2024 Total Solar Eclipse

[Sal1950]

What Were the Red Dots around the Total Solar Eclipse?

During the total solar eclipse, skywatchers saw ruby-colored prominences sticking out of the moon's shadow. Here's the science of those red dots

www.scientificamerican.com

Alien space ships, everyone knows that!

 

[Zgrado1970]

I traveled to southern Illinois near Carbondale, and got a full 4 + minutes of totality. It was very strange - the temperature cooled noticeably, the birds and dogs were freaking out, and it became dusk almost instantly for those 4 minutes. I confess that after about 3 minutes, I felt a twinge of anxiety about the sun coming back, and tried to put myself in the shoes of a pre-modern person.

 

[sejarzo]

I traveled to southern Illinois near Carbondale, and got a full 4 + minutes of totality. It was very strange - the temperature cooled noticeably, the birds and dogs were freaking out, and it became dusk almost instantly for those 4 minutes. I confess that after about 3 minutes, I felt a twinge of anxiety about the sun coming back, and tried to put myself in the shoes of a pre-modern person.

I have a friend who's only seen 90% totality and had the "so what, totally predictable natural phenomenon, happens every year, why bother?" attitude toward this one. I told him that the only reason he could have that attitude is that a few of the ancients didn't simply get scared utterly sh*tless and tried to figure out what was really going on, and in the end were amazingly successful in their calculations, given their tools. It's the experience of totality that's important, not merely that it happens. It's just like saying "I've seen pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, YouTubes of much of Paris, and there's a great French restaurant here in town. Why should I bother actually going there?"

 

[sejarzo]

Solar radiation graph, Indianapolis. Bottomed out at 1.3 W/m^2, which is typical for 1 minute after sunrise, but less than 2-3 minutes after sunrise on a clear day.

For reference, eclipse started at 1:59PM, totality at 3:06. Those dips from an intermittent heavy cloud layer just after noon and before 1 PM had us worried.

 

[JSmith]

amazingly successful in their calculations, given their tools

Very much so, you'll like this;

JSmith

 

[Sal1950]

I traveled to southern Illinois near Carbondale, and got a full 4 + minutes of totality. It was very strange - the temperature cooled noticeably, the birds and dogs were freaking out, and it became dusk almost instantly for those 4 minutes. I confess that after about 3 minutes, I felt a twinge of anxiety about the sun coming back, and tried to put myself in the shoes of a pre-modern person.

It's the end of the world.
Someone is guilty of angering the Gods
Run for your life.

 

[IAtaman]

I looked at the partial eclipse here, and the sun certainly looked small through the dark flat "lens", seemingly much smaller than the moon appears in the night sky on its own.

Found a good enough reason to live to be 92+ though, a future total eclipse will run through my nieghborhood in 2045.

1200 miles one-way was a bit far to travel for a 4 minute show.

View attachment 362376

Next Total Solar Eclipse​

Not visible before the year 2200

I gotta find a way to to live beyond 200. Or go to Spain in two years.

Solar eclipse of August 12, 2026 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[sejarzo]

I looked at the partial eclipse here, and the sun certainly looked small through the dark flat "lens", seemingly much smaller than the moon appears in the night sky on its own.

The sun and moon are roughly the same diameter, visually speaking, from Earth.

I was into astronomy for a few years until my cataracts got bad, and then the replacement surgery didn't go so well. But when I asked the other members about buying a solar filter for my 8" reflector and which eyepiece to use, they told me that the sun would appear virtually the same diameter as the moon in any given eyepiece.

The perceived large diameter of either near the horizon is an illusion based on the proximity to other objects. So when you see only the sun through eclipse glasses, there is indeed nothing else visible near it--hence it looks quite small, but that's the actual diameter!

The Moon Illusion: Why Does the Moon Look So Big Sometimes?

Why does the Moon look so big when it's rising or setting? The Moon illusion is the name for this trick our brains play on us.

science.nasa.gov

 

[JSmith]

I gotta find a way to to live beyond 200. Or go to Spain in two years.

... or travel downunder in 2028.

Australia's next total solar eclipse will be on July 22, 2028

JSmith

 

[SS55]

Tbh not surprised...

 

[rdenney]

A couple of mine, still a work in progress. I'm thinking of one of the usual variations on one of the usual arrangements of various phases of the event with these two plus two or three others. These aren't much different from others, except that they’re mine.

Camera was a Pentax 645Z, Pentax 400mm ED telephoto and Pentax SMC-A 1.4 teleconverter. The outer corona was obscured by high, thin clouds. Attempting to raise the exposure to see the outer corona, just washed everything out. But exposing only for the inner corona also revealed the prominences, which was a pretty good tradeoff.

For exposing the full sun, I used a 20-stop neutral-density filter on the front of the lens, but the diamond ring shot above was right before I put it back on after totality.

Rick "no photo can do it justice" Denney

 

[Chromatischism]

Camera was a Pentax 645Z, Pentax 400mm ED telephoto and Pentax SMC-A 1.4 teleconverter. The outer corona was obscured by high, thin clouds. Attempting to raise the expose to see the outer corona, just washed everything out. But exposing only for the inner corona also revealed the prominences, which was a pretty good tradeoff.

I think you did good.

The trick is stacking multiple exposures to reveal everything. But beware. My Photoshop eclipse file is 1.2 gigs and crashes my system if I have too many other programs open at the same time. Memory use is an exponent of the file size once open and unpacked. I've seen it using 16 gigs.

 

[JSmith]

View from the international space station;

Station Orbits into Eclipse, Crew Works Research and Spacesuits

The International Space Station soared into the Moon’s shadow during the solar eclipse on Monday afternoon. The Expedition 71 crew members had an opportunity to view the shadow at the end of their workday filled with cargo transfers, spacesuit maintenance, and microgravity research.

t.co

https://x.com/Space_Station/status/1777429979577622974

JSmith