Merged Solar Eclipse 2017!

[Skeptic Ginger]

On further thought, stars twinkle because their light emanates from a single point, whereas planets don't because the light is coming from a much closer, and therefore larger, object. I'm perplexed.

ETA: All of the above interacting with the atmosphere to a greater or lesser extent, of course.

Our resident Bad Astronomer explains it:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

It's semi-common knowledge that stars twinkle and planets don't. By semi-common, I mean that a lot of folks know that, but I also mean it isn't strictly true....

...So when the light gets bent, the apparent movement of the star is larger than the size of the star in the sky, and we see the star shifting around. Our eye can't really detect that motion, because it's too small. What we see is the light from the star flickering. That's why stars twinkle!

So why don't planets twinkle? It's because planets are bigger. Well, really, they're smaller than stars, but they are so much closer they appear bigger to us. They are much bigger in apparent size than the air bundles, so the smearing out of their light is much less relative to the size of the planet itself. Since the image doesn't jump around, they don't appear to twinkle.

There's always an exception though. In very turbulent air, even planets can appear to twinkle. The air is moving so rapidly and so randomly that even something as large as a planet can twinkle.

So either the air is more turbulent (makes sense given the rapid change of heat from the Sun) or for some reason when the sunlight is down to a sliver, you can see the effect of the turbulence.

Granted I am speculating based on intuitive and not expert knowledge.

 

[Dumb All Over]

All that sounds fine. It's just that for the thirty or so seconds before totality, it seems the area of the sun's light is much bigger than the single point of a star. During that time until just a second or two before totality, the sun's light (area of brightness) is more akin to that of a planet.

Granted I am speculating based on intuitive and not expert knowledge.

Same here. It is kind of fun to first speculate before Googling deeper.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

All that sounds fine. It's just that for the thirty or so seconds before totality, it seems the area of the sun's light is much bigger than the single point of a star. During that time until just a second or two before totality, the sun's light (area of brightness) is more akin to that of a planet.


Same here. It is kind of fun to first speculate before Googling deeper.

OK, in the spirit of speculating, either the Sun's light fluctuates or the atmosphere is the only other explanation.

If the Sun's light fluctuates, while it might be overwhelmed by the total output and only visible when most of the Sun is blocked, it would be a phenomena someone like me would know about being the avid consumer of space weather phenomena that I am. Not to mention it would be more commonly known among astronomers. (I bet some astronomers know, I can't imagine no astronomer curious enough to have investigated it.)

That leaves it only happening during an eclipse and not something commonly known to people who access the solar satellite websites all the time. And that leaves an atmospheric effect.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I heard about shadow snakes on Smarter Every Day. They should be coming out with the video on what they filmed pretty soon.

I was going to look for shadow snakes at the viewing area, but then I decided to hike down the hill to view the eclipse. There wasn’t anywhere flat to look. I had a bag with bottles of water and binoculars and a book on the eclipse. I was planning on open the back page of the book and spread out the white page and cover to see if I could catch and snakes after the eclipse, but I was so stunned by the eclipse I completely forgot. It doesn’t look like it would have been large enough to see anything anyway.

After the eclipse we hiked back up the hill to the viewing area where we had some chairs set up under a tiny bit of shade under a tree along the road. The shadow of the tree was making really cool crescent shadows and I was taking some pictures. A park ranger came along and was taking pictures of it too. She said they had a tarp set up and were able to see the shadow snakes.

It’s really cool that people are posting video of the shadow snakes. I was looking for one before the eclipse and I don’t think decent video of them was ever captured before this eclipse.

It’s hard to tell if the snakes stop before moon completely covers the sun or not. It looks like appear about a minute before totality and then stop a little before totality occurs. I wonder why that would happen.

 

[Dumb All Over]

It wouldn't have anything to do with light waves bending around the moon due to General Relativistic gravitational pull, would it? Again, just speculating. I don't know if the moon's mass is great enough to create such an effect.

The fact remains - shadow snakes are cool and I want to know more about them.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It wouldn't have anything to do with light waves bending around the moon due to General Relativistic gravitational pull, would it? Again, just speculating. I don't know if the moon's mass is great enough to create such an effect.

The fact remains - shadow snakes are cool and I want to know more about them.

No because that wouldn't explain fluctuating.

Nice hypothesizing though.

And they are cool, guess that's a reason I need to plan for the 2024 event.

 

[Dumb All Over]

No because that wouldn't explain fluctuating.

Nice hypothesizing though.

And they are cool, guess that's a reason I need to plan for the 2024 event.

