Ship of Fools: Eclipse

Thread: Eclipse Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

The media is full of Eclipse Mania just now. The actuality is that the skies are covered in unbroken cloud so we're not exactly going to see a lot of it. Most of us here won't live to see the next in 75 years' time.

The last eclipse about a decade ago was the first real one that I'd seen. The birds shut up as an eerie sort of moonlight spread across the city, and the world went very quiet, except for some bloke in the distance shouting "The end of the world is nigh" from a rooftop. It was all quite impressive.

So - thoughts on today's stellar event? Any interesting anecdotes about previous ones? Did you ever try photographing an eclipse?

Posted by nobody but me (# 18084) on :

I have rarely had so much fun NOT finding something in the shops. A comically large proportion if shoppers on Thursday were unsuccessfully hunting for eclipse viewing glasses and so were exchanging tips for alternatives. A good time was had by all. Looking unlikely to need them. My six year old might get rather disappointed. Last time around I was walking in the north if Sweden. The birds fell quiet and it was sort of eerie for a few minutes. And as I did not know I was supposed to use special glasses my eyes did not know to sustain any damage....

Posted by M. (# 3291) on :

Thick cloud cover here too. My memory of the last eclipse is not so impressive, Ariel. We all piled out of the office with our special glasses and waited while it - err - got a bit dim.

After a few minutes of hanging around and saying 'It's not quite what I was expecting', we went back into the offce.

M.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

The last one was awesome - we have a pinhole camera type of apparatus to view it. And it deed feel like an early twilight - weird.

This time, there is cloud cover, but just a hint of a possible break, so I will have to see. The light levels will drop anyway, so you will notice it.

And I fully expect to live to 130 to see the next one....

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

That was stunning - the clouds meant that we could see the eclipse without protection, but we did get a full, proper Cheshire Cat smile.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The last one was awesome - we have a pinhole camera type of apparatus to view it. And it deed feel like an early twilight - weird.

This time, there is cloud cover, but just a hint of a possible break, so I will have to see. The light levels will drop anyway, so you will notice it.

And I fully expect to live to 130 to see the next one....

Speaking of the pin-hole thing... the last time I saw a partial eclipse I was outside under some leafed-out trees and the shadows of the foliage formed scads of round, little eclipse images all over the pavement around me. Awesome!

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :

Rather annoyed that a lot of people are claiming this fake as a picture of the eclipse taken from the International Space Station.

In 1999, I was on top of Dunstable Downs and we had a pretty good view of the partial eclipse. We used my Mum's birdwatching telescope to project the image onto some white card. We wiped the dust off the card, but some wouldn't shift. It turned out we were trying to brush away some sunspots! [brick wall]

It had also been a warm day, but nobody had twigged that it would get quite cold.

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

Here the cloudy sky got vaguely darker and it felt much colder - nothing to see. Zadok's astronomy GCSE club had an extra-curricula meeting and his school was also organising a provisional general viewing but I doubt it happened due to thick cloud here.
I had a clear view of the full eclipse in Northern France in 1999. We were on a cliff looking out to sea and it all went quiet, cold and dark and then a few minutes later the birds broke out in a dawn chorus. It was quite magical.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Here the cloudy sky got vaguely darker and it felt much colder - nothing to see.

Same here - not surprising as I think we were only about two miles away from you! My wife remembers watching the last eclipse from an upstairs room at Hampton Court Palace - magical as the shadow crept up through the gardens.

[ 20. March 2015, 10:27: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by TonyK (# 35) on :

Watched it outside our house with our neighbours using a monocular and projecting the image onto a brown card.

Very effective and no risk!! 86% coverage - it just about got dim enough to confuse the birds..

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

There's another partial in 2017 - http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2017-august-21

Bit rubbish for us over here but looks good for some US shipmates.

[ 20. March 2015, 11:27: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Virtually a cloudless sky here so I watched it from my kitchen window.

I used the glasses I had from the total eclipse in Cornwall. (Though it was cloudy in Cornwall and we just caught the moment of totality when you don't need your glasses).

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

There were a few nice breaks in the cloud here around the time of the eclipse maximum. It got dark in a greyish sort of way, like one of those bleak days in the middle of winter when it never properly gets light.

I projected the image onto a card through one lens of a pair of binoculars (while remembering to keep the other lens cap on!).

