I forgot that weekend is the end of the balloon festival. Hotels in ABQ are sold out or pricey, so I got a hotel in Roswell. Will spend some time in the mountains west of there on the way in/out.
I wish I’d been where I am now for the 2017 eclipse, instead of Charleston SC. It was only a partial eclipse in Eugene, but one of extremely high occultation on the order of 98% or so. Even during annularity, next month’s eclipse will have a slightly lower magnitude.
Using a newly taken photo of the sun and an existing moonrise photo, I cobbled together a half-assed simulation:
Ring of fire eclipse. I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen any detail of the Moon captured during one, yet with the right filters you may be able to capture some prominences or sunspots (like you could any day really).
Here’s an augmented reality app that might be of some use (I’ve not used it)
90% is about as low coverage as an annular eclipse can get nowadays. In a mere 600 million to 1.2 billion years (not sure why that can’t be narrowed down a bit more) all eclipses will be annular.
BTW, Bullitt, that’s a really nice pic of the diamond ring effect.
Here’s one taken from the Apollo 12 spacecraft in 1969:
Apollo 12 eclipse
(I seem to be unable to post media so a link will have to do)
Oh and a slight correction: In the Apollo 12 photo the black thing obscuring the Sun is the Earth which actually makes much more sense. I’m sure none of the Apollo missions went to the Moon when it was anywhere in line with the Sun.
Alan Bean described it as the most spectacular sight of the mission which says a lot considering he’d just stood on the Moon!
(and of course another correction: “all eclipses will be annular” should be center-line eclipses)
Such is the tradeoff when when the previous full moon will be yet another supermoon, meaning the new moon will be farther away. However, based on my previous experience with partial eclipses, we can expect to to see noticeable darkening of the landscape, as well as the ring of fire itself. This eclipse will be about magnitude .95, which does mean about 90% obscuration.
Annular eclipses can go even lower. For the upcoming eclipse, the apparent diameters of the sun and moon are 32.0 and 30.4 arcmin trspextively, hence the .95. That amount squared gives the obscuration. If Earth were at perihelion, all else being equal, the sun’s apparent diameter would be 32.5 arcmin, giving a magnitude of ~.935 and obscuration of ~.87.
I’ve picked up sunspots using a 300mm lens, like this:
But I’m not sure I want to try for a detailed shot. It’s difficult to get that type of shot right and I don’t want miss out on actually watching the ecliose while trying to adjust the camera. I’m leaning more towards using a 50mm lens and and interval shooting to get a series of exposures about a minute apart, as the sun moves across the camera’s field of vision.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll be in Monument Valley and will be sure to have a clear line of sight to the horizon.
That’s pretty much impossible. To shoot the sun you have to use a filter that that’s opaque to any weaker light source, othewise you’ll just get a blown out image and damage the camera sensor to boot.
Aye, even during a total the corona would likely outshine any detail as well. Your mock-up above had me thinking about it.
If I may mention a total lunar from about 30 years ago - it was after at least a couple volcanoes had recently blown. This one was fairly center line and the Moon just about vanished. As it’s often said, the reddish colour of the Moon during a lunar is “all the sunsets of the world” shining on it. Not so much this one - definitely the darkest lunar I’ve seen. Stars were out, you could even see Andromeda yet if you looked away it took a moment to find the Moon again.
This was long before the media called every lunar eclipse a “blood moon” - and we did have a “super blood blue moon” about five or so years ago.
I recently got this in an email, IIRC, but now I don’t remember where it came from. I liked the photo so I downloaded it. It’s pretty cool. Have any of you seen this?
What a delightful description.
Certainly have seen pics like it before. NASA has a page with a similar pic (including a prominence at least one Earth could fit inside) with photo attribution. Of course it’s processed from multiple images.
Yes it is indeed. And of course it includes “sunrises & sunsets of the world” Sounds like something Carl Sagan would have written or said yet I couldn’t find any attribution to the quote. For all I can tell Plato, Aristotle, Socrates or one of those other morons said it first.
That was a nice photo @Coriolanus, but it’s now gone. Glad I saw it when you posted that. Thanks for that.
In Navajo culture, an eclipse is a new beginning. “Jóhonaa’éí daaztsą́”, Navajo for a solar eclipse, means “the death of the sun” according to Navajo traditional teachings.
But…
All Navajo Tribal Parks will be closed for the upcoming solar eclipse.
I’ll be staying at Monument Valley but will not be within the tribal parks. I might head over to Mexican Hat.
Hubs left yesterday driving to New Mexico to see the hot air balloon fest and the eclipse. He’s going to stay with a college buddy who lives in Corrales.
My mom wanted to go to Roswell just because. She wasn’t into aliens, but still thought the kitschy aspect would be fun. We never got to it before she passed. Maybe someday I should just take off and go there in her memory. Isn’t there a statue of Robert Goddard there?
This annular eclipse won’t be coming near me, drat!
I once saw a total eclipse from my parents’ backyard. Apparently it was close to being the longest period of totality for that eclipse.
One thing that struck me at the time, which I’ve not seen described in accounts of total eclipses - looking out across to the horizon, I could see where it was light, off in the distance. The divisor between the dark, shadowed area and the light area was a pink line.
The total one I watched had a marked drop in temperature; it was late winter/early spring in southern Saskatchewan, and it got cold quickly. I think that the pink line I mentioned above was on the edge of the cloud cover that formed.
I was in western Idaho for the August 2017 eclipse, and it got noticeably cold. It was a fantastic experience.
My wife and I hit the road yesterday. We’re headed to Monument Valley. But…
From this article: Due to Navajo cultural beliefs about eclipses, all Navajo Tribal Parks will be closed during the eclipse.
“In Navajo culture, an eclipse is a new beginning. The Navajo word for a solar eclipse jóhonaa’éí daaztsą́ means “the death of the sun” according to Navajo Traditional Teachings. During a solar eclipse, many Navajo people will remain inside, fasting and praying. When the sun returns, it’s considered a new birth and a recognized time to make resolutions. You can read more about the Navajo knowledge of the cosmos with these insightful resources from the
Exploratorium (Navajo Knowledge of the Cosmos)
The way I would read that is that the 17-mile loop drive is certainly closed. But I don’t know about highway 163. It’s all part of the Navajo Nation, but I’m not sure what they designate Navajo Tribal Park.
It’s sometimes difficult to figure out which Navajo office sets the rules for a given area, but probably the front desk at the Hilton in Kayenta would know if 163 is closing.
It looks like I’ll be in the wrong place again, dammit!
The third time’s not the charm.
Still, the forecast changes from daybtobday, so you never know.