Eclipse plan

after all the build up, i had not heard, but we weren't in the path of totality

 

I wasn't originally (staying home) but got convinced on Reddit to go see the total as they said it's worth it and, you know what, I agree, I'm glad I did these 95 km (some in heavy traffic as I wasn't alone lol). Seeing the sun's corona, even for just a minute with my own eyes is something quite unique.

 

My Google Pixel auto-'corrected' my corona shots in a really disappointing way.

It made the black central disc brilliant white again. My shots look more or less as if I pulled the phone out at random yesterday or tomorrow and took a pic of the sun in the sky.

It's like there is an automatic eclipse censor, or memory-hole, built in. No, you weren't there. There was no eclipse. Are you feeling ok? That's the ordinary sun on an ordinary day.

 

Yeah, when I tried to take a picture with my Pixel phone with my eclipse glasses over the lense, it's as if the moon wasn't in front, even if most of the sun was covered! Same when it was the total eclipse without the glasses over the lense! It's all a conspiration! Lol This is what the total eclipse looked like according to my phone lol

 

Those who traveled to centerline are not yet returned I imagine. Safe home. Hoping to see images on Priuschat.

Being on wrong earthside, I arose at 1:40 AM local for internet coverage of which NASA was not on (blocked) yootube. They had telescopes and talkers from Mazatlan to Maine. Clouds spoiled only Hill Country TX and Niagara falls among their sites. This means final cloud free was most of the swath. This one turned out excellently.

It is a tradition among viewers to say "Wow, where is next one? I'm going". Gotcha covered.

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEplot/SEplot2001/SE2027Aug02T.GIF

Upside is that it will exceed 10 minutes of totality. Readers now know it means moon will be very close to earth. Never closer I imagine.

Downside is travel to N Africa (Egypt might be most convenient) in August; hot times in that desert.

Second upside is, forget about cloud blocks.

 

In an 'ideal' world, it would have extremely high dynamic range optics and sensor, so that it could see 'the man in the moon' details on the earth-facing side of the moon lit up by Earth-shine, and auto-adjust the exposure in the center to show that lunar detail, alongside the solar corona.

I have seen beautiful images of this sort, but they required vastly more expensive optics than any smartphone , multiple exposures at very different exposure settings, and careful post-processing.

 

I traveled about an hour and three quarters each way. I've been home for a while.

I invested considerable effort in picking a spot I didn't think many other people would, and roads to get there I didn't think many other people would use. The route planning worked out splendidly; the roads were nearly vacant for the morning drive. Returning, only two small spots presented slowdowns. Indiana 28, running east-west, takes a short jog on 421 going north from Indianapolis, and that took several minutes to get through, but was all clear once on 28 again past the jog. And officers were out directing traffic in Frankfort, which worked, and kept things moving smoothly. The one other slowdown appeared to be an accident site.

Some of the people who had independently chosen the same viewing site I did were a Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project team from Montana State. I believe this feed should be from a balloon assembled, inflated, and released while I watched:

The ten minutes of interest (from the 4+ hour stream) begin at 2 hours 46 minutes.

 

???

That linked item shows 6 minutes, 22.6 seconds. A bit short of 10 minutes.

Some online sources indicate that the longest possible total solar eclipse is about 7.5 minutes, while an annular eclipse can reach about 12.5 minutes.

 

Many eclipses ago, the Concorde was used to follow the path of the moon and that eclipse lasted a whopping 74 minutes!

How the supersonic Concorde jet broke the record for the longest total solar eclipse in history | Space

 

Saw the first contact, then the clouds made it extra dark...

 

Yeah, that's about what my shots look like. You'd look at them and almost think "ordinary daytime shot".

Only in mine you can spot Venus, up there below and right of the sun, in that otherwise "daytime"-looking sky. It's about the only real giveaway that the shot isn't just what it seems.

Looks like she couldn't peek through the clouds where you were.

 

I heard a performance on Palm Sunday (I knew some people singing in it) of a portion of Lamb of God by Rob Gardner. The "Gethsemane" movement has an orchestral and choral crescendo that builds and builds and builds and then stops very abruptly ...

... at which exact point, the young child seated behind me asked, in a room-filling child voice, "why did it turn off"?

Because of course music all comes from little boxes now.

[Neat idea Rob Gardner used in this piece: there is no singer cast as Christ. Necessary words of Christ are covered by the narrators, but Christ himself is the cello.]

 

should have tried an SR71. They could have stretched it to as long as the plane could go between mid-air refuelings. At the 'slower' speed of the eclipse shadow, the craft should get better miles feet per gallon than at outrun-the-missiles speed.

 

Six and 22 it is then.

 

It would be hard to cram the equipment and scientists in a SR71 though

 

It should have plenty of room for high resolution photographic equipment. Unfortunately, the optical bays and windows would be pointing down, not up.

 

You just need Maverick to fly the plane