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:

quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Here the cloudy sky got vaguely darker and it felt much colder - nothing to see.
Same here - not surprising as I think we were only about two miles away from you! My wife remembers watching the last eclipse from an upstairs room at Hampton Court Palace - magical as the shadow crept up through the gardens.

Are you in Cambridge? It's gloriously sunny here now [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

There are some very good pictures on the "Orkney Past & Present" page on Facebook - they got about 98% up there, and it looked as if there was just the right amount of cloud for taking photographs.

Wish I'd been there ... **sigh**

Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :

I saw totality! BF and I are eclipse chasers,we are on a cruise ship north of the Faroes. Not our best eclipse, quite a heavy cloud cover but we had a few glimpses of the partial phase and the cloud thinned at totality enabling a beautiful view of the eclipsed sun. Makes totality no. 4 for me and 7 for BF.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

About 95% at this latitude. And some convenient cloud cover so that it was possible to look at it, and get a photograph. The light was odd - reminiscent as much of moonlight as sunlight.

I think the last I saw I was in Bergen - where it is pretty remarkable to see the sun at all, let alone an eclipsing one.

Posted by Cathscats (# 17827) on :

It was absolutely beautiful here. I was driving up the A9 and people had pulled in at all the lay-bys to watch - just enough cloud cover to make it safe, but still dazzling when the sun was at its smallest slice, so to speak.

Heard someone on the radio, amongst all the weird comments, saying that it was important because it shows us how small we are compared to the great forces out there. Reflected that he could almost have been quoting Psalm 8.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:

quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Here the cloudy sky got vaguely darker and it felt much colder - nothing to see.
Same here - not surprising as I think we were only about two miles away from you! My wife remembers watching the last eclipse from an upstairs room at Hampton Court Palace - magical as the shadow crept up through the gardens.
Are you in Cambridge? It's gloriously sunny here now

[Sighs]. Yes, I was (at Westminster College) - and I know that the sun came out later - grrr!

Now I'm back home, 50 miles further east and still sunny.

Posted by Bene Gesserit (# 14718) on :

In our bit of the Flatlands we're not that far north of Cambridge, but the cloud cover here cleared to a clear blue-grey sky and some strange, silvery light. I remember the same quality of the light in 1999.

I took a couple of photos, which have come out better than I expected (they're not brilliant but I don't care!)so I will sleep happily tonight.

Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :

It was very bright here, so it wsa quite difficult to see the full effect. I was surprised that people in town didn't seem to be interested. I was surpised that we didn't seem to lose any light intensity, though Darllenwr said that he'd been watching it outside work a couple of miles down the valley, and he felt the light had diminished and that it got significantly colder as the eclipse progressed. Lord P joined a friend up on the mountain - said friend has some vefry expensive photography equipment, including various filters, so they watched it through the camera.

Posted by marzipan (# 9442) on :

In Cork it was sunny for about half of the time. We were at work so we made a pinhole camera by sticking a piece of paper onto the window and it projected a lovely crescent onto the wall for us to watch! Looking forward to the next one (there's a partial in a few years time again)

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :

I wandered out the door at work around 9.30, and the (already minimal) cloud had just passed by and revealed the sun at that moment, so I got a faceful before I could turn away. So I shut my eyes, as you do, and the light that you see when you shut your eyes after you've had light shone straight in your face was a little crescent shape. That was kind of cool. It felt a bit darker - dusk-like I guess - and a bit cooler, but then given I'm in Scotland it wasn't going to be tropical in any case!

TME was working from home, and projected the image onto a board using binoculars set up on one of the Elf Lass's toy box things. That apparently worked quite well.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I thought it wasn't going to happen. There was unbroken cloud for quite some time then suddenly around 9ish it started to shift.

Around 9.30 a small group of us materialized outside the back door with hastily improvised pinhole cameras made of cardboard. I'd brought my real cameras, but eclipse photography is an art I can now confidently say I haven't mastered. I probably won't get much practice in either. However, the daylight was overlaid with a kind of moonlight glow, the birds went quiet, and what we did see of the eclipse looked satisfyingly like a biscuit with a large bite out of it, so we were satisfied. It certainly wasn’t "breathtaking" or "stunning" or any of those other adjectives the media were busy overusing, but we were too far south to get the full benefit of it.

