Partial Solar Eclipse Coming to N.America

mblase writes: "Space.com has the goods on the upcoming June 10 partial solar eclipse, the only North American eclipse this decade. Greater eclipsing occurs in the South, and Midwesterners and Texans will get the best show when maximum eclipsing occurs near sunset, when the sun appears largest. A good excuse to teach any young children you know some basic astronomy. (Remember, use pinhole cameras, never look directly at the sun, yadda yadda yadda.)"

Comments

Floppy Diskettes

[karnal]

I've always used 3 1/2" diskettes for this task, and it hasn't killed my eyes yet. (Although, you can never be too careful.)

I just slide back the dust cover, and look at the sun through the magnetic media portion of the diskette. Voila - perfect picture, and your eyes don't hurt.

Gotta wonder about the UV rays though.... ???

Re:Floppy Diskettes

[heneon]

Diskettes are so.... 2001's! Couple of years ago I was fortunate to see total solar eclipse, and I used CDs. If it has got lot of clear surface on the label side (e.g. NT 4 installation cd) it works great!

Look under a tree for cool efect!

[zulux]

Last eclipse, I happened to be looking at the ground under a leafy tree. The tree and it's leaves created bunches of little pin-hole lenses and cast tons of little crecent images of the partially-eclipsed sun on the ground. Worth looking for.

Re:Look under a tree for cool efect!

[Tackhead]

> In 1994 I happened to encounter a group of school children during a partial eclipse. The clouds parted, and on cue from their teacher, all of them whipped out little pinhole cameras they had made from sheets of paper! Now that was a sight I won't forget.

I will never forgive the high school teacher who drew the drapes in my class during an eclipse because some st00pid-azz kid convinced said ignoramus of a "teacher" that "eclipse rays can blind you, you've gotta close the drapes!"

At least my high school physics teacher, who, when I told him the story, gave the aforementioned luzer a righteous chewing-out in the staff lounge (regrettably, after-the-fact, and even more regrettably, I couldn't listen to it), will never have to pay for a beer if he's ever in the same bar I am.

I had to wait another 10 years before I got to see a near-total eclipse again.

If you see a teacher and a group of kids with pinhole cameras during an eclipse, thank him/her for doing the right thing.

Too bad about the next N.America eclipse...

[bopo]

The next solar eclipse visible across this much of North America will occur in 2012.

Let's hope it happens before December 22, 2012. Otherwise we'll all probably be too busy fighting shapeshifting bounty hunters and supersoldiers to notice.

Oh well.

Welding Shades

[mgarraha]

Diskettes transmit too much IR and provide an inferior image, according to this Sky and Telescope article by Ralph Chou, a professor of optometry. Don't fool around, get a #14 shade from a welding supply shop. They're cheap, convenient, and reliable. Mine is a 4x5-inch plate of black ceramic material that turns the Sun a lime green color. When I bought it, the guys at the shop said, "Yeah, we got a few of those left over from the last eclipse. Nobody uses 'em for welding, they're too dark!"

Re:A Dragon Ate the Sun?

[anothy]

nope.
just as the 21st century started at midnight, jan 1, 2001, so did the current decade. december of 2000 was part of the previous century/millenium/decade. thanks to the stupid roman catholics for creating a numbering system starting at 1 instead of 0. it's dumb, but it's what we've got.