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Partial Solar Eclipse Tonight
grouchomarxist writes "There is going to be a partial solar eclipse tonight. It will mainly be visible by people in the southwest of the United States. People in Mexico will have the best view, there it will approach a full eclipse." Space.com has a nice page on it too. Enjoy this solar event!
There will not be another one until 2012, so you might want to check this one out.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
That is pretty impressive.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
I, for one, don't believe that science can predict when such an event will occur. And certainly not hours in advance.
Surely this 2012 eclipse will signify to coming apocalypse and end of the world? There's no other possible reason they wouldn't have plotted their calendar out further.
Actually, doing so can burn your retina so fast you won't know you are blind. Your retina has no pain receptors, so that's why its especially important not to look. In some cases, blindness set in slowly over a period of up to 6 hours after viewing an eclipse. It's better to poke a pinhole in a piece of paper, and then look at the shadow the paper casts on the ground. You should see the eclipse fairly well and safely... provided you are west of the Rockies anyway.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Because nerds get laid at least as often as solar eclipses, so all you guys call in sick for tomorrow an go get some nanny...
What about us Western Europeans? When do WE get a solar eclipse? Why does America have to MONOPOLISE everything?! Why can't Americans learn to share their damn astronomic phenomena instead of greedily keeping them for themselves?! This ABSOLUTELY TYPICAL OF DUBYAHS FACIST REGIME, monopolise the solar eclipses, soon you'll have a monopoly on 10 km radius asteroid strikes and nearby supernovas as well!
I love stuff like this.
to my three-year-old:
"You better be good boy, or Daddy's going to destroy the sun!"
Best Windows Freeware
Ah, too true. Somebody mod this up for accurate nit-picking.
Are you an idiot? Try it and let us know how that works for you.
Actually my father in-law looked at it as a child and now his glassses are pretty thick due to that fact. No one else in his family needs glasses either
actually some people will have a chance to see the amazing annular eclipse which is much more interesting.
i saw the full eclipse last year (in bulgaria) and will definitely have my smoked glass for tonight's (50% only, where i'm at) eclipse!
Will I be able to see this in the North East (Montreal)? The article doesn't say, but I'm hoping to see a partial.
What time would it be at?
S
It's night where you are, Einstein, but somewhere else it isn't night, and the people who happen to be there will see the eclipse.
- Have a picture
Tonight there's a Solar Eclipse?
The world really is coming to an end.
A rather spectacular image from a 1992 annular eclipse (the name given to this type of eclipse) can be found at APOD today.
Don't look directly at the eclipse!
I can't wait to see it... oh wait, i forgot you're not supposed to look at it.. oh well... i guess the fun is knowing it is happening even though you aren't looking? -- Look Mom the Sun it's disappe-AAAAHHH my eyes!!!
Why yes, I am an idiot. Thanks for asking.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I looked at my first solar eclipse years ago through my telescope. It was bright and spetacular - but since then, non of them have looked nearly as good as that first one :)
follow the link here for more info and a nice map of what you expect to see the eclipse time is ~6PM PST, which mean the sun is FAR from set -- at the bay area, anyway, the sun does not set till ~9 and don't stare at it! 2 good ways to look at the eclipse 1) bioculars / telescope reflected on paper 2) get a bucket of water, tint the water (ink, whatever) and look at the reflection (used to do this in low-tech China)
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Of course, never look at the sun, even when partially blocked by the moon. To look safely, poke a pin hole in a piece of paper, and let the sunlight come through that paper and focus the image on a second piece of paper.
I've also had luck looking through a floppy disk, but I wouldn't recommend it. You can use welding glass, though.
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
I bet I can get a really good look at the eclipse using my telescope!! Those warnings about not looking at the sun printed on the body of the scope? Oh, that's just for kids!!
Eclipses are harbingers of doom. It's a sign to get your affairs in order. The aliens will be landing or something. Kiss your butts goodbye!
How ya like dat?
They say it's BAD, real BAD to look directly at an eclipse. Personally, I think it's an old wives' tale.
It's always bad to look at the sun. But people tend to stare at it more during an eclipse (duh), so that's why it comes up.
I live in Denver, where the sun is still dark red from all of the smoke moving through town. Should make for an incredible sunset.
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
Isn't there one every night? It gets dark for about 12 hours.
How ya like dat?