WARNING: Continued speculation to follow. Do not remove your speculation safety glasses until total speculation has passed.

But, but, maybe the fluctuation is actually a light wave interference pattern with enhanced motion caused by the continual movement of the moon and the light rays bending around it. I think I'm onto something here.

[/speculation]

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

WARNING: Continued speculation to follow. Do not remove your speculation safety glasses until total speculation has passed.

But, but, maybe the fluctuation is actually a light wave interference pattern with enhanced motion caused by the continual movement of the moon and the light rays bending around it. I think I'm onto something here.

[/speculation]

That's a bit far fetching. Not writing it off but you'll need some supporting background to explain.

 

[BowlOfRed]

Eclipse: tick!

My viewing went quite well. I had choices (from family) in OR and ID. In the end, seemed weather in OR was looking good, so went there.

Set up tent in the yard of family in Jefferson, OR. Little bit of haze from fires on the drive up, but not too bad, and nothing at all north of Springfield.

Because of their great location, a couple of other families also came over either for the morning or camped out. I set up a couple of time-lapse cameras on our watch area. One of them had some IR capability, but since I didn't set up an IR projector, it wasn't able to view anything during totality. Just dark, so no reactions visible.

Forecast was for clear skies and it held perfectly. We had made a box viewer (pinhole in aluminum foil) and someone broke out a welder and punched a tiny hole in steel plate. Both did a pretty good job of imaging the partial portion.

The weird lighting was neat to see. As totality approached, it was easy to see how sharp all the shadows became. We didn't set up anything, but the (somewhat dried) grass lawn allowed us to easily see the shadow bands both before and after.

Totality was amazing. Didn't see Mercury, but saw Venus and at least one other object. I had never known that prominences could be seen during an eclipse. A couple of days before, I had heard that was possible. So I looked for them at one point and could easily see a couple of orange points on the rim. I thought that was one of the coolest bits of the whole experience.

Took a while to pull down the tent and get going, so we were behind a lot of the CA surge. I wasn't sure we would leave at all on Monday, but I found there were still lots of rooms left in southern Oregon, so thought we'd try it. Left around 1pm and I think we were in Springfield around 5 or 6 or so. Traffic became reasonably fast after that, just heavy. Smoke was much worse on the way back. Really thick in parts.

I'm wondering what the roads were like heading south of Boise and how much trouble that would have been. Was 97 clogged up?

Lot of work, kids had to miss some school, annoying in parts, totally worth it. Would do it again this weekend if I could.

 

[alfaniner]

I have to wonder if it was a dumb idea to pay $60 extra for these VIP seats.

 

[Delvo]

I heard about shadow snakes on Smarter Every Day... It’s really cool that people are posting video of the shadow snakes. I was looking for one before the eclipse and I don’t think decent video of them was ever captured before this eclipse.

Didn't SED even say NASA wanted to collect amateurs' good videos of it for research?

I set up a tablet with its camera aimed at my curtain-cloth to try to get them. (My other cameras were assigned other duties.) It didn't work. The contrast was too low, so it's mostly just a long video of a white cloth which eventually suddenly gets darker & redder and then returns to normal. At one point when you hear people talking about the shadows, you can see faint light-gray whispiness but no real detail. Part of this might have been because it just wasn't a good camera, but I also think the shadow effect we got at my location was just weaker than average. It didn't look much like snakes to me; it was too pale to look like real objects instead of obvious shadows, and the way it moved looked more like sideways flames to me than snakes... possibly moving more westward the first time and more eastward the second time. The video file I have now is better as a recording of the scene's sounds than its visual images.

My better-for-video camera was on a tripod pointed at part of the horizon & sky. In both cases, I just put them in video mode and started them recording several minutes before totality so I wouldn't be thinking about cameras at all when it hit or when it ended. But the one on the tripod must have had a battery-preservation feature I didn't think about; it turned itself off while I was ignoring it. I saw what had happened and got it back on & recording again during totality, when I picked it up to do a 360° pan and put it back down on the tripod, so I got the horizon view on video when totality ended, but not when it started. It would be possible to make a reasonably accurate video showing the beginning, duration, and end of totality with the 360° pan included in the middle, by reversing part of the video I got, copying & pasting the forward & backward versions together, and using the sound I got from the tablet that was set up for the shadow lines, but I currently don't have the ability to reverse video. (My video editor can do the other steps, just not that one.)

 

[CriticalThanking]

I'd appreciate some input. My city is on the edge of the totality path for 2024. The mayor has already instructed city staff to start planning for it. There is a park next to city hall that could be good for viewing. While there is no camping available, the sky's the limit (sorry) on what we might set up for public education. Suggestions I can pass on to staff? What do you wish a viewing location did/provided?

