Solar Eclipse today 8/21/17

[omigeo]

Nice one. That's what I wanted to see but couldn't of course

[Hellboy]

Eclipse was great here. The only thing that sucked was the millions of tourists who flooded our city.

[omigeo]

That's great Hell, you were at its totality

[Hellboy]

Originally Posted by omigeo

That's great Hell, you were at its totality

Pretty close to totality but not 100%. I think it was around 96% in Portland. You'd have to drive 20 min. South of me to McMinnville to reach totality but I wasn't about to brave the commute for such a minor difference given the amount of eclipse travelers out there. Regardless it was pretty awesome. I think I was more impressed with the 20-25 degree temperature drop than it going dark. It was all a bit eerie.

[OrangeCrush]

I was around 80% totality, but it was an absolutely spectacular event to view through my Lunt solar telescope. In all honestly, it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, even if it was only 80%. Words really don't do it any justice. Unfortunately, I am still in the process of saving for a quality digital back and the proper blocking filter for taking pictures (basically another $11,000 in purchases) so I wasnt able to take any pictures with it. Am hoping to have both by the beginning of 2018. All the statues I purchased last year from Sideshow certainly didnt help!!

Fortunately, it was partly cloudy at the time of the eclipse so I was able to get both perfectly clear views of it through my solar telescope and I was able to take a few pictures of it with my tiny Canon G-10 when clouds partly blocked it. Here is a pic I took that basically shows totality of the ecliipse from Southeastern Michigan.



Certainly not the best of images, but that's about as good as your going to get with a Canon G-10 with its short zoom lens. All in all, the eclipse was one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed thanks to Lunt. Their telescopes may be crazy expensive, but they are so worth every penny.

[omigeo]

Originally Posted by OrangeCrush

I was around 80% totality, but it was an absolutely spectacular event to view through my Lunt solar telescope. In all honestly, it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, even if it was only 80%. Words really don't do it any justice. Unfortunately, I am still in the process of saving for a quality digital back and the proper blocking filter for taking pictures (basically another $11,000 in purchases) so I wasnt able to take any pictures with it. Am hoping to have both by the beginning of 2018. All the statues I purchased last year from Sideshow certainly didnt help!!

Fortunately, it was partly cloudy at the time of the eclipse so I was able to get both perfectly clear views of it through my solar telescope and I was able to take a few pictures of it with my tiny Canon G-10 when clouds partly blocked it. Here is a pic I took that basically shows totality of the ecliipse from Southeastern Michigan.



Certainly not the best of images, but that's about as good as your going to get with a Canon G-10 with its short zoom lens. All in all, the eclipse was one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed thanks to Lunt. Their telescopes may be crazy expensive, but they are so worth every penny.

Thanks orange for sharing. I think it looks spectacular

[Hellboy]

Cool pic. Guess the cloud cover worked to your advantage in this case.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by omigeo

Thanks orange for sharing. I think it looks spectacular

Much appreciated, glad you enjoyed it!

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Cool pic. Guess the cloud cover worked to your advantage in this case.

Yeah, eclipses are a total crapshoot depending on weather and while I wasn't fortunate enough to be in a place with 100% totality, I was fortunate to have the absolute perfect weather for both taking a few pictures and seeing the eclipse in a perfectly clear sky. So no complaints from me whatsoever.

I am a HUGE astronomy junkie and read and watch just about everything I can get my hands on regarding Astronomy, Cosmology, and Physics. Some of the stories of early astronomers and the lengths they went to in order to see eclipses and transitions of planets across the surface of the sun are nothing short of mind blowing. Many took very long, dangerous, and VERY expensive journeys only to miss the eclipse or transition due to cloud cover. Read up on the story of French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil and what he went though to try and take very accurate measurements of the transition of Venus across the surface of the Sun (in order to refine the measurement of the Astronomical Unit), which was going to be occurring twice in an 8 year period, first on 1761 and again in 1769. He basically travelled a very long distance only to miss the one in 1761 due to being on a ship. It was a clear day but it was impossible to take accurate measurements on a moving ship and he was so determined to make the measurement, he decided to wait the 8 years in the region he had travelled too. He spent much of those 8 years mapping the coast of Madagascar and he even built an observatory in preparation for this transit. And when June 4th, 1769 finally arrived, it turned out to be the only cloudy day in weeks and he completely missed the transit. One can only imagine that level of determination and ultimately disappointment. What makes this story 100 times worse is he finally was able to return home in 1771 aboard a Spanish ship. He arrived in Paris in October of 1771 only to discover that he had been declared legally dead, his wife had remarried, his relatives had sold his entire estate, and he had lost his position in the Royal Academy of Sciences. In the book I read this in, it said this at the end of that description of his trip:

"This must surely have been the moment for which the phrase "For F*cks Sake!" was invented", lol.

He was reinstated in the Royal Academy of Sciences, remarried and it said he lived happily for another 20 years. So at least he had a happy ending, but that is really a perfect example of the lengths some of these scientists went to in order to see eclipses and transitions of planets. So if anyone in here was fortunate enough to see the eclipse, even if it wasnt a total ecipse, just be thankful, lol.