The Total Solar Eclipse

Maofan7

Maofan7

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The Solar Eclipse will take place in a few hours time. Details can be found here.

It is the first total solar eclipse to run from coast to coast in the USA (Pacific to Atlantic) since the 8th June 1918, and the first to be seen anywhere in the USA since the 26th February 1979.

A total solar eclipse will be visible in 14 states (the path of totality) - Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The rest of the United States will get to see a partial eclipse, as will other parts of the world (however, in the UK, the moon covers just 4% of the sun)

For those who are not in an area along the path of totality, you can watch the total solar eclipse live on the NASA website!
 
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I forgot to buy the eclipse glasses last weekend, so I am stuck with looking at shadows of trees. I heard it's an effective way of seeing the eclipse. I will have my regular sun glasses on, of course.

I read about making something out of an empty cereal box but it was late last night when I found it.

In the past I lived in two of the states that are going to see the total eclipse - Idaho and Kansas. Too bad I am too much to the south now. We are going to see only 70 percent. Our local tv stations are going to have special coverage from 10 am to noon.

I will check out the NASA website. Thanks Maofan.
 
I'll watch it on all the national news stations and the Weather Channel. 12:40 here and it's already been on split screens everywhere from Oregon.

The sun is directly over my house throughout the whole thing, but I'm not even going to go near a window. Overly cautious? Nobody can explain why I had an attack of posterior vitreous fluid detachment (flashing lights in retinas) for three days last year that magically went away. I'm not taking any chances. :-)
 
It's annoyingly hazy here in NE Indiana. We don't get totality but close to it. I'll step outside a couple times here; totality would be around 2:30 eastern time.
 
NASA's servers are getting clobbered. Their app is still working, as is their main page, but you may not be able to navigate to the various technical streams on NASA.gov

ETA, I've spent the last 20 minutes running to DH's office to find the app content on the regular website. So far, servers are still slow and unable to load a lot of the subpages.
 
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We are supposed to have 83% obscured in Minneapolis. Went outside earlier and tried to see the shadow with holes punched in paper plates. We are going to go back outside at 1:00 because it's supposed to peak at 1:07, but now it looks like some clouds have rolled in. :(
 
Clear skies here in SW Ontario - we are looking through a double layer of welding glass at work. It will be about 72% coverage here, peaking in about 20 minutes.
 
There were some other women in our building that came outside with eclipse glasses so I got to see it! woo hoo! Plus, you could see it at certain times when the clouds would act as a natural filter. All my pictures suck though. :lol: And I might have looked too long at the sky ...
 
We are getting it in about 17 minutes, it's getting darker, live in PA on east coast USA. Tried to take my two dogs out about an hour ago, they would not go and are now zonked on the floor sleeping as it approaches.
 
I got glasses on campus and wow - even the partial eclipse is cooler than I expected. :)

I have zero confidence in early April (my friend got a snowstorm for her birthday on the 6th last year) but please please weather Gods be kind come 2024.
 
I looked for about 5 seconds. I've been watching various feeds online at my desk, as all my testers nicely booked for this morning and were done by 12:30pm.
 
I couldn't open any of NASA's links. Saw some on our local newspaper's website. At work around 10:20 am about 12-15 of us went outside, carrying a sheet of white paper each. My make shift projector made out of a small cardboard box didn't work so I had to rely on holes in the white sheet of paper. My images were distorted because the holes were too big.

One person who was already there showed us the crescent images on a white sheet which he had put on the pavement. We reached the max (around 66% I think) and couldn't get any shadows because the light was so weak. So everyone returned to the offices.

I came downstairs again, with several smaller holes in the paper, and my camera this time. Since we were past the max, the sun had come out, still in partial. There were crescent images formed by light coming through the trees, on the wall, on the pavement. Those were the easiest to photograph (not very sharp but they were big). I used my holes in the paper and got nice but tiny crescent images. I was able to take some pictures of those, but it was hard to hold the paper, hold the camera and touch the button for photo, all at once. I finally returned to my desk, feeling satisfied that I had seen images of the eclipse.

I just wish I had at least tried to buy those eclipse glasses earlier. Anyway, it was better than nothing.
 
I was off work today, and we had 90+ percent here. I didn't have glasses, but it was so cool to step outside and feel how much the temperature changed, and to watch the shadows.
 
I definitely saw the sun's crescent get smaller during the peak. :D Not a super tiny sliver but still less than I'd thought.

You really needed the glasses to appreciate anything though.
 
That was an amazing experience. Mother Nature of the Cosmos showing us who's the boss. Our teeny-weeny little moon blocking out that HUGE gargantuan sun! Truly worth watching again and again and I plan to do just that! Absolutely wonderful! :cool:
Let's Make Our Little Solar System Great Again!
 
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Impressive even in Alexandria, VA, just south of Reagan National Airport. Sun was about 85% eclipsed by the moon around 2:42-2:45pm. The most amazing thing for me was the power of the remaining 15% of sun, even when one could tell - while watching through the glasses - that so little of the sun was shining on the earth. Great ball of fire!
 
I'm at home now, and even though it didn't get dark at all here, the crickets are chirping which they normally don't do until dusk.
 
Our whole office trooped out to experience the event. We had one pair of glasses among us. :lol:

I've been paranoid about eclipses since I was five years old and my father warned me not to look, so I didn't even look with the glasses. :shuffle: But I enjoyed the chance to be out in the warm summer weather.
 
Lizziebeth said:
it was raining here :(
Click to expand...

Lizziebeth, what kind of dog do you have? See my Sadie picture. She was ten years old, so she had a lot of gray around her eyes.

(Even on t.v. the diamond ring part hurt my right eye. I get spots for a long time after driving with the sun hitting car bumpers or mirrors! And I can't see in the bathroom mirror right after I go in and turn the light on.)

They showed it happening on our local channel in Dayton, Ohio - 98.8%. Funny all of the national ones going across the totality had crescents on the left and right. From this angle, our crescent was on the top. Right after that, I looked out the front door (to the east) to see the tree shadows. Neat. 2024 we're supposed to have a total eclipse here. I remember going outside at work in 1994 (I had to look up the year) and looking at the ground through holes punched in styrofoam from the cafeteria!! Why are people sitting around in those glasses the whole time before and then taking them off and looking right at the sun after??? You'd think it'd be even stronger then.
 
My kid had the most fun making shadows - any circle worked - the cutest was the sun through a button. Teeny tiny crescents - ours was only shaped like a banana. The other weird one was holding a hand sideways, tiny crescents in the finger webbing. We had the glasses, it was totally cool!
 
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