- Have the local university set up a scope with projection capabilities?
- Provide a docent/lecturer to "narrate" or just answer questions?
- Have space set aside for local schools to view?
- Sell viewing glasses at/near cost for those that don't bring them?
- Set up an area for shadow snake viewing/recording?
- Bring in port-a-potties?
- Sell special ($$) water that will help unblock the sun if imbibed during totality?[ETA - to help the city budget]

Thanks,

CT

 

[Dumb All Over]

- Sell viewing glasses at/near cost for those that don't bring them?

Don't sell them. Give them away for free. Seriously. In the park I was in, there was a guy walking around giving away free glasses. He had a gazillion of them and, I'm sure, was unable to get rid of all of them. I'm also sure the cost was subsidized by some benevolent organization (perhaps AstroCon, but not sure who it really was).

- Set up an area for shadow snake viewing/recording?

Yes, yes, YES!!! Easy to do. Stake a large, white sheet to the flat ground. Or a large piece of cardboard spray-painted white. Or some such similar easy setup.

- Bring in port-a-potties?

Yes. Important for public health, safety and comfort. Otherwise, you could have a "situation" on your hands. It also helps to alleviate the pressure on local businesses and public facilities.

 

[dasmiller]

I was visiting family in Ohio, so I went south to Kentucky to visit friends who lived there, and went with them into Tennessee for the eclipse. We were debating where to stop when we came upon a rest stop/"Welcome Center" just across the border in TN. This was about 9AM, and there were prominent signs saying "2 Hour Parking Strictly Enforced," but we could see people setting up telescopes and laying out blankets, so we decided to give it a go. There were a few parking spots left on the grass, so we parked. There were a couple of police wandering around, and they didn't raise any objections, so we picked a spot of grass with some shade and settled there.
They closed the rest stop a few minutes later because there was no more parking, so we had a nicely uncrowded site reasonably near the totality centerline.

The clouds gave us some scares; it was all blue when we showed up but scattered clouds arrived shortly thereafter, and even blocked bits of the partial, but they all disappeared shortly before totality.

As others have said, totality was totally worth the trip (including the horrible traffic on the way back to Kentucky. 4 hours for a 37 mile leg of the trip!). Like Myriad, I'd told myself I wasn't going to try to take pictures of the totality, but my resolve failed and I snapped off a few dozen. They're not epic, but they're okay and I'll try to post a couple.

 

[Delvo]

- Sell viewing glasses at/near cost for those that don't bring them?

Solar filters in other forms could be good, like a visor clip to hang below the bill of a baseball hat, or one of those big umbrellas/canopies you can put a lawn chair under.

- Set up an area for shadow snake viewing/recording?

The same spot would also be good for playing with shadows of ordinary objects like hands and cheese graters and twigs with leaves on them before & after totality.

- Bring in port-a-potties?

Not an option; a bare minimum requirement.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I'd appreciate some input. My city is on the edge of the totality path for 2024. The mayor has already instructed city staff to start planning for it. There is a park next to city hall that could be good for viewing. While there is no camping available, the sky's the limit (sorry) on what we might set up for public education. Suggestions I can pass on to staff? What do you wish a viewing location did/provided?

- Have the local university set up a scope with projection capabilities?
- Provide a docent/lecturer to "narrate" or just answer questions?
- Have space set aside for local schools to view?
- Sell viewing glasses at/near cost for those that don't bring them?
- Set up an area for shadow snake viewing/recording?
- Bring in port-a-potties?
- Sell special ($$) water that will help unblock the sun if imbibed during totality?[ETA - to help the city budget]

Thanks,

CT

Fans. I wish they had some great big fans. And some of those things that spray mists of cold water. Man, was it hot! I suppose that won’t be a problem for April, though.

Activities depends on how big the crowd is and what kind of atmosphere you want. And whether you can get volunteers to run some activities. The park had some booths and activities set up and park rangers doing different things and a bunch of rangers walked around and gave brief announcements to small groups about when totality would happen and when to take off the glasses and put them back on and what to look for, etc.

1. Shadow snakes. A white tarp would work. The videos I have seen seem to use white sheets laying on the grass. Some of the sheets have patterns or designs on them. Or they are very wrinkled. The sheet should be plain white and smooth. Or a white tablecloth over a picnic table. Or use a painted piece of plywood. Or some big sheets of foam core.

