Yeah, we perceive "brightness" on a roughly logarithmic scale, and most people don't intuitively understand what that means. In a total solar eclipse, it takes

Yeah, we perceive "brightness" on a roughly logarithmic scale, and most people don't intuitively understand what that means. In a total solar eclipse, it takes an hour or so to go from full sunlight to totality, but the majority of the apparent change in brightness happens during the last minute. And in turn, the majority of the change during the final minute is compressed into the last few seconds. If you're just a few miles outside the path of totality, those final seconds are what you're missing, and the difference is literally night and day.