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What are your plans for the solar eclipse?

GoSlash27

By GoSlash27
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razark

razark

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Tomorrow morning, my father is stopping by with a rented van to pick up myself and my two youngest children.  An hour and a half drive later, we're stopping to pick up my two eldest children from my ex-wife.

Friday puts us at Mammoth Cave and Fort Knox.

On Saturday, we'll drive and spend some time at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

On Sunday, we'll spend some more time at the NMofUSAF, and then head to the birthplace of HAL 9000 (also where my sister lives) at Urbana, Illinois.

Monday, we'll be fighting the hordes of people heading south to the area of totality (Death to the evil Daystar!  Death, I say! Hurrah for the wolf that devours the sun!).  Gods forbid that it should be cloudy.

Monday afternoon and Tuesday will be spent driving back to Houston.

 

 

23 hours ago, Confused Scientist said:

Don't worry- my first school assignment is to bring in a cereal box to make a eclipse viewer.

That's good.

My kids' school district starts classes on the day of the eclipse.  They've sent out notices that they have not only purchased enough viewing glasses to cover the district, but that they're not the fake ones.

 

To any school-age kids that are stuck inside:

Your future doesn't depend on school!  Whatever they may try to do to you is worth it to see the sun disappear!

Edited by razark
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YNM

YNM

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On 8/16/2017 at 8:28 AM, Confused Scientist said:

Not even sure if my school will let us go outside when the eclipse starts. And I give it a 25 percent chance it's cloudy anyway. Even if it's not, it's still only a ~70% eclipse where I live.

 

On 8/16/2017 at 10:50 AM, Confused Scientist said:

Don't worry- my first school assignment is to bring in a cereal box to make a eclipse viewer.

If you want to see something more cute, just watch the tree shadows. I felt funny seeing them.

Or you could take a photo of the Sun near-directly - the sun artifact will be a crescent as well.

Seriously, even without any instrument, you can easily enjoy partial eclipses higher than 60%.

Edited by YNM
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Green Baron

Green Baron

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I just realized that the sun will be ~40% occluded when it sets here.

Looks like lots of dust in the air the next days, maybe the horizon isn't even visible, but if it is i'll take some photos and leave the rest to those more fortunate ... :-)

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Whirligig Girl

Whirligig Girl

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I'll be going on an expedition with my school's Stellar Society (astronomy club) to South Carolina (From NC), with two spotting scopes, two H-alpha filter scopes, two motorized telescopes, two "sunspotter" devices, and a few tied-down filter glasses for the crowds. Got to get up at 3:00 AM to get to Newberry in time. We expect to get there by 9 or 10, using backroads and such to avoid traffic. Shortly before totality we'll bring a few of the telescopes a block over to the library we're based at, so that my AST-251 Observational Astronomy class (separate but integrated with the club) can look at totality with #nofilter. We of course have to make sure we are prompt in our observations and can not make them during actual totality, because if we are looking at a telescope when Baily's Beads show up then our eyes are finished.

We'll be riding in a van and not a train, but obviously it's a Hype Van.

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YNM

YNM

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50 minutes ago, RoadRunnerAerospace said:

Well, i`m going to freak out... Saying as this is a once in a (millennia?) experience, take 15,000 pictures... from my backyard, looking at a 90% covered sun

You westerners can always fly somewhere to get another one.

90% won't make the sky dark, but it'll be colder. And the tree shadows are going to look nice.

--------

In related news : Why's eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov not showing up, instead redirected to tomorrow's eclipse site ? I want to see when eclipses comes near enough to my place again...

Edited by YNM
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Bill Phil

Bill Phil

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1 hour ago, RoadRunnerAerospace said:

Well, i`m going to freak out... Saying as this is a once in a (millennia?) experience, take 15,000 pictures... from my backyard, looking at a 90% covered sun

The only reason this one is special is its path. There'll be another eclipse in North America in 2024. Not through just the US, though. Canada and Mexico. 

Eclipses are common. What makes them special is where the umbra falls.

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Cydonian Monk

Cydonian Monk

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Was traffic heavy today in Utah and Wyoming? I have no idea. Compared to my normal Houston commute it seemed to be sparse to no traffic. Locals were describing it as "bumper to bumper." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Everybody seems to be a tad bit on edge, so..... Eclipsepocalypse? We'll see. Or not see. All I know is I'm driving north through Casper, Wyoming tomorrow, and don't really expect to have any issues once I'm on the north side of the totality.

Forecast in both of my target destinations is calling for Scattered Thunderstorms, so I might just get to watch a lightning storm in the dark. Nothing wrong with that at all, provided I don't get flooded into a corner. There's always 2024 if I miss the interesting parts of this one.

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YNM

YNM

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37 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

I'm on the other side of the Atlantic :( 

You should've go there if you could !

But I think some of the eclipses in other times will come closer to European mainland than US.

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qzgy

qzgy

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Going to go drive to probably the western Kentucky area starting tommorow with an overnight halt somewhere along the way. (Almost 13 or so hour drive from NJ)

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tater

tater

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My wife has cases she couldn't move (well, she could, but doesn't want people to have to keep their cancer some extra days). I either drive north with the kids for 20 hours solo, or stay home. Guess I'm staying home. I'm going to plan ahead for 2024 (which is about exactly the same distance away as this one for me).

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tater

tater

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Staying home in ABQ, not at my house. I can travel with less concern than my wife who is scheduled many weeks in advance (surgeon).

We had talked about driving up, and keeping the kids out of school for a day, but the return drive will all the "fireworks are over" traffic from Wyo to Denver in particular would be awful, I think. ~10 hour drive each way, and the return with stops for food, plus traffic likely closer to 12-14.

I certainly can't do a straight drive and back at this point safely, and even if we left yesterday, I'd be pretty beat trying to drive back by myself.

Edited by tater
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