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...we gotsa ee-clipse a comin' dis Sunday! — Parallax Forums

...we gotsa ee-clipse a comin' dis Sunday!

davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
edited 2012-05-24 21:29 in General Discussion
...too cool! :cool:

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_20644440/annular-solar-eclipse-ring-fire-visible-northern-california


We'll only have a partial in the SF south bay area, but I'm still gonna setup my binoculars and movie screen to watch the event.


Take care of your eyes, people...:innocent:
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Comments

  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-05-17 17:48
    ...it's a toofer!

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/y-big-story-annular-solar-eclipse-transit-venus-212122216.html

    Venus will transit the sun also.
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2012-05-17 19:32
    Dave, I bought some "eclipse glasses" if you need some.
    I've seriously considered a drive up to Redding/Mt. Shasta, but the ride home might be worse than Bay Area rush hour.

    Can we reschedule the eclipse for tomorrow night instead? LOL
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2012-05-17 19:56
    Dang! I'll just have to watch it on TV and save my eyes for THE BIG ONE! Do I have to use a projection TV to be safe? :smile:

    I like their instructions for a pinhole viewer - "something the size of a box side will do.", OK, paper clips come in boxes, shoes come in boxes,refrigerators come in boxes......which is the standard unit "box side"?
  • Jen J.Jen J. Posts: 649
    edited 2012-05-18 10:05
    Totally going to check it out! My DH is picking up some welder's glass today.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2012-05-18 10:14
    We'uns here in the gray Pacific northwet don't need no stinkin' eye protection:

    attachment.php?attachmentid=92668&d=1337361222

    Drat! I guess I'll just have to be content watching it get dark, then light again.

    -Phil
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  • tobdectobdec Posts: 267
    edited 2012-05-18 10:21
    Anyone here play legue of legends? ........darknessssss-better have your ult up!
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-05-18 13:09
    jazzed wrote: »
    Dave, I bought some "eclipse glasses" if you need some.

    jazzed - thanks much, but I'm doing the binoculars-projection-on-screen approach. Gonna duct tape my binos to a tripod for easy aiming and watch the show on an old movie screen. Hmmm....I think the last time I pulled this screen out of moth balls was during the early 90s eclipse!
  • PJAllenPJAllen Banned Posts: 5,065
    edited 2012-05-18 14:20
    "Showers" & "Sunbreaks"...
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2012-05-18 14:26
    Good grief, I thought you were saying the Eclipse IDE would be ready for Propeller development on Sunday.
    But no, it's just another solar eclipse. Oh well.
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-05-18 15:15
    Heater. wrote: »
    Good grief...

    :lol::lol::lol:!!!!!!!!!!!
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2012-05-19 06:42
    Apparently in parts of Northern Taiwan it will be a total eclipse, but on Monday due to the date line. And of course, it has been raining here for almost a week now.

    Programmers are rather compulsive about deadlines, aren't they?
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2012-05-19 11:37
    The Mount Shasta forecast for Sunday evening (PST) is not looking so good.

    I'm thinking that if my family goes north, Reno might be better.
    That way if it's too cloudy, we can just settle in and play Black Jack.

    The alternative is just to stay home in San Jose of course.
    A visible partial eclipse is probably better than an obscured total eclipse.
  • W9GFOW9GFO Posts: 4,010
    edited 2012-05-19 12:03
    Many years ago while in standing in the chow line (boot camp) a solar eclipse was going on. To view it all you had to do was hold your hand out and make a small hole by curling your fingers around. It would project an image onto the sidewalk quite nicely.
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2012-05-20 15:27
    I'm hoping to see a partial eclispse just before sunset here. The western half of the U.S. will get a much better view at it than I will. A technique that I use is to reflect the sun from a mirror onto a wall inside my house. I have a small mirror mounted on a tripod in my front yard, and I'm projecting it on my office wall just a few feet from where I'm sitting. The mirror is 42 feet from the wall, which produces a solar disk that is 5 inches high. I'm using a mirror that is silvered on the outer surface, but a normal mirror will work OK also. Just mask the reflective surface off to a small area of around 1/2 inch in size to get a sharp image.
  • Duane C. JohnsonDuane C. Johnson Posts: 955
    edited 2012-05-20 15:40
    Another nice projection method is to use a small spotting telescope or binoculars.

    Do not look through it though, that would be dangerous.

    Just line it up with the sun an a beautiful sharp image can be projected onto a white card a few feet away.
    This works for observing sunspots also.

    Duane J
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2012-05-20 15:51
    Yes, you need to be very careful when using a small telescope to project the sun. I tried that when I was a kid and ended up melting a plastic support part inside the telescope. I like projecting the image into the house with a mirror because I can get the rest of my family involved who wouldn't normally bother to go outside to view it.
  • Duane C. JohnsonDuane C. Johnson Posts: 955
    edited 2012-05-20 16:05
    Another way if you are near a freeway sign say 1/8 to 1/4 mile away..
    The bigger the sign the better.
    I use a small mirror about 1" square.
    Reflect the light to the sign.
    These signs are coated with retro reflecting material.
    The image is quite bright even at long distances.
    The suns image is about 1/2 degree of arc in diameter or about 1% of the distance.
    My 1" mirror produces a nice sharp image.
    The equivalent resolution would be about 160 x160 pixels at 1/4 mile.
    Sunspots are easily visible.