What if I am looking through my UV protectant 12-shade welding goggles? I'll be lucky to see anything at all. In comparison, the arc from welding is way brighter in the entire spectrum than the sun is. I can get a UV burn from my welding equipment in less than an entire when I'm not wearing a coat.
So, it's safe, right?
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
thank you, I try to be metaphysical at least once a day :)
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
I always post this, but the best eclipse web site is at http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Every time you hear about an eclipse, they tell you not to look directly at the sun. I know it can burn out your retina and make you blind, but so will staring at the sun on a day without the eclipse.
Does anyone know if looking at the sun during an eclipse is actually worse for your eyes than looking at the sun at any other time? I would guess that the intensity of the sunlight would have to be greater during an eclipse to cause more retinal damage in a shorter period of time. Anyone know why this is the case?
free ipod? yeah.
"Personal note: When I was little my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so when I was six I did." - Max Cohen
The pupil dilates as the light dies. This means the first beads of sunlight as the eclipse ends shining around the moon comes straight through a wide-open eye tracking across the retina like a magnifying glass onto paper. It is easy to look directly at those first beads for too long (a glance won't hurt though).
See my journal, I write things there
The Yahoo article discusses how the eclipse starts on Tuesday, June 11 and ends on Monday, June 10. Interesting, eh?
Of Course this is because the moon travels east across the sun and over the international dateline but still.
It can make you blind.
Remember, the Sun is our solar system's largest "dirty bomb." While this radiological event has yet to be tied to the Abu Sayyaf or Qaeda groups, be warned that the FBI considers this an act of solar terrorism, President Bush has yet to say if this has been "securitized" for our protection, and the INS reserves the right to fingerprint and mock you.
O(* ) O
Incredible isn't it.
Yes, that works very well too; I was just giving the lo-tech version. Mostly because I don't have any binoculars :D.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
I'm in the Los Angeles area and own a Canon XL1 MiniDV camcorder with a 16:1 zoom. I was thinking of going up to a nice high point in my area and videotaping the eclipse, using a portable battery and a 9" Sony TV to compose and focus the image. I would then use my camera's manual exposure controls to taste based on the image on the Sony.
If I just go out and start shooting the sun, is this going to damage my camcorder if I use its built-in neutral density filter?
I will be synchronizing my camera's internal clock to Pacific Bell time - will that be good enough to match the time predictions?
I don't think I will have time to buy a filter, but viewing the eclipse through the adjacent monitor should work.
Am I nuts to do this in view of the possibility of blowing out the CCDs of a very expensive camcorder, or should I not worry about it?
Many thanks for any ideas.
D
This morning my MessagePad 120 informed me that an eclipse was going to happen today. Just one more thing that my PDA does that yours doesn't. :)
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
I plan on trying to capture it with my digital camera. Hopefully the LED screen doesn't have enough power to blind me :) (Or, if it does, I'm going to sue the FUCK out of Sony ;)
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
It is a bad idea to look directly at the sun without
l
protecting your eyes in some fashion.
It is possible to look with the naked eye if the
viewers eyes have already had a chance to adjust to
the brightness of the day, and the exposure is
kept short. (Something I experienced as a less
clueful youth)...
BUT, Even then some minor damage is likely to occur,
with symptoms that may not show up until later on
(something I am probably going to learn about as I get older).
IMO, the likelyhood of damage from looking at an eclipse is
made greater because the viewers eyes do not have the natural
feedback of ambient daylight to adjust to before looking in the
direction of the Sun. Instead they will probably try to adjust
to the lessening of reflected light in the environment, and
the effect you will get would be similar to someone turning on a
very bright light when you are in a darkened room; without
the benefit of being able to close your eyes.
Thru google I found:
http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/what_observe.shtm
which appears to be a pretty good sight for advice on properly
viewing an eclipse. (I do disagree that even looking at a
total eclipse can be safe, because humans don't have very good
timing for knowing when to look away again from totality).
I too am looking forward to seeing this eclipse if I can, but
please do be careful...
From Space.com as noted in the original article, 14-shade welding goggles are said to be adequate. IANAW so I'm not sure if 12 is darker than 14 or not. Also they mention that even with these shades, you should not look at it for more than 10 seconds anyway...
Looking at a solar eclipse isn't any more dangerous than looking at the sun any other day, except that people are more likely to keep staring at the eclipse than the sun on any other day. So, in a way, it is an old wives' tale, but there is some kind of merit behind it.
