The Eclipse, the Eclipse!!

[vorlon13]

Comparing 2017 to 1979:

Due to the clear cerulean sky, 2017 was much more of a 'technically' perfect eclipse, but maybe with less emotional impact than 1979. My viewing site in '79 had a high thin cloud layer, with many thicker clouds nearby. The '79 eclipse was far more beautiful, as the color effects were more pronounced. '17 was a 'cool' palette, blue and white, just near the end getting some red/orange on the trailing limb. '79 was 'warm' the sky was pinkish, the corona had an iridescence I compare to abalone shell, '17 didn't have that pearlescent luster.

'79 I felt had far more prominent Baileys Beads, both during ingress and egress compared to yesterday. As I noted '79 was nearly clouded out, but the approaching shadow had a positive/negative effect on the clouds as they were alternately lit from sunlight, dark from being in the shadow and then lit again, and the effect was pronounced as some clouds were west and some east of the viewing site. The entire sky was part of the show. Nebraska viewing site for me had no clouds at all, so no cloud illumination effects. Also, at '79 the area was covered in snow, so the ground was reflecting light upwards onto the cloud deck, and into the zone of totality too. The '79 eclipse was far more complex/beautiful with the interplay of light and darkness with the clouds and snow, '17 was more pure, the sky was completely clear, the ground was not reflective and the effect was a technically perfect eclipse, but one rather lacking in, for lack of a better term, artistry.

[Jackalope]

Link, please!

https://twitter.com/uclausc/status/899706351085125632

The eclisped sun itself was sort of anticlimactic in that video but everything else was very cool, the umbra passing over the Earth, the bent light on the horizon.... Pretty impressive from being taken through an airliner window.

[Rev. Rye]

Well, where I was, the sun only had a partial eclipse, but it was about 88% obscured. And the rest was cloud covered. I went to the village green to see it come the closest it'll get to totality, and I arrived late enough to miss out on eclipse glasses. I spent much of the time trying to see it on my camera phone, waiting to see if the eclipse would even register (which it didn't really). A couple times I tried looking at it without any special glasses (yes, I know it's not advisable, but I didn't have many other options, I can still see as clearly as I did before the eclipse, no doubt due to the aforementioned cloud cover, and until the next total eclipse comes to My town, I have no plans to look directly into the sun again, and even then, I hope to At least be more prepared the next time around).

It was interesting to see the sun look like the crescent moon at least.

[vorlon13]

so far the only other person I'm aware of to brave a glimpse of the sun without glasses was President Trump . .

[Anomalocaris]

Link, please!

https://twitter.com/uclausc/status/899706351085125632

It's that the Death Star about to blow up the holy city on Jedah?

[Rev. Rye]

And bear in mind, I probably would have used the solar eclipse glasses IF they didn't run out before I could get there. And I suppose cloud cover might have helped with a relatively safe view of the sun (but I suspect that might not, theoretically, be the case.) Trump doesn't have that excuse, especially since he already had the eclipse glasses and decided to look directly at it anyway, and I'm not sure about the cloud cover conditions for DC. Hopefully, if there is a next time(and there'll apparently be another near-total eclipse in 2024) I'll be prepared. And I have the good sense to not have a reason to look into the sun with only my regular glasses the rest of the time.

[vorlon13]

Another difference between '79 and '17 was in '17 I'm very close to the center line, '79, I'm not so sure my precise location, but I definitely was south of the center line, and by quite a bit, perhaps around 1/2 to the edge, maybe even more.

(I haven't found a decent ground map of the '79 eclipse, and at the time, my exact location was the problem of the eclipse tour organizers, not me, LOL)

[vorlon13]

OK, gave NASA eclipse site another go and figured out how to get stats on the '79 eclipse.

Centerline north of my viewing site had ~ 2:30. Where I was it was 2:02. I'm not complaining, but damn, nearly 30 seconds short?

Erf !!

[vorlon13]

BTW, Edmund Halley managed to calculate a ground track for a 1715 eclipse.  He nailed it down to within 20 miles and 4 minutes.

An amazing feat considering the difficulty of getting accurate elements to do the tremendous amount of calculations necessary to do it.

[Jehanne]

Yet another cool article:

https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status...7414291456

And, don't forgot (read the article) that the next eclipse is on April 8, 2024!