I'm sure it depends upon one's personality and their aversion to crowds.
I have an almost pathological aversion to choked roadways. Leading up to the eclipse, local TV news was making a big deal about the size of the expected crowds. That only ramped up my distress level. Had a few moments of diffidence, there.
But the worry was for naught. We were smack dab at the center of totality yet encountered no traffic slow-downs, coming or going. It was miraculous despite all the thought and study that went into the trip.
Speaking of tripping, Huntington, OR, and its pot shops were not far away from our location. It was an educational imperative to detour through that town to see how the eclipse had been celebrated there.
Humans (and, presumably, most animals) instinctively avoid looking directly at the sun. Which is why we don't find ourselves accidentally staring at the sun for five - ten seconds while thinking about the last credit card bill.
Woke to fog over the SF Bay, so my wife and I headed east to the far side of Mount Diablo, Mitchell Canyon state park. I was expecting a lot of people there, but no, only a couple of scattered groups. 75% coverage not such a big deal I guess. The biggest group was a flock of unconcerned turkeys. I'd made a bazooka style viewer out of a long carton, using a monocular at the front end. Like Erco, we were most fascinated by the ground, images cast on the trail by light coming through the vegetation.
Saturday, I baked outside under a cloudless day in Columbia, MO. Monday morning forecast: 4 hours NW-mostly cloudly. 4 hours SE-mostly cloudy. Columbia, partly cloudy. I decided to stay put. I saw the eclipse at Fairview Elementary school with my youngest granddaughter. A very thin overcast. We were still able to see the totality. Two minutes after totality, the sun was totally obscured by a cloud. Given the geometry of close clouds and far away sun, some parts of town may have been obscured during totality.
If my sun doesn't move I will try 2024 in Fredericksburg, TX.
The sun ain't going to make you blind from a quick glimpse.
If that were so most of the human race would have been blinded for millennia.
I myself have checked this fact by circumnavigating the globe and glimpsing the sun full on at mid-day on the equator and in Cape Town, Sydney, Tahiti, Panama, Barbados, San Jose. And wherever else.
Top marks to Trumpy for debunking this fallacy.
As I understand it, when the sun is out, your pupils are small and you squint if you look at bright lights such as the sun. But during the eclipse, it is nowhere near as bright,so your pupils are large and let alot of light in. It is this fact that the UV is still very bright and your eyes are not squinting to block out this additional UV that gets to your retina.
From what I understand, its certainly not a fallacy. Perhaps a quick glimpse won't do a lot of damage, but I for one am not going to chance it. My understanding is that any damage is permanent. But hey, shame el presidento didn't look for longer
Those cheap eclipse glasses scare me, besides being left over from the event, so kids can look at the sun any time, what will be the long term effects? To me they look inefficient for the task.
There goes a case of injured in the line of duty, does that get a selfied Purple Heart?
As I understand it, when the sun is out, your pupils are small and you squint if you look at bright lights such as the sun. But during the eclipse, it is nowhere near as bright,so your pupils are large and let alot of light in. It is this fact that the UV is still very bright and your eyes are not squinting to block out this additional UV that gets to your retina.
From what I understand, its certainly not a fallacy. Perhaps a quick glimpse won't do a lot of damage, but I for one am not going to chance it. My understanding is that any damage is permanent. But hey, shame el presidento didn't look for longer
I was surprised to find that many people did not realize that it was okay to take off the glasses during totality. There was also some who thought that the eclipsed Sun would be brighter than normal, probably due to all the warnings associated with the event.
For the record, if you are in totality, you need to remove your glasses to see, it is not harmful.
Had my 8" telescope set up to track the Sun. Couldn't believe how many people asked if it was safe to look through it after I asked them if they'd like to see it. Started telling people that I was an ophthalmologist looking to create some patients.