Curiosity killed the cat, and curiosity can blind a human.
we have a total solar eclipse *every* 24 hours. What happens is that the other half of the earth completely blocks our view of the sun.
So are you going to edit the movie with iMovie?
This particular eclipse is an Annular, where the Moon's shadow is somewhat smaller than the Sun's disk. From the right location, it appears as a bright ring around a dark Moon. I've not seen one, but I've heard some Umbraphiles say "I wouldn't cross the street for an Annular Eclipse."
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
If you live in Ontario tomorrow night (2002-06-11) at 21:57 the ISS with docked shuttle will show up in the NorthWest near the horizon and make it's way across the sky in 5 minutes to set in the SouthEast. It will show up near Venus which will also be in the NorthWest. Apparently the shuttle docked with the ISS makes for quite a bright celestial object (twice as luminous as the ISS normally is). According to the editor of Sky News who was speaking about this (and the eclipse) on CBC this afternoon it will be unmistakable (not only due to its movement but also its brightness).
A good tool for tracking the ISS can be found at liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov for those who are interested.
OBEclipse: The moon is in space -- so is the ISS :-)
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
that will tell me if i'll be able to see it at all? i live in northern iowa, i figure i'm screwed
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
So we can all write in and say how lousy the experience is because
the friccing clouds aren't going to break up!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, I got that off my chest....but it looks pretty grim for seeing
any of it here.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I have #12s and they seem to work ok. keep_it, you're right
about not looking too long anyway, welding goggles don't
filter all the UV that you need filtered, although they do
take care of most of the visible spectrum, and one can still
damage one's retina. RETINA DAMAGE IS PERMANENT. I KNOW.
Note that it also does NOT mean you can use welders goggles of
any kind to view thru binoculars or small telescopes.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Crazy. The corneal burn on a humans eyes from looking at a welders arc at close range can last 6-8 hours for even a fraction of a second of exposure. If you looked at it for more than 4 or 5 seconds, I'd imagine you'd have lifelong damage.
Yes, a 14 is quite a bit darker than a 12. Must be pretty bright sun; cuz with my welding goggles on outdoors I can barely see around me.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Very informative.
I have a comment tho:
You said: "(something I am probably going to learn about as I get older)."
I can guarantee you that. Back in the early 80s I spent a lot of time
observing sunspots with varying degrees of filtering, projection
and other diddling around. Before I could afford to buy good filters -
they were very expensive at the time - I damaged several small portions
of my retinas. I did not really realize this until many years later. The
effect is not really noticeable any more unless I am concentrating on
seeing something very small (like a star's pinpoint); the images get
smeared out. Several optom's I've gone to think the damage may be
fixable in a few decades as tech gets better....
I can't stress it enough to
(after all, then you would have to have
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Actually, it's the moon that's in the way.
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
Umm... just look at it through at T-15 arc welding filter... sheesh.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Amazing, isn't it? Shows how much energy the sun puts out ;-0
Aren't welders filters logarithmic (scale of ten)? between ratings? I
can't remember.
As to being outside with them, remember most of the light you are looking
at is reflected light, from 1-30% of the light falling on the surfaces,
and most of the UV (which does the real damage) is absorbed rather
than reflected. When you look at the sun, most of the visible light is
filtered, but as far as I know welders goggles don't filter much UV.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
According to my newspaper, it's going to be a partial eclipse with 54% coverage of the solar surface. That's enough to make it "mainly" viewable here in Eugene, OR.
I imagine it will be interesting, even in Seattle. (Provided it isn't raining)
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Good luck trying to find anyone in this forum that qualifies.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Why does it always rain here during astronomical events. stupid rain. stupid clouds. stupid weather. who plans these things anyways? :-)
"If nothing else, value the truth."
We have our viewers ready in Spokane Washington but it looks like this cloud cover isn't going to go away. *pout* Oh well.. perhaps in another 15 years the total eclipse might be visible.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources - A. E.
But will we be able to see Uranus?
They must filter UV because that is what causes sunburns, which is primarily what also causes damage to the eyes. I can weld for 8 hours straight without any eye sore at all. If I do it without wearing my leather welding gloves or coat for even an hour, my arms will be red, warm, and burning by the next day. Just goes to show how much UV welding arcs put otu.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
...until the MPAA blocks free eclipses too?