    Have fun!

    Duane J
  • TtailspinTtailspin Posts: 1,326
    edited 2012-05-20 18:13
    It's 6:15pm in Pismo Beach, and The sun looks like a Pac-Man... Pretty cool. :thumb:

    I used two auto darkening welding masks set as high as they could go,
    also pushed a pencil thru some cardboard, and focused the "output" onto a wall..


    -Tommy
  • Duane C. JohnsonDuane C. Johnson Posts: 955
    edited 2012-05-20 19:01
    I just got back from my favorite high hill in Minnesota.

    I used my binoculars balanced on the car door window sill and a white cardboard box top on the passenger door. The pair of images were about 5" across each.

    It started at about 6:20pm CDT with the peak at about 8:30pm at close to sunset.

    Three sunspot groups were clearly visible.

    Great fun.

    Duane J
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2012-05-20 19:21
    Dave Hein wrote: »
    I'm hoping to see a partial eclispse just before sunset here. The western half of the U.S. will get a much better view at it than I will. A technique that I use is to reflect the sun from a mirror onto a wall inside my house. I have a small mirror mounted on a tripod in my front yard, and I'm projecting it on my office wall just a few feet from where I'm sitting. The mirror is 42 feet from the wall, which produces a solar disk that is 5 inches high. I'm using a mirror that is silvered on the outer surface, but a normal mirror will work OK also. Just mask the reflective surface off to a small area of around 1/2 inch in size to get a sharp image.

    Thanks for the idea. I used a mirror to project the image onto a white paper in a large box. I got approximately 12 inches across, and the eclipse culminated in an almost complete covering. I had it projected out on the front lawn, and a bunch of my engineering residents came out to watch. We had a good time, and it was nice because everybody could see the mirror projected image.
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2012-05-20 20:00
    I rented an airplane, setup my camera and took two hours of video and a ton of stills and they didn't come out at all... :(
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-05-20 20:17
    ...a couple three shots from this evening's eclipse.

    Location is San Jose, CA. - south San Fransisco Bay area.

    One is of the eclipse at about the maximum - the afternoon sunlight was absolutely eerie!

    The other two are of my "rig" - a pair of binoculars rubber-banded to a tri-pod.


    ...thought of Erco as I was strangling the binoculars with a bunch of rubber bands.
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  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-05-20 20:19
    xanadu wrote: »
    I rented an airplane, setup my camera and took two hours of video and a ton of stills and they didn't come out at all... :(


    ...nnnnnnNNNNNOOOOOOOoooooo!!!

    Are you serious?!?!?!
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2012-05-20 22:33
    It was so overcast here, I didn't even notice it getting darker. But that's life in the NW.

    -Phil
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2012-05-20 23:25
    davejames wrote: »
    ...nnnnnnNNNNNOOOOOOOoooooo!!!

    Are you serious?!?!?!

    I had a polarized lens and filter that was *supposed* to work. Freakin lame. Although I enjoyed it, my camera just doesn't care!

    It's just too bright up there, like this forum lol.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2012-05-21 06:47
    Got up early and went outside. It was sunny and overcast here. I wasn't able to see the sun - maybe behind the skyline of buildings. It didn't get dark, so went back inside. Northern Taiwan and Japan were supposed to be better.
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2012-05-21 07:01
    Monday morning on east coast of US, I'm watching an eclipse of a different sort.

    Facebook is already down nearly 13%.

    Come on, Wall Street, surely you can pump and dump better than that!
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-05-21 08:48
    ...and heard on the news last night that a total eclipse is in store for the USA west coast in 2017!

    Looking forward to that!


    Oh, and for the SF south bay area, coverage was a reported 84%.
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,664
    edited 2012-05-21 09:02
    We joined a throng headed up to Lawrence Hall of Science above the Berkeley Campus. But it is a narrow winding road and throng was hardly moving, so we bailed out at the botanical garden parking lot, which was full of eclipse-watchers anyway. We brought along two 12-year-olds, and I had file folders to make DIY pinhole projectors. A couple of people already there had their binoculars set up to give larger, sharper, brighter image. The most salient thing though was the pinhole effect and the quality of the light. The kids learned that a 1" hole qualifies as a pinhole if the hole and the image screen are far enough apart. And that the shadows of the tops of the redwood trees on the edge of the botanical garden cast uncanny shadows playing with the crescent image of the sun. Even the shadow of a hand with narrow slits become unfamiliar, divided into light-dark beads. Next one nearby, 2017.
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2012-05-21 10:28
    davejames wrote: »
    ...and heard on the news last night that a total eclipse is in store for the USA west coast in 2017!

    ...rats! "West Coast" = Oregon.

    Guess I'll have to plan a camping trip to somewhere along the path.

    http://www.eclipse2017.org/ECLIPSE2017_main.HTM
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