Solar eclipse, anyone?

The great American solar eclipse is next week! Is anyone making plans to see it? What are your thoughts for people who might want to see it?

I'm thinking about making a drive from the Gulf Coast to Tennessee to get within the zone of total eclipse. A quick check shows it may be quite tough to get a room in that area. There are also people price-gouging on Airbnb (charging thousands!). Staying outside of the total eclipse zone seems a lot more possible, but then driving six hours just to see a partial solar eclipse feels like cheating yourself.

Another problem is the traffic. Check out the graph on this link:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid...3097025&z=4

The red just makes my heart sink. I'm sure there will be some medical emergencies and accidents. The congestion will make it harder for the ambulance to get there.

I will be viewing the eclipse from Oregon.

I'm about 1-3/4 hours away from the center of the totality zone (during normal traffic). However, the traffic up from Denver to Wyoming, the route I'd have to take up I-25, is expected to be a near dead standstill. No place to stay at this late date. Wouldn't pay the asking price of around $1000 per night for a hotel room even if one were available. Camping would be out of the question - everything snarfed up long ago.

I want to go. But I think I'll have to pass. Most likely outcome from an attempt to get there would be seeing a partial eclipse from the middle of a horrible traffic jam far short of the totality zone. You'd probably needs days worth of emergency supplies just to survive the traffic. I think I'll have to be satisfied with the approx 90% eclipse in my backyard.

I've got a good friend in rural Kentucky whose place is right in the middle of the totality zone. Perfect spot. He said that local law enforcement are warning the locals to banish all people from their property, else the visitors would probably end up owning the property (after suing from getting hurt on it due to crowds/accidents).

Sitting away from totality, I will just watch on TV....

I'm going to try getting to Sweetwater TN. We're about 100 miles from totality as the crow flies. There are back roads (yellow on the map) leading from Knoxville.

My college-age daughter's horse is at a ranch that is dead center on totality very near to the location with the longest eclipse duration. Of course they are holding an eclipse party. Lucky her!!

I'm guessing the nearby larger town will be absolutely crazy with the entire state headed there.

There aren't any eclipse watching parties I know of, Mom and I will be watching from the Freedom Library where there will be no obstruction.

Jeanette Isabelle

I won't be looking for it. For those who do, make sure you have the right eye protection. Per NASA More at the link.

I've been invited to spend the weekend at a friend's family farm in Nebraska for the eclipse.

Lodging has been reserved for a long time in the area. Even the light aircraft airports require a reservation for parking space on the ramp (Alliance, NE)

Sounds like things might get really crazy in towns and on the roads.

(which is why I've programmed my scanner with all the documented jurisdictions I'll drive thru :-)

There was a total eclipse when I was a kid in 1979, and the whole school went outside with glasses to watch it. It's forever in my memory.

We're only getting a partial eclipse here this time, and I'm trying to decide what to do with the kiddos. I'll have four on Monday, ages 2,3,4 and 5. 14 year old bacpacboy will be here too. I don't trust them not to take their glasses off. Watch the shadows outside or watch the eclipse on tv/computer?

Does anyone know of any cool things activities to do with the kiddos during a partial eclipse?

I'd say watch it on TV/computer after explaining the health risk to their eyes.

Game: set up an indoors campout with a very short nighttime????

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Same here! I was 10 years old and remember the whose school going outside to watch it. Very cool.

There's a low tech pinhole projector you can make out of a cereal box. I'm probably going to make one out of a mailing tube to get a bigger projection picture.
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/solar-viewing-projector

This also might be a good time to start lessons on planets, orbits, and the sun. Also, check with the local libraries and they might be having eclipse viewing parties

The last two eclipses I viewed through the eclipse glasses and an arc welding helmet

We have had a lot of rain this Summer. Yesterday the rain was so heavy it severely damaged one of our trees. Anyhow, Monday's forecast is a chance of a thunderstorm.

Jeanette Isabelle

Solar eclipse glasses

Kudos to Amazon for taking some initiative here but the sad fact is that they have been very lax about policing counterfeit stuff over the last year or so.

whrn i was a kid, they always recommended projecting the image of the Sun through lenses ... like binoculars or a telescope lens. I dont mean looking at the Sun directly through these objects. I mean allowing the rays of the sun to enter the principal lens, and then shine the image onto a piece of cardboard. This is very effective, if done well.

My plan is to enjoy the darkness and coolness during the eclipse. Look around at my surroundings here on earth. Looking directly at the eclipse ... it will be just a small black circle with some rays going out from it. Impressive enough, but professionally taken pictures, of which there should be about ten bazillion available after the eclipse, will show much more than my eyes could have ever seen live.