You could just forget about going up to the nice high point, stay down in LA, and let the smog be your filter. That oughta work.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Thanx alot chris d. First you tell everyone the lone gunmen died, spoiling it for those on the west coast. Now you tell everyone about an eclipse that hasn't yet happened on the west coast for a few more hours. You could have let them discover the sudden disappearance of the sun with total surprise, rather than spoil it for them.
/. used to handle time sensitive stories in the good ol' days (of last weekend) :-)
You should follow the fine example set by Hemos when he waited until closing time to announce the Festival of Inappropriate Technology this past weekend in London. That was how
the AC
We've had a simulated solar eclipse for the last week. Fscking rain
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I can look directly at the sun - big red ball, not all that bright. Who needs smoked glass when you have smoked air?
80,000+ acre wildfire out of control. Smoke up to 30,000 feet spreading across Colorado to Nebraska to South Dakota (visible on satellite). Completely out of control, nothing we can do but hope for a weather change. They pulled the crews from in front of it, calling it suicidal to fight this thing from in front. Humidities as low as 5%. Winds 25-35 gusting to 45 fanning the fire and keeping hte slurry bombers and tankers from fighting it effectively. Problem is fuel: timber here has less moisture (10%) than kiln dried lumber due to drought.
Peronal note: I worked at the Lockheed rocket engine plant (boosters). And it is in the way of this fire at Waterton Canyon facility. Thats a bad mix: 200 ft wall of flames advancing at 5-10 MPH and tons of rocket fuel in bunkers nearby. Bad combo.
40,000 people evacuated as of 4PM mountain time. Rained ash (like snow flurries) here at my house.
:-/
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Your screwed by not being able to see it and I am screwed by driving straight into it. on the Northbound 101 in California (the freeway actualy goes west on the part that I drive). with congestion as normal I should get to see the whole event from the comfort of my SUVs seat.
(not that I have a choice)
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
If you stack 2 or 3 cd's (with no printed labels that cover their surface) together, they produce a very dim and comforable-to-view solar disc. Although, I wonder if they block out other harmful wavelengths of light. For that reason, I have ownly taken very very brief glimpses of the sun using that method. Anyone know if it's good?
Good point. I don't really know enough about the characteristics of welders eq, but I suspect they have filter some UV. Whether it is the same UV ranges as what sunburn results from, I don't know. Anyone?
;-) ( ok, not neutrinos and some other things, go away Trolls)
;-)
The weldburn isn't as nasty as the Flying Hot Chunks Burn tho. Try a good Aloa skin lotion with no alcohol (alcohol aggravates the burn).
" If I do it without wearing my leather welding gloves or coat for even an hour"
Remember that a leather welding glove filters *everything*
Another thing a boss/teacher told me once was that the filters in welding goggles were usually low quality - ie there were many 'microholes' where the filtering agent hadn't spread to - and I wonder just how much that contributes to eyesight problems of welders.
I wish I had your endurance for welding
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Um, do you know that for a fact or are you just making an unfounded guess?
I'm no optics expert, but I've never read any sort of warning not to point digicams at intense light.
Some quick hunting on google:
- 'CCDs
... don't suffer from "burnout" or "trailing" in bright light.' (Link) - 'A solar eclipse has huge contrast, and digital photos suffer from the "bloom" effect of the CCD, where super-bright pixels bleed like crazy into their neighbours.' (Link)
The second in particular seems to indicate there's nothing harmful about using a digicam to capture an eclipse, you just won't get a good image. I'm pretty handy with Photoshop though, so I still intend to try"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Of the two types of solar eclipses, this is an annular eclipse. This means that the vertex of the umbra never reaches the Earth. The umbra is the cone region extending from the Moon towards the Earth that is the Moon's shadow. So even if we were to be standing at the center point in the path of the shadow, the Moon will not completely block out the Sun in an annular eclipse. Thus, a total eclipse occurs when the umbra at least reaches the Earth.
The frequency of observation of total vs. annular eclipses can be arrived at by examining the following facts about the shadow of the Moon:
Moon's distance from Earth (miles): Max = 252710, Min = 221460, Mean = 238900
Length of Umbra (miles): Max = 236700, Min = 226800, Mean = 231100
It's pretty interesting actually. This means that the Earth, Moon, and Sun are positioned and sized in such a way as to guarantee totality a little less than half the time a solar eclipse occurs.
There is going to be a partial solar eclipse tonight.