The attached plot shows the temperature and sky brightness at my home in eastern Nebraska. This location was just outside of totality (99.91% obscuration). The light level at the peak of the eclipse was about the same as 15 minutes before sunrise. Curiously, the dip reached bottom about six seconds before the predicted maximum. I'm guessing the difference is due to clouds, or to the fact that the sensor wasn't directly observing the sun, but the volume of atmosphere overhead (within 10˚ of zenith).
I ended up viewing the eclipse in central Nebraska, near the center line. The eye is remarkably adaptable to changing light levels -- it wasn't until about ten minutes before totality that it started to become obvious that something was happening.
The instant the last bit of sun disappeared an entirely different phenomena began. A chorus of gasps and shouts rose up from all around. I've often watched the sun through a telescope with a fancy filter (an H-alpha Fabry-Perot etalon), but being able to see the reddish-pink chromosphere and prominences and the white corona in their natural colors, unaided, was a special treat. Most arresting was simply the spectacle of the sky with sun "punched-out". Two and a half minutes went by quickly. The reddish chromosphere briefly brightened on the western edge, leading up to the flash of the diamond ring, and then it was over.
This was my first total eclipse, and I was hooked. I'll definitely make an effort to see another one.
This video of the eclipse over Casper Wyoming is amusing: https://www.facebook.com/time/videos/10155022658826491
Shooting off fireworks I can understand as misguided enthusiasm, but it's hard to imagine being so jaded as to drive all throughout the event.
When I saw the first one, I knew there had to be some coronal detail buried in the near-black pixels. So I fiddled with the tone curve a bit and came up with this:
Zooming in, it's also evident that it enhanced some JPEG artifacts, too; so it would probably work better on an uncompressed image.
I drove 750 miles up to Geneva, Nebraska to see the eclipse with my wife and my son. It was definitely worth the 1500 mile round trip. Geneva is a town of 2,200 people. About 500 people went to the city park to watch the eclipse, which is where we went also. There was quite a bit of traffic on the highway, but it flowed along at the speed limit. We got into town about 9AM and found a nice spot to set up for the next few hours. We had lunch about 11 o'clock and the partial eclipse started at 11:30. However, the sky was overcast, and we didn't see much until noon when the skies cleared.
Totality happened around 1PM, and it was awesome! The corona is larger than most pictures show because the brightness changes dramatically from near the sun to the edge. A single picture just can't capture the range of brightness across the corona. I've found that most pictures that shown the full corona are actually composite images made up from various exposures.
Hopefully around 7000' ASL, somewhere off the San Diego coast, with a proper filter.
I tried in 2012, all I had was a 12 stop ND filter, nowhere near enough. The interesting thing about it is, you can see the eclipse in the lense flare. The little lense flare dots all have dark spots in the middle.
xanadu,
That aircraft looks a lot like a Cessna 162, am I right?
It was perfect weather in the Aldrich mountains on the day. Having the telescope with the filter was terrific. Totality was beyond my expectations. 360 degree sunset, the stars came out and the corona was spectacular. The difference between 98% and totality was, well, night and day.
While I didn't do any radio operation during the eclipse itself we had a lot of fun playing radio at 6,000 feet in the days before the eclipse. We arrived on Thursday and left on Tuesday so we saw no traffic at all.
Hopefully around 7000' ASL, somewhere off the San Diego coast, with a proper filter.
I tried in 2012, all I had was a 12 stop ND filter, nowhere near enough. The interesting thing about it is, you can see the eclipse in the lense flare. The little lense flare dots all have dark spots in the middle.
xanadu,
That aircraft looks a lot like a Cessna 162, am I right?
I posted that one above, didn't look close enough to see the sun and moon in front of the clouds.
The one from space looks sirreal enough to be fake, but The other two definitely look fake.
Hopefully around 7000' ASL, somewhere off the San Diego coast, with a proper filter.
I tried in 2012, all I had was a 12 stop ND filter, nowhere near enough. The interesting thing about it is, you can see the eclipse in the lense flare. The little lense flare dots all have dark spots in the middle.
xanadu,
That aircraft looks a lot like a Cessna 162, am I right?