A method that I used quite sucessfully to show off the sun for the transit of Venus back in 2012 was to reflect the sun (from a signal mirror, naturally!) through a large pinhole ( 1/4" = 6 mm, in my case) into a darkened room to project on a white piece of paper at the appropriate distance from the "pinhole" (53.7 ft in this case, though I'm sure I was a couple feet off).

In my case, the image of the sun was 6" diameter with a theoretical image resolution of 1.5 mm. Convection currents made the image ripple a bit, but it was still good enough to show sunspots and Venus, and the 6" diameter image was impressive for the neighbors and their children that I shuttled through.

A (cleaned up as described thereon) photo can be viewed here: 6" diameter image of transit of Venus in 2012

For this round, I'm using a smartphone photo clamp to mount the signal mirror to my tripod for easy adjustment as the sun moves.

For a 1/4 inch ( 6 mm ) diameter hole, WIkipedia says you can get 1.5 mm resolution on a 153 mm wide projected sun images if the spacing from the hole to the projection screen is 54 feet. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera The formula is:
d = 2 * sqrt( f * lambda), where:
d = diameter of the pinhole: 0.006 meters in this case
lambda = the wavelength of the light: 550 x 10^-9 for the middle of the visual band
f = hole to screen distance: 16.36 meters = 53.7 feet, here
s = radius = d/2
resolution = s/2 at optimum distance = d/4 = 1.5 mm here
Projected sun diameter = f/107 = 153 mm here.

I've been monitoring the forecast. There is still a 40% chance of a thunderstorm at the time of the eclipse.

Jeanette Isabelle

The forecast at the time of the eclipse has improved. Mostly cloudy with a 15% chance of perpetration.

Jeanette Isabelle

Overcast here, it should get darker, but that's about the only thing we'll see.

Edit: regardless what the weather forecast indicating cloudy conditions, not a cloud in the sky. Just waiting for it to get darker.

The sky is clear enough. I just saw the sun with my special glasses and it is 75% visible.

Jeanette Isabelle

It was dim here, not completely dark. Mom brought out a thermometer. The temperature dropped 10°.

Jeanette Isabelle

I was out of town and my customer insisted on stopping the training I was providing for over an hour for this. It was one of those "it happens" moments at work for me. Where the customer was we had about 90% coverage.

Traveling north was not practical; I would have loved to see it go completely dark.

Jeanette Isabelle

I saw no indications of the eclipse here. THE eclipse of the century and I've seen it get dimmer when a cloud passed in front of the sun.

Not that I didn't try. I pulled out a stack of colored filters from my days shooting B&W photos on film, and stacked a green, red, orange and a gray polarizing filter, and brought the intensity down to safe. I could see the dark shape next to the sun, but not enough to waste my time setting up a shot.

My buddy Chris went fishing. His camera adjusted for the lack of light at the beginning of the video. It seemed to me that they were being sarcastic, but I just couldn't see the effect because of the phone. And the we saw it for a little bit. Cool!

[video:youtube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PE-1lVWnQ8[/video]

Being farther north, we were only in a 70%+ coverage zone.

Tried to watch the NASA live feed, until the Internet blew up. News sites just had a bunch of talking heads -- WTH?? Stop flapping your gums and show me the bleeping sky!

Clear morning here -- and half an hour before the show, heavy translucent cloud moved in. Figures.

But you could see a noticeable dimming of the light intensity on the ground.

And there was an odd tinge to the light somehow. Not like a cloud simply obscuring the sun. Can't put my finger on it, but it was a colour thing -- vaguely parallel to the weird sun when the smoke from the forest fires moves in.

I made it down to Sweetwater, TN. We were near the center of the totality path. Getting down there was not a problem. Traffic was normal for a Monday. Getting back home was a NIGHTMARE. It took us nine hours to travel 195 miles and we left immediately after totality.

Cell service down there before the eclipse kept dropping out but texts would go through. I'm guessing it was overloaded.

I was 40 miles north of Scottsbluff NE and saw the totality. Very amazing.

I got lucky in that the nominal 4 hr drive only took me 6.

Allegedly Wyoming had 545,000 extra cars in it on Monday according to TV news.

Watched it from my front yard with family that came from all over. My place is just north of Kansas City, MO. It had us worried as it rained all morning, but cleared out just before the eclipse started. We got to see totality (which was stunning) and then the clouds moved in 3 minutes later.

Then we proceeded to get 7 inches of rain the rest of the day/evening.

It was nice to not have to drive anywhere, and the timing just happened to work out. I was happy my girls got to see it. Certainly will be memorable.