Eclipse

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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Location
west Texas
Display Name
Dave Taylor
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KMRF
This calculator tells times and % obscuration, for the smallest of towns.
Looks like it is happening late in the day today, and only east of about Texas.
We are getting 75 mins of eclipse (sunset will cut it short) and 80% obscurity max.
You?
Surely someone will post about whether flying then is 'night' or not!

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/SolarEclipses.php

Never look directly at the sun or an eclipse.
 
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20% obscuration, maximum occurs about 1/2 hour after sun rise on Monday. And that's a bit before my alarm clock will go off. Oh yeah, I'm in Singapore, not home, this week.
 
Looks like it'll be 75% obscuration for about 6 minutes before sunset for me here just south of ATL.
 
My wife is going to be in an airliner kmaf-klas during their eclipse. Their TC is 295°; which side of the bird should she sit on if there was any hope to 'see' it while airborne?
They land at peak eclipse, which happens 1 hr before SS.
hmm
This calculator says the Sun azimuth at that time is 286.9° so I think the answer would be, 'sit on the left'? Ah, looks the pilots might be the only one that will have a view at all except in the turns.
 
wha? I thought the sun set east of Lubbock before the eclipse was happening.
 
For once, a benefit to business travel. Not visible from Florida, but I will be in Toledo, where I'll get 56% Yipppeeeee!
 
Ken Ibold said:
For once, a benefit to business travel. Not visible from Florida, but I will be in Toledo, where I'll get 56% Yipppeeeee!
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Probably at some time after sunset though. I think the calculator gives the maximum obscuration without regard to whether the sun is above the horizon at the time, as long as the eclipse begins before sunset. For example, at Elmira, NY it shows 50.4% obscuration. Since the sun sets less than 7 minutes after the start of the eclipse, that's impossible.
 
ua2di.jpg
 
Dave, that's stunning.

We had a high overcast here in Portland today ... thin enough to get a fuzzy photo. The sun was still high in the sky, over two hours before sunset, so without the diffusion from the cloud cover it would have been difficult to photograph it with risking damage to the digital sensor.

IMG_2604.JPG
 
This is a pic of a pinhole (well, a penhole) projection here in the Bay Area. It got quite dark outside.
 

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Sadly, storms picked up and obscured the sun about an hour or two prior to the eclipse. Doh!
 
Guys, don't throw out your sunshades just yet.

June 5...last chance for over 100 years to see a transit of Venus. It happens on this weird cycle with 2 times 8 years apart (2004 was the last one), then a gap either 105.5 or 121.5 years. So, if you miss this one, it's unlikely you'll get another shot!
 
JeffDG said:
Guys, don't throw out your sunshades just yet.

June 5...last chance for over 100 years to see a transit of Venus. It happens on this weird cycle with 2 times 8 years apart (2004 was the last one), then a gap either 105.5 or 121.5 years. So, if you miss this one, it's unlikely you'll get another shot!
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What's that look like? :dunno:
 
So, uh... What's that going to look like for those of us who don't have fancy equipment to look at it with? Anything?
 
flyingcheesehead said:
So, uh... What's that going to look like for those of us who don't have fancy equipment to look at it with? Anything?
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"fancy equipment" can include anything down to two pieces of paper and a pin to make a hole in one of them.
 
JeffDG said:
"fancy equipment" can include anything down to two pieces of paper and a pin to make a hole in one of them.
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It won't look like much of anything without at least a small telescope with a solar filter. Remember that Venus has an angular size of about a minute of arc, and the Sun's angular diameter is about 30 minutes of arc (0.5 degree). So with a small telescope, it will look basically like a large, very round sunspot slowly crossing the Sun.

But it's definitely worth it to try to see IMO. We have solar filters for each of our two tripod mounted Meades (a 5" and an 8") and are planning to hold a public viewing on the roof, weather permitting.

If not, we have a planetarium show planned and a link to a live feed from NASA. One way or another, we're going to make an event of it.
 
azure said:
It won't look like much of anything without at least a small telescope with a solar filter. Remember that Venus has an angular size of about a minute of arc, and the Sun's angular diameter is about 30 minutes of arc (0.5 degree). So with a small telescope, it will look basically like a large, very round sunspot slowly crossing the Sun.

But it's definitely worth it to try to see IMO. We have solar filters for each of our two tripod mounted Meades (a 5" and an 8") and are planning to hold a public viewing on the roof, weather permitting.

If not, we have a planetarium show planned and a link to a live feed from NASA. One way or another, we're going to make an event of it.
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I wish I had a H-Alpha filter for my Celestron 8"....sadly, I'll have to project with it.

Strange story...the one time I ever laid a hand on my wife...I had a solar filter on the scope, and had it pointed at the sun (near sunspot max), and I invited her to take a look...she started leaning in to the (unfiltered) finder scope, and I shoved her pretty hard when I realized where her eye was headed. :yikes:
 
AuntPeggy said:
http://www.transitofvenus.org/
Venus Transits the Sun: Thousands Swoon!
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We had something like 7 telescopes on the roof for the event (mostly guest telescopes). We held a public viewing, and about 100 people come up to the roof to see the transit. Wx-wise we were VERY lucky. As of 20Z it was overcast, then at 2215 the clouds started to part, and from 2245 onward til sunset we had a near perfect view of the transit. I managed to nurse a 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain with a stripped focus screw to produce what several people said was the best image through any of the telescopes on the roof. It was great fun explaining to people why it happens, why it doesn't happen every year, and why people in the 17th and 18th centuries were so interested in transits. A local news station shot video of the event too.

I texted a friend that she should have been there. She answered back "Yeah, I wish I had been. Maybe next time, haha."




For the unaware: the next transit of Venus will be in December, 2117.
 
azure said:
It was great fun explaining to people why it happens, why it doesn't happen every year, and why people in the 17th and 18th centuries were so interested in transits.
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I'd like to hear the story, please!
 
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