Her telescope needs that real estate in the sky to capture intricate details of the corona, whose tendrils can stretch millions of miles from the surface. With her location picked out, she must now focus on perfecting her strategy for those 2 minutes and 38 seconds.

“You have to go through your procedure over and over,” she said, “so you don’t make mistakes.”

Dr. Yanamandra-Fisher’s study was one of 11 eclipse projects to receive funding from NASA. What makes her work different from other studies is that she plans to return to Carbondale in 2024 and perform the same experiment, comparing the two eclipses to see how the corona has changed.

The sun goes through an 11-year cycle, during which its activity changes from being more mellow to becoming more turbulent. This year’s eclipse is happening while activity is decreasing, but the one in 2024 will occur as it is ramping up, so sunspots and solar flares are expected to be more apparent then.

She is teaming up with another solar eclipse project called the Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse experiment, or Citizen CATE. It consists of a chain of nearly 70 identical telescopes placed from Oregon to South Carolina that will record 90 minutes’ worth of totality, which will provide scientists with a movie of how the inner corona changes over time.

Jasmyn Taylor, 17, a senior at Carbondale Community High School, will help collect images for the Citizen CATE project. She plans to be 20 minutes outside of Carbondale at Giant City State Park, which will receive two extra seconds of totality.

“I’m really excited for the way the sky is going to look,” she said. “I’m nervous too, because this is probably the most complicated thing I have ever done in my life.”

An hour and a half before totality, scientists from the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium will launch two eight-foot latex balloons from the stadium. Equipped with cameras and instruments, they will capture the eclipse from above the clouds at 85,000 feet.