PakledHostage

It is all a matter of perspective... I once sailed a sailboat from Maine to Barcelona via the Azores. We were 17 days underway from Maine to Horta and another 14 days from there to Barcelona. I flew home, crossing not just the Atlantic but also the entire North American continent in a little over 20 hours, door to door. Trust me, that flight felt immensely fast.

I saw that same eclipse, but from near Augsburg. That is the only other eclipse that I have seen. What stands out in my memory was how quiet it got during totality. No birds were singing, it was dark, the street lights came on... Then to see the receding umbra passing over the towering cumulus clouds in the distance! Its speed and size was incredible. I remember feeling so profoundly small and I remember saying afterwards that I understood now why eclipses could be so terrifying to ancient people. Everybody, especially space minded people like us here on this forum, should experience at least one in their lifetimes.

I am not sure what to expect when it comes to the eclipse, really? I keep hearing about how everything is booked out and small towns in the eclipse path are worried about being overwhelmed by the expected influx of visitors, but then they can't get 1000 people to volunteer to take pictures? I'm think that I am well enough prepared in the event that there's mayhem, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a non-event.

I remember going to see the original movie in the theaters when I was a boy. The allegorical parallels with nuclear armageddon made it all the more scary for a kid like me who grew up during the cold war. Even so, I'm looking forward to seeing this new series: It took them long enough!

Forgive me but I'm going to bump this thread... They are still looking for more photographers to help out with this citizen science project. You don't need to be an expert photographer or astronomer to participate. You just need to plan on being within the path of totality and to have a DSLR or mirrorless camera, a tripod and at least a 300 mm lens. (ref. https://eclipsemega.movie/faq) They are providing training via online webinars so I expect it will be a great learning opportunity. I am looking forward to my own participation in the project. I have created a script in Eclipse Orchestrator to take the requisite photos at the requisite times so I will be free to enjoy the eclipse while my camera clicks away automatically. Other guys are using Solar Eclipse Maestro and Backyard EOS to automate their photography so there are lots of options for automation. Still others are just going to trigger their camera shutters the old fashioned way.

This video gives a pretty good explanation of how they intend to use the radio telescopes to construct the image.

I agree that a few [change in acceleration with respect to time]s do act selfishly and irresponsibly. I am glad that there are tough new rules in place to give the authorities "teeth" when dealing with those people.

That much is obvious and wasn't my point. Perhaps I should have been more clear, but I was referring to the type of transgression that your typical hobbyist might do with his/her quad rotor: Maybe flying a bit further away or higher than they should while looking at a video downlink, etc, while otherwise staying out of trouble. Flying too close to an airport, having a near miss with an aircraft, crashing in a crowd of people, etc will certainly and quite rightly get you busted.

I did a quick Google search because I was sceptical about the 500 ft value. Aviation regulations tend to be harmonized as much as possible across the developed world by international agreement, and the US and Canada recently reduced the ceiling for operating a drone to 400 feet (120 metres). It turns out that the UK has also followed suit. They also restrict drones to operate below 400 feet, they must remain more than 500 feet away from built up areas and crowds (and may not overfly those areas), and they must remain within unaided visual sight (i.e. no FPV) of the pilot at all times. I think, in general, the authorities will look the other way when it comes to enforcing these kinds of rules, unless you tick off the wrong person that is... And the likelihood of doing that probably increases with the speed/noise of your aircraft.

Because airplanes have stability. Very generally speaking, you trim an airplane in level flight to maintain a given cruising speed by trimming the pitch angle. The interaction of the pitching moments of the wing, fuselage, tail, etc work together to maintain that angle of attack relative to the airflow at that steady state airspeed. Add thrust without touching the trim and the airplane won't speed up but will climb instead. Decrease thrust without touching the trim and it won't slow down but will descend instead. All the while it will maintain the same angle of attack relative to the airflow, and the same indicated airspeed. None of this behavior requires an autopilot; it is just how aircraft are designed to work. Now before someone gets pedantic, there will also be oscillations around the steady state for a range of reasons, but a stable aircraft will behave this way sufficiently well to overcome perturbations and return to the set point. Pitching due rotational inertia as the aircraft flies around the curvature of the earth would only be a very small perturbation, easily overcome by the aircraft's inherent stability.

Thoughts? I liked Steven Colbert's assessment of it:

But we all need to do more than just march... We all need to do our best to educate those around us who may have misconceptions about how science works. People who espouse that "XXX is just a theory!" or that there's a difference between "observational science" and "historical science" need to be set straight. We may not be able to stop the idealogues who perpetuate those ideas for their own dubious reasons, but we may be able to run interference on the people that those idealogues are attempting to con. Ultimately, science is about evidence. Repeatable and independently verifiable evidence. Any rational person should be able to see the beauty in that, given the chance.

