Solar eclipse... do you have plans???

Plans. Nope. No plans here. No eclipse here unless maybe a partial. Looks like L.A. is not in the path of the annular eclipse, so just a partial. I'd like to see a total, but there won't be one that I can get to in my lifetime. When I lived in N.D. there was one a couple of hundred miles from me, but my car was not reliable enough, an old CJ5 Jeep that broke down all the time.

Edit: Here's what you need:

Solar Telescope.

 

Heading north from Sedona to Flagstaff. Should be almost "total" from there.

Richard

 

^ Should be amazing. But it's an annular, not a total eclipse.

 

It will be after sunset here, which takes most of the fun out of solar eclipses.
My wife will be in Roswell NM, where it will happen at sunset.

 

Should be at it fullest in about 9 min here... not all that dark but it is completely overcast today.

 

A total solar eclipse is the singularly most awesome experience of my life. I have see dozens of partials over the year, but the 100% total I saw in the late 70s was amazing! The difference between 99% and 100% is literally day,, and night!

We were ithe desert in E. Wasnington over looking the Columbia River, near where "the gorge" is today, smack dab in the center of totality! As the sky began to darken, the birds started acting very strange, the coyotes began to howl, and as the sun disappeared, it was as if one reached up and pulled a chain, and out when the sun! The stars were out, but in a completly foreign orientation, but off in the far northern horizon, perhaps 100 miles away you could see broad daylight, and since we were in the middle, off to the southern horizon, equally far away, more daylight, but we were in total darkness! As the sun cam back, we could watch the sun racing down the cliffs of the river towards us, faster than you can imagine, and in a blink,, on came the sun!

It was truly an amazing experince. It is no wonder the ancients spent time figuring eclipses out, since if you didn't know it was coming, it would be terrifying.
I suggest than everyone who can, travel to the center of totality, where the weather is most likely to be clear, and book your time off, and your room there for the up coming total, in 2017!

Icarus

 

The 70s eh?

 

Feb 26,1979 to be exact. And no, there were no mind altering substances at all. Nature is an amazing artist, if we just look. If you haven't experienced one, you can't really understand.

Icarus

 

Saturday night my wife and I went to the LA Coliseum, and watched Roger Waters do "The Wall", great show, started 45 min late, Boo....
Tonight we watched the Solar repeat, I grabbed my welding helmet, gave it to the wife.
All she could say was "COOL"

 

I've watched a total, but this one won't be any good this far east and north. Besides that it clouded up by mid afternoon.

Tom

 

We had no view in D.C.
However, hold onto your safe-viewing solar equipment for the June 6 Venus Transit last one until 2117.

 

That would be the one I missed because it was too far away for my very unreliable car. But in retrospect I wish I had found a way, or risked it. I made a pin-hole viewer and saw the partial. It was the second partial I've seen. The first was with my father when I was a child, when at our location maybe 1/4 of the sun's disk was covered.

The path of the 2017 eclipse doesn't look like it passes through any place where the weather is reliably clear, meaning that it's going to be a crap shoot wherever you go unless you're able to make your plans on short enough time that you can get weather reports.

Maybe Eastern Oregon for those of us in the west? I'd have to cut my summer hiking short, but maybe in five years I won't be able to hike so much anyway.

 

Since it was near sunset, the low clouds started blowing in from the ocean right on cue - typical for this time of year in Southern CA.

In a way it helped though. The eclipsed sun was often visible through the clouds and therefore not blindingly bright.

It was the 3rd partial eclipse I've seen. What I missed compared to the past ones is that I didn't really notice the sky and ground darkening, since it was getting dark anyways due to the nearing sunset and the weather.