Pre-Eclipse Post · 9:01pm Aug 20th, 2017
Who else is planning to watch the solar eclipse? It would be great to hear some travel stories and reports on how it turns out for everyone. I know Eruantalon is heading to the totality line in Oregon. I have now arrived in Greenville, South Carolina, and will be meeting up with Needling Haystacks for the event tomorrow.
On checking into my hotel the receptionist seemed surprised that she was getting so many visitors coming from Europe. I then went downtown to get some dinner. The server at the bar, who brought me some delicious tenderloin pork, was asking all non-local customers if we were here for the eclipse. As you might expect, many were, although others seemed rather unexcited about the opportunity to see the moon perfectly block the sun, turning day into night, and revealing the solar corona. They were just in town for the baseball. Maybe they were joking.
If you are within reach of totality, it is worth the trip and the risk of getting stuck in traffic. It has been said that seeing a 99% partial eclipse is like going to a sports match and staying just outside the stadium. It’s still worth going outside with eclipse glasses or a pin-hole camera to see the shape of the moon partially obscuring the sun as I reported in 2015, but far better to get properly in the zone.
I speak not from experience (this will be a first time for me) but from spending time with too many eclipse junkies. The closest I got before was 1999, when I considered taking a trip to Cornwall, but I was a skint student at the time, and having just spent most of my savings on a trip to Finland, it seems a bit much to take another trip just to see the lights go out. It turned out to be cloudy anyway.
Two years later I was in a lecture on Quantum Field Theory at Oxford listening to the lecturer—Professor Frank Close—digress about his plans to go and see the 2001 eclipse in Zambia. He had been in Cornwall and had been sufficiently awestruck that he had to see another. He did, and wrote an award-winning article about it. Then he went to see another. And another. He has now published a book about eclipses. He failed to teach me much quantum theory—not his fault—I was the sort of student who preferred messing about in the lab to doing mathematical problem sets, but he did convince me that I really should make an effort to see a total eclipse.
Oh, and do take a look at my eclipse story if you haven't already done so.
I've got to admit I was spectacularly unexcited by the 1999 eclipse and despite being in a position to get a very good view I actually spent the time in a fish smoker stacking boxes of salmon while most of my fellow workers went out to see it.
I also have a distinct aversion to salmon since that summer.
I recall still being in school for that eclipse and the school actually making it out to the big deal I think it really was. Letting us off class and setting up places to safely view it.
Sadly I'm only going to be seeing a 56% eclipse but I'm happy with that. Seeing any amount of an eclipse is such a great experience I don't care.
The Local Uni is doing some speakers and events as well so I'm wandering by with friends.
Never seen a total eclipse, but the clouds heavy enough usually at home Ive taken photos of at least one partial eclipse. Even got it with zoom on the camera. In fact, I think I was lucky enough with the clouds to pull off a totally stupid trick that I refuise to say due to impressionable minds and combustible eyes.
I'm planning to snap some shots, but everywhere sold out of solar glasses, so can't stare at it. Otherwise I'll probably be stuck in the office most of the day
Hey, so, I heard that the sun is more harmful during an eclipse. I don't want to bother looking it up, so could you explain why?
The wife is planning on driving to Beatrice, Nebraska (ok, having me drive us to Beatrice), at which point she will use the thousand dollars (or so it seems) of eclipse viewing hardware she's bought over the last six months to observe it.
Oh, the joys of having a science teacher wife.
I live in the path of totality!
Definitely not because of some ancient prophecy or whatever.
Pure coincidence.
I have eclipse glasses and cameras
and a gigantic runic circle painted with the blood of a thousand virginsand everything!4642159
It isn't.
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when the moon moves out of totality, your pupils will be dilated to their fullest potential and the rays of the sun behind it could very easily blind you. other than that, it's going to be quite dark for the two(ish) hours that precede and follow the totality (umbra vs. penumbra)
If all goes well, my brother and I are heading down to southern Illinois to view totality. If all doesn't go well, we'll only have to wait a few years for the April 2024 eclipse, since we pretty much live in the path of totality for that one (of course, the best-case scenario will be getting to see totality during both eclipses).
I'm comfortably ensconced (together with an IRL friend I got interested in the eclipse) in Beaverton, Oregon, just outside Portland and about twenty-five miles north of totality. (AKA, when I booked, home to just about the closest rooms <$500.) We've had a really good weekend in Portland. So far, traffic's looking great... but we're still planning to head south at 5 AM tomorrow in hopes of making it to Salem, near the center of the totality band.
Unfortunately I'm about as far away from the path as you can be in America (right on the New York/Canada border), so no eclipse for me. But I hope you have a good time! Say a prayer for Luna for me.
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Eclipse Smoked Salmon - sounds like a good marketing initiative.
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It's great when schools make an effort to do this. These events are best enjoyed with a group.
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2015 was like that for me too. At first it seemed too cloudy to see anything, but a times the cloud thinned enough to reveal the crescent, but filtered enough of the light to make taking photos easier.
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Try the pinhole camera trick. It's not hard to make.
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The sun is no more or less harmful itself during an eclipse - it doesn't care what the moon is doing. During a eclipse you are at greater risk of tripping up due to not seeing where you are going, but at less risk of sunburn. The real danger is if you are looking at an eclipse through a telescope when the sun comes out from behind the moon - so don't do that.
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You have a very cool wife. Have fun.
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Lucky you. Although it's also fun having an excuse to travel 6000km.
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Seeing both would be ideal. Every eclipse is different.
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Sounds good. I'm hoping that traffic won't be as bad as feared. You have such big roads in the US - that must help. You get to see the show an hour before we will.
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That's too bad. Be ready for 2024.
Will you record a video of the eclipse? I would love to go there, seeing a total eclipse turning day to night like Nightmare Moon did would be such an epic experience..... It's sad I can't see it here and I don't have enough money to travel to the US.
Sadly, flying to the US to watch the totality is completely unfeasible.
However, it's made me recall the last total solar eclipse visible here in Finland, back in July 1990. Our parents took me and my brother to visit our uncle near Joensuu, and we all got in a boat to observe it from the middle of a lake -- to get better view, since the eclipse took place just after sunrise, at about five in the morning.
It was an eerie experience, and one that I still remember fondly. The pale twilight of a Finnish summer night first brightened into morning light -- and then, suddenly, the world grew dark as a brief, unseasonal night fell. I remember all the birds falling silent like someone had thrown a switch.
Unfortunately, the next total eclipse visible in Finland won't happen until 2126, so I will have to travel to catch any more totalities. But there's an annular one coming in 2039, and it falls on the summer solstice! I need to get a Nightmare Moon plushie for that...
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I didn't do any videos as I wanted to enjoy the sight without the hassle. And there would have been complications transporting equipment. Needling Haystacks took some, which he may upload at some point.
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The thought of watching an eclipse from a Finnish lake at midsummer does sound pretty amazing.