It is serious, peaceful and important. Sadly, science does seem to be under threat from ideology. It isn't about politics. Rational thinkers on all parts of the political spectrum, from the left to the right, know that science is a very valuable tool. Idealogues see it as a threat because they don't argue based on facts. There is hope, however. Here in Canada, we have recently emerged from a period where scientists who's research contradicted the ideology of those in power were being muzzled and having their historical data purged from government repositories. Democracy is a wonderful thing. The majority of citizens saw what was happening and rejected it. And again, I don't think the ultimate outcome was about politics. I am confident that the same would have happened if the party in question had been on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

I am using a long camera lens rather than a telescope so my own solution of a threaded camera filter from Thousand Oaks Optical won't work for you. But maybe have a look at what they have to offer for your telescope? They also sell the film that goes into those cardboard eclipse viewing glasses by the square foot so you could use that to make your own filter. Edit: I'll be viewing the eclipse from Oregon or Idaho, depending on the weather and crowds. I've been playing around with Eclipse Orchestator in preparation, which is why I was out taking photos of the Sun this evening. The practice will help me set the right exposures in my Eclipse Orchestator script.

I took some photos of the Sun this evening; just playing around with exposures and the new solar filter that I bought in advance of this summer's eclipse. The image below is cropped from one of the better ones (it has been cropped from the original 20+ megapixel image but not re-sized). According to a SOHO image that I found online, the two sunspots at the lower right are 2651 and 2652. The SOHO image did not identify the other one located closer to the limb, to the left of the main ones. What do you suppose causes the waviness of the limb? I don't think it is a lack of sharpness because the sunspots are reasonably sharp? Is it refraction of light in the Sun's atmosphere?

While astrophotography isn't really my forte, I do occasionally play at being a photographer. I use a TriggerTrap dongle to control my Canon EOS camera via the audio jack on my phone. The app allows you to configure and execute bulb exposures of arbitrary lengths (among other things). Unfortunately TriggerTrap has gone out of business but you might still be able to find their stuff somewhere with the help of Google. Another option may be to make your own serial dongle according to the instructions on this website: http://www.beskeen.com/projects/dslr_serial/dslr_serial.shtml. Edit: I got the link above from the "Eclipse Orchestrator" website (they make software for automating a series of photos during an eclipse). Another serial shutter release option that they list is this one: http://www.store.shoestringastronomy.com/products_ds.htm. My old EOS-M (the original model) can't be triggered remotely even though you can connect to it with Canon's software over USB, but I was able to modify a Canon IR remote so that I could trigger it via an Arduino. That may be yet another option for you?

Ahhh Houston, we've had a problem...

Odd... There must be something in the air. I picked up Railroad Tycoon II on Steam yesterday and spent two hours getting reaquainted with it this evening. I recall liking it better than Railroad Tycoon 3 because you have to assign your train's consist yourself, rather than having the game do it automatically. It adds a level of complexity to optimizing the flow of goods, passengers and commodities around your rail network.

On that topic, there's this TED talk:

And to reiterate, my original statement was intentional hyperbole. Many people (especially in this thread) seem inclined to overstate the significance of SpaceX's achievements while understating the accomplishments of the Shuttle program. Falcon 9's first stage is far, far from orbital when it separates. You just can't compare it's re-entry and landing to that of the space shuttle, full stop. Don't get me wrong, I like watching a SpaceX launch as much as the next guy, but I am not blinded by my fanboyism nor my political ideology.

Rhetorical hyperbole missed?

I didn't say that it was. Please don't put words in my mouth... I said it was a very substantial but still incremental improvement, in so far as they are recovering the first stage. One that is nowhere near orbital when it separates. How SpaceX do that is obviously more impressive and technically challenging than "popping a parachute". It would be stupid to suggest otherwise.

Perhaps, but neither was re-entering something as massive as the shuttle orbiter. As impressive as SpaceX's booster landings are, they are really just an incremental (although fairly substantial) improvement to the SRB recovery system. Bear in mind that something in LEO has to dissipate on the order of 32 megajoules PER KILOGRAM during re-entry while SpaceX's first stage only has to dissipate about 20% of that during its landing.

I don't know if the above video has been posted elsewhere already (it is at least a year old), but I thought I would share it because it puts things into perspective. ANU's rulling out an unknown Neptune sized planet within 350 AU from 90% of the southern sky, doesn't mean much because Dr. Mike Brown's predicted planet 9 is a lot farther out than that.

It is ugly as sin?... It's the 747's DUFF.