2. Signs with information about the eclipse and viewing tips. I wish there had been some signs up. I heard many people asking questions where they didn’t know the answer. I heard a lot of incorrect information being shared. It would have been neat to have some signs up around the park showing why an eclipse happens, the path of totality, how long totality lasts, how fast the shadow of the moon is traveling, previous and future dates of eclipses, why you can’t see the moon before or after the eclipse, how an eclipse proved the theory of relativity, things to watch for: darkening sky, muted colors, 360 degree sunset, sharp shadows, diamond ring, Bailey’s beads, chromosphere , prominences, corona, star and planets, etc.

3. Pinhole fun. Pinhole cameras. Peg boards and colanders. What does it look like shining though a board with one hole? A bunch of holes? A square hole? How about a crescent shaped hole? Have a pinhole in cardboard cutout of the state or some other shape where people can cast the shadow with the crescent onto their shirt and take a picture. Put photosensitive paper in a pinhole view to make solar photographs of the partial eclipse.

4. Viewing masks for kids. The park had some booths set up for some different activities for kids. I didn’t see them all, but I did see a number of kids with viewing masks made out of paper plates. Take a paper plate and cut a notch for the nose. Cut some eyeholes and glue or tape some paper viewing glasses over the eyeholes. Add an elastic band on the back. Use markers to decorate the plate. Slip it on and the kids have a cool Mardi Gras/masquerade type mask to view the eclipse that a small head better and has plenty of protection in case of any slipping.

5. Drones. Have a drone fly around and show the area on a projector. Get the drone down before totality though! Don’t destroy the scene with a flying machine.

6. Thermometer. Set up a big thermometer to watch the temperature drop. Maybe even a digital light meter to measure the darkness.

7. Solar energy. Set up some solar energy demonstrations and information. Make a solar oven.

8. Relativity. If you have a good telescope set up with a projector, you can take pictures of the stars and compare them during the eclipse to prove Einstein was smart.

9. Hot dogs Hamburgers. Cool drinks. Sun chips. Moon pies. Eclipse gum. The food tent at the park had fruit rollups, which seemed to be popular. I didn’t know they even still made those things.

10. Activities for the kids. The eclipse only lasts a few minutes. The rest is a long day at the park. Do chalk drawings of the eclipse. The park had a photo place set up where the kids (or adults) could take a picture in a frame with the date while wearing a sun face or moon hat.

 

[alfaniner]

9. Hot dogs Hamburgers. Cool drinks. Sun chips. Moon pies. Eclipse gum.

Don't forget the Total cereal!

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I see very few stories about being clouded out for totality. Did I (and the several thousand other people at this venue) choose the one little area across the totality path that wasn't able to see it?

It sounds like most people got lucky. Carbondale, IL had clouds but managed to get a bit of a gap to catch part of totality. Around Bend, OR the clouds moved out of the way just in time. Places in Tennessee had similar luck. The same for Charleston, SC.

St. Joseph, MO got clouded out. It sounds like some people saw the bad weather and were able to scramble to places like Columbia. My mom was planning on going to St. Joseph. I thought it would be too crowded and convinced her to come with me to St. Louis. The prediction was a 25% chance of cloud cover. The whole day the sky was completely clear. Not a cloud. Not any shade. Did I mention how hot it was? About 20 minutes before totality one big cloud moved right over the sun. The only cloud in the sky (other than some little puffy ones near the horizon). It broke into two dark clouds. After the first moved past we were hoping the other would go under the sun. No such luck. The other cloud went right over the sun. With even 10 minutes to totality the sun was lost somewhere behind that could. The race was on. Luckily, I learned about cloud busting on the JREF forum and used my mental powers to move that cloud out of the way.  It was well past by the time of the eclipse and we had a clear, beautiful view.

For as long as the path was for this eclipse, it is somewhat amazing that it was clear in so many places. Of course it can’t be clear all along that long path. There were bound to be some who got clouded out. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you alfaniner. I hope you get another chance.

 

[alfaniner]

I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you alfaniner. I hope you get another chance.

I don't know if I would mind so much if that sort of thing didn't happen to me seems like all the time.

Meteor storm of the century?
Cloudy.

Shooting star?
Missed it.

Wow, look at the deer!
Where?

Wow, a whale!
Where?

Check out the dolphins!
Where?

Granted, I'm not the only one of the thousands at this location who didn't see it, but I feel like I've done enough bitching for everyone for now.

Seven years until the next one? Why not? I can't expect it to happen with any more frequency than, say, pon farr.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

At least you get to enjoy the mysteries of life!

There's always Argentina...

(Yes, I am considering going.)