Tonight? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I've been seing some decimal on slashdot, which geeks hate. So I've been posting this reply. So, why are you using decimal here? Do you understand number bases? I think you don't, otherwise you would use hexadecimal. Repost in hexadecimal--you may use "0x" as a prefix or "h" as a suffix. Perhaps you can learn at this since it is possible you don't understand. Or perhaps you are too stupid to ever understand hexadecimal and will be stuck with decimal.
It's in progress now here in Vancouver. There are some clouds around, but not enough to spoil the experience.
My low-tech equipment is a pinhole camera made from a cardboard box. It has a piece of white paper taped inside as a viewing screen, with the "lens" a pinhole poked in a piece of 120 film backing paper.
It works fine, and I observed 1st contact at 0003 UTC, 1703 PDT.
...laura
As a child I looked directly at the sun, everyday. No protection. That was at age 8.
At age 14 I couldn't see stars straight ahead.
But I didn't go blind. I always thought everyone was fscking nuts about this thing...
Now at age 23 my vision is getting strangely blurry after starring at a blue LED keychain light.
I tend to think the LED did more damage then the sun, could be, have those things been tested?
--- NOTE: I am not suggesting you look at the sun, that would be STUPID, I WAS STUPID, YOU WOULD BE STUPID, don't do it. ---
Is it okay If I few the solar eclipse through several layers of an antistatic bag?
Solar eclipse tonight? Well, I suppose it's always night somewhere but I get a grin from it anyway... :-)
/*
It's a really great opportunity to expose them to a bit of science, a bit of engineering, and bit of safety training, and a bit of "look, the world is interesting and you don't need a huge pile of money to see that".
I started out with a card with a hole punched in it. That didn't work, so we used a smaller hole. Then we played around with it a bit and discovered that the bigger hole worked if you moved the card farther away from the projection surface.
They got the biggest kick out of my making little crescent shaped sun shadows using my hand as a shadow puppet, though...
It almost didn't happen because of the cloud cover we had over the midwest, but right at the peak of the eclipse it poked out from under a cloud on the horizon. Then I proposed.
For any who're curious to see: I pulled out the binocs, a white sheet of paper and the camera to snap off a few frames of the eclipse as seen from the southern part of San Jose, CA.
The pictures can be found here.
I was in Central PA. The sun sunk below the mountains before it even started. I used a welders shield. I was a bit disappointed as Philly was predicted at 0%, Pittsburgh was at 22% and I'm in the middle so I was think maybe 10%. Damn mountains.
Dude, chill out. I'm sure if you were into this kind of thing you would have known before. They were just letting those of us who would be interested in walking out of their house for a few mins to see it do so, not to inform you so you can throw an eclipse party.
The sun can pass between the Earth and the Moon? That's something I'd be interested in seeing, provided the heat and radiation didn't kill me.
I was on an airline descending into San Diego during the eclipse. The ground had an eerie feeling from above, though the sun was bright as usual. Using the "pinpoint" trick, I could see the eclipsed-shaped sun in its shadow.
When we got on the ground a parking agent was kind enough to lend me their translucent viewer. Sure enough, 40% of the sun was "eaten" by the moon. It's always fun to look at.
Being close, but not close enough to an eclipse at sunset, I wonder if anyone in Phoenix, Tuscon, or Mexico got any cool sunset views or photos during their sunset. Tonight I saw the full sun set an hour after the eclipse and wondered how cool it would be to see an eclipsed sun setting. Anyone? Put your pics online and give us a URL for some surefire moderator points.
-ez
The URL is http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/pv/daylife.html
Legend has it that after Columbus wore out his welcome with the natives in Jamaica, they stopped bringing his crew food, and even jailed a couple of them for improprieties with native girls. Knowing a lunar eclipse was coming, Columbus threatened that his God would destroy the village if they did not release the men and bring his crew food. The natives laughed at this, but Columbus said that his god would show his power by eating their moon that night. After about an hour of the eclipse, Columbus announced that God would return the moon to the sky if the natives promised to bring them food and release the men. Of course, he got what he asked for.
... if you are a Java developer, definitely check out the eclipse, it's better than looking at the sun.
Stupidity is mis-underestimated.
That is the link to the Astronomy Picture of the day, which has since changed.
The ring of fire can be seen here
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Yup. You look at seven, eight or more total eclipses, you might go blind!
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.