Comments
But the worry was for naught. We were smack dab at the center of totality yet encountered no traffic slow-downs, coming or going. It was miraculous despite all the thought and study that went into the trip.
Speaking of tripping, Huntington, OR, and its pot shops were not far away from our location. It was an educational imperative to detour through that town to see how the eclipse had been celebrated there.
If my sun doesn't move I will try 2024 in Fredericksburg, TX.
John Abshier
Those cheap eclipse glasses scare me, besides being left over from the event, so kids can look at the sun any time, what will be the long term effects? To me they look inefficient for the task.
There goes a case of injured in the line of duty, does that get a selfied Purple Heart?
That is what they are supposed to look like, nice job!
For the record, if you are in totality, you need to remove your glasses to see, it is not harmful.
Had my 8" telescope set up to track the Sun. Couldn't believe how many people asked if it was safe to look through it after I asked them if they'd like to see it. Started telling people that I was an ophthalmologist looking to create some patients.
The attached plot shows the temperature and sky brightness at my home in eastern Nebraska. This location was just outside of totality (99.91% obscuration). The light level at the peak of the eclipse was about the same as 15 minutes before sunrise. Curiously, the dip reached bottom about six seconds before the predicted maximum. I'm guessing the difference is due to clouds, or to the fact that the sensor wasn't directly observing the sun, but the volume of atmosphere overhead (within 10˚ of zenith).
I ended up viewing the eclipse in central Nebraska, near the center line. The eye is remarkably adaptable to changing light levels -- it wasn't until about ten minutes before totality that it started to become obvious that something was happening.
The instant the last bit of sun disappeared an entirely different phenomena began. A chorus of gasps and shouts rose up from all around. I've often watched the sun through a telescope with a fancy filter (an H-alpha Fabry-Perot etalon), but being able to see the reddish-pink chromosphere and prominences and the white corona in their natural colors, unaided, was a special treat. Most arresting was simply the spectacle of the sky with sun "punched-out". Two and a half minutes went by quickly. The reddish chromosphere briefly brightened on the western edge, leading up to the flash of the diamond ring, and then it was over.
This was my first total eclipse, and I was hooked. I'll definitely make an effort to see another one.
This video of the eclipse over Casper Wyoming is amusing:
https://www.facebook.com/time/videos/10155022658826491
Shooting off fireworks I can understand as misguided enthusiasm, but it's hard to imagine being so jaded as to drive all throughout the event.
Very nice pics!
When I saw the first one, I knew there had to be some coronal detail buried in the near-black pixels. So I fiddled with the tone curve a bit and came up with this:
Zooming in, it's also evident that it enhanced some JPEG artifacts, too; so it would probably work better on an uncompressed image.
-Phil
Totality happened around 1PM, and it was awesome! The corona is larger than most pictures show because the brightness changes dramatically from near the sun to the edge. A single picture just can't capture the range of brightness across the corona. I've found that most pictures that shown the full corona are actually composite images made up from various exposures.
My wife and I were parked at the Katy Trail head in McBaine from 7:30AM to mid-afternoon. And yes, looking forward to 2014!
DJ
Don't you mean looking backwards?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
...no prob. It was a rather mind bending experience!
*8)
xanadu,
That aircraft looks a lot like a Cessna 162, am I right?
David
https://vimeo.com/230895485
It was perfect weather in the Aldrich mountains on the day. Having the telescope with the filter was terrific. Totality was beyond my expectations. 360 degree sunset, the stars came out and the corona was spectacular. The difference between 98% and totality was, well, night and day.
While I didn't do any radio operation during the eclipse itself we had a lot of fun playing radio at 6,000 feet in the days before the eclipse. We arrived on Thursday and left on Tuesday so we saw no traffic at all.
Until 2024!
Good eye. Yes, C-162 Skycatcher.
I posted that one above, didn't look close enough to see the sun and moon in front of the clouds.
The one from space looks sirreal enough to be fake, but The other two definitely look fake.
Is there a UFO in that circled area?
Very nice aircraft! I fly the Skycatcher as well.
Happy flying.
David