The Great Eclipse – Part 2 – What is the “Best” Place to See the Eclipse?

On August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the sun will be visible in 14 states. More precisely, it will be visible in portions of these 14 states. Furthermore, some places will be better than others. Let’s try a few locations, using an interactive map from the NASA website:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle2001/SE2017Aug21Tgoogle.html

By clicking on any place on the map, a table of statistics pops up. Right now, the important figure is: “Duration of Totality”. Click on Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is close to Nashville, Tennessee. Note that the duration of totality will be approximately one minute. Next, try a location near the red line above Nashville. You will find that totality is much longer here, over 2-1/2 minutes. For the place with the longest possible totality, click on the purple balloon marked “GD” (greatest duration). For this location, the total portion of the eclipse will be 2 minutes, 40.2 seconds. For the longest look at the total eclipse, this is the “best” place to be. All other places will have shorter times of totality.

In summary, one must be between the purple lines to view a total eclipse, and the closer to the red line, the longer it will be visible. Finally, click on a location outside the purple lines, like Cincinnati or Louisville. The pop-up indicates that the eclipse will be partial, not total.

The word “best” can be misleading. For this eclipse, the location with the “Greatest Duration” is a wooded area, so viewing the eclipse may be difficult, if not impossible! Fortunately, there are many locations which have a very long duration of totality. To find them, click on places on the red line.

In addition to duration of totality, your “best” location will depend on many things, like how far you can travel, weather, and lodging. Above all, traffic jams must be avoided. Millions of people will be interested in this event, but the roads can’t handle all of them at once!

I have booked a motel room in Western Missouri, close to the “red line”. This location is reasonably close to our home in Michigan, and has a good history of clear skies in August. As I plan, I may find a better place, but I have a good “fallback” location.

Enjoy your planning!

John

September 18, 2016 0

The Coast-to-Coast Eclipse

Of all the things one can see in the sky, the Total Eclipse of the Sun has the reputation of being the most spectacular. In this event, day turns into night as the Moon covers the bright part of the Sun. During this time, the outer region of the Sun, called the Corona, is visible. Unfortunately, a Total Solar Eclipses is visible only to people on a narrow strip of land. For the rest of the world, the Sun is covered only partially, or not at all.

Fortunately, residents of the continental United States will soon have a chance to see a Total Eclipse of the Sun without making a long journey. On Monday, August 21, 2017, a Total Eclipse will be visible in 14 states.

Back in 1963, a Total Eclipse was visible in Canada and upper New England. At my home in New Jersey, the Sun was partially covered (called a Partial Eclipse). This photo shows how we used our home-built telescope to project the image of the eclipsed Sun onto a piece of paper. This is one of the safe ways to view an eclipse.

Now – 54 years later – I am starting to make plans to see “the big one”. There is so much to say, so I have included links to some very good sources of information.

One closing thought: “Eclipse Glasses” are a good tool for safe observing. They are inexpensive, and will be useful all over the country. So, they would make good Christmas presents!

John

http://eclipses.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2017/TSE2017.html

http://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/eclipse-2017/

http://www.eclipse2017.org/

August 29, 2016 0

My First blog post

Greetings! I would like to start by thanking you for your patience with my lack of experience with on-line publishing. Let’s see if I can get going without too many mishaps!

I usually enjoy astronomy when I am looking up into the sky. However, interesting things can be found by looking at the ground! A year ago, as my wife and I were on an afternoon walk, our shadows looked strange. I was surprised to see how long they were and how well they lined up with the road direction.

Here’s the situation: We were out just before sunset on the first day of Autumn. We were walking Eastward on an East-West road. On the first day of Autumn, sunset is exactly in the West. So our shadows were a couple of hundred feet long, without going off the road.

Notice that our shadows are veering to the left. Since the Sun was still a little bit above the horizon, it wasn’t exactly in the West. It was a tiny bit to the South. Therefore, our shadows were pointing a tiny bit to the North.

I will back again soon!

lookin’ up,

John

August 28, 2016 0