie Tyler performed her megahit “Total Eclipse of the Heart” on a cruise ship in the Bahamas. For the annular solar eclipse that will be visible over a swath of coastal and Southern Oregon the morning of Saturday, October 14, 2023, a version of Smash Mouth with one original member will perform “Walkin’ on the Sun” later that night at a mass campout near Fort Klamath.

If this feels like a step down, well, an annular eclipse just isn’t quite as awesome as a total eclipse of the sun. “Interesting but forgettable” is how eclipse chasers describe the phenomenon, according to Katie Zúñiga, a meteorologist with Portland’s Fox 12 KPTV news team. The moon is farther from the earth than it would be during a total solar eclipse, so instead of blocking out the entire sun, the moon just blocks out most of it, resulting in a “ring of fire” around the black moon that leaves the daytime sky much lighter. (Webster’s defines annular as “of, relating to, or forming a ring.”)

“The moon orbits in an ellipse, not a circle, so it doesn’t stay at a constant distance,” explains Robyn Wilde, a professor in the natural sciences department at Oregon Tech, in Klamath Falls, which is right in the eclipse’s path. “If you hold something farther away from yourself it looks smaller.”

Portlanders who traveled south in 2017 to be in the path where the sun was completely covered by the moon will never forget that moment, Zúñiga says: “There was the temperature change, it got really cool, everything got dead silent like it was night, and it stayed that way for a few minutes. And then the sun peeked out and everything kind of warmed back up and came back to life.” An annular eclipse is far less dramatic and otherworldly. During the total eclipse, people could take off their eclipse glasses and look at the black dot covering the sun, which is definitely not the case with an annular eclipse, Zúñiga and Wilde both warn. Looking at the sun, even right in the middle of the path of the annularity, can cause severe eye damage.

What’s more, the sun is at a lower angle in the sky in the fall, which can limit visibility, and an October event is more likely to be compromised by clouds and fog than a summertime eclipse like the one in 2017. The first part of North America that will have a chance of seeing the eclipse is the notoriously misty Oregon Coast, from just south of Lincoln City to just north of Cape Blanco. The moon’s shadow will continue over Eugene, Roseburg, Crater Lake, Klamath Falls, Lakeview, the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, the southern part of Steens Mountain, and the Alvord Desert before continuing across Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Texas.

For viewers on the Oregon coast, the moon will begin to cover the sun just after 8 a.m., with the annularity (or ring of fire) in effect from 9:16 to 9:20 in places right near the center of the path, and for slightly less time elsewhere. The moon will have cleared the sun completely by 10:40 a.m. While it’s too early to have a bead on just what the weather will be like that day, Zúñiga says the Eastern Oregon portion of the eclipse’s path is less likely to be cloudy.

As with the 2017 total solar eclipse, this annular eclipse will still be noticeable in Portland, if the weather is clear and you use eclipse glasses to view the partial passage of the moon across the sun. Zúñiga’s colleague Mark Nelsen, who witnessed the 2017 total eclipse in Madras, says friends who were in Portland recalled the event merely as “kinda neat,” and that the city experienced 99 percent coverage. For the annular eclipse, he says, the sun will be covered only about 80 percent in Portland.

If you’re planning to roll the dice on the weather and head for the path of the full annularity, there is still some hotel availability, perhaps at a bit of a markup from your average mid-October night but nothing like the soaring prices of August 2017. Wilde says friends who have Airbnbs around Klamath Falls, which is in the eclipse path, have been able to charge a little more than usual due to the demand. Cabins and campsites at Summer Lake Hot Springs, which is right in the middle of the eclipse’s path and has an eastern view for the morning sun, are fully booked, as are the rooms at Crater Lake Lodge in Oregon’s only national park.

Oregon Tech and OMSI are cohosting Eclipse into Nature, a two-day event at the Running Y Resort just outside Klamath Falls, with guest speakers from local Indigenous tribes, live music, and a star party the night before. About 25 miles north, the Smash Mouth concert is part of Eclipse Fest 2023, a multiday campout with a variety of price points that, in addition to the concert and eclipse viewing, promises doughnut- and pie-eating contests, trivia, daytime kids’ karaoke, and a family movie night.

In Coos Bay, Southern Oregon Community College will have solar telescopes and eclipse glasses available for use on its campus quad in the morning, with special planetarium shows happening later in the day. Oregon State Parks is hosting events on the coast at Shore Acres State Park near Coos Bay and inland at Dexter State Recreation Area, between Eugene and Oakridge.

Among Oregon State Parks, all the reservable coastal campsites have already been snatched up at South Beach in Newport, Jessie M. Honeyman near Florence, and William M. Tugman and Umpqua Lighthouse near Reedsport. At press time, there was very limited availability at Bullards Beach near Bandon and inland options including Collier Memorial near Chiloquin and LaPine south of Bend. Hopefuls could also try their luck at first-come, first-served state recreation areas like Beachside near Yachats or Goose Lake south of Lakeview. There are both reservable and first-come, first-served sites in the Deschutes National Forest, part of which overlaps with the path of the full eclipse.

While Zúñiga and her team previewed the October 14 event on a recent episode of their weather podcast and will have a live feed from the eclipse path if the weather is clear, there’s no plan for special eclipse coverage like there was in 2017. In Klamath Falls, Wilde has his eclipse glasses ready and is planning to run weekend errands early in case of crowds and traffic. “I’m gonna make sure I don’t have to get any groceries on that day,” he says with a laugh.

The next total solar eclipse visible in North America happens April 8, 2024, but Oregon is not in its path. Instead, it will arc northeast from Mazatlán, Mexico, passing over Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Niagara Falls, northern New England, and part of Prince Edward Island. A partial eclipse will be visible from our namesake of Portland, Maine.

“If you’re really itching for a total one,” says Zúñiga, “start planning and saving now.”