Posted by Stumbling Pilgrim (# 7637) on :

We had a lovely time at a Stargazing Live partner event in central Birmingham, where they reckon several hundred people turned up. I got to look through a telescope a couple of times, and was chuffed to be able to see the solar flare that developed during the morning (other half declined as he complains he can never see anything through telescopes), but we did our main watching through some projectors. Don't know about the birds, you can't hear them in the middle of Birmingham anyway, but I was surprised to see my camera flash go off when taking a picture of the crowd at maximum.
The best thing in some ways though was the camaraderie among the crowd - chatting to total strangers, asking each other 'where were you in 99?' and passing eclipse glasses round. There was a live feed from the Faroe Islands, but it just showed thick clouds and darkness at totality, so I got BBC iPlayer up on my phone and we shared that with the couple standing next to us!

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

You all are so lucky! I've never seen a total eclipse, but have seen three partials.

Two years and five months from today, I hope to be in the path (on a clear morning!) of a total eclipse by traveling north a few hundred miles. That's my plan, anyhow!

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

Book your hotel at a set price now, Judy. Prices may rise significantly.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

You are correct!

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :

To be fair, ours the other day wasn't a total eclipse, as totality was a bit north of the UK (Faroe Islands/Svalbard). In Scotland it was around 93-97% I believe, depending how far north you were. Similarly in 1999, the total eclipse skirted the far south-west of the country (Devon/Cornwall) but those of us even a little bit north (I was in London) experienced a 90+% eclipse. I'd absolutely love to see a total eclipse, but there won't be another one in my lifetime in the UK sadly - better start planning my retirement eclipse-chasing [Smile]

Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:
You are correct!

BF and I are booked already. We're going to see it at Yellowstone.

But there's one next year in Indonesia ....

[Yipee]

Posted by toadstrike (# 18244) on :

Hi speaking from the Faroe Islands on the good ship Boudicca.

Just had the most awesome experience of my life seeing the total eclipse in full.

It was cloudy at first on Friday morning but amazingly the clouds parted completely about 30 seconds before the first "diamond ring" and gathered again about 2 seconds after the second one. PERFECT timing

Saw the massive corona and Venus on the left.

Absolutely mega-magical seeing it all reflected in the sea.

Still gasping!!!

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

It was cloudy and I was stuck in a meeting - I could see it getting more gloomy through the windows, but that was it. I don't think anyone other than me paid any attention to it, even though I was encouraging the other tutors to teach around it. I did get to teach my student about planetary movement on Monday and we were talking about meeting earlier on Friday morning so we could see it and a plan to do more work later in the week but he then threw a sickie from Wednesday ... I will be teaching Of Mice and Men next year.

However, it was glorious here for the August 1999 partial eclipse, which I did pay full attention to.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by toadstrike:
Hi speaking from the Faroe Islands on the good ship Boudicca.

Just had the most awesome experience of my life seeing the total eclipse in full.

It was cloudy at first on Friday morning but amazingly the clouds parted completely about 30 seconds before the first "diamond ring" and gathered again about 2 seconds after the second one. PERFECT timing

Saw the massive corona and Venus on the left.

Absolutely mega-magical seeing it all reflected in the sea.

Still gasping!!!

Marvellous!

Photos?

I was in a classroom with 33 kids who had no special glasses - we watched it on live TV [Smile]

Posted by toadstrike (# 18244) on :

I wish I'd taken photos I struggled for ages with the Baader film stuff on my camera but it was so cloudy during the partial phase I was convinced I was going to miss it.

However the clouds cleared just as the first diamond ring was forming and I was too transfixed by it all to want to grope around in the dark for the camera and turn my eyes away ripping the film off. I just sat awe-stuck at the magical scene.

The sparkly glint of the sun's corona on the waves and the daylight off in the distance is a sight I'll never ever forget.

People's photos don't even begin to do it justice. The corona is so extensive but tails off so you either have the edges of the corona with the middle over-exposed or you don't see the edges at all.

It's completely the opposite to the aurora (which I've also seen on the trip) photos of the aurora are much better than eyesight but you have to be there to see an eclipse.

Job 42:5 applies perhaps....

Posted by Mr Clingford (# 7961) on :

I was in the New Forest and the amount of cloud was just enough to prevent us seeing anything at all. 0928 the previous morning and the following day were both clear!

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

Here is a video of the eclipse as seen from a plane.

Moo

Posted by Mr Clingford (# 7961) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Here is a video of the eclipse as seen from a plane.

Moo

Hi Moo.

It might be a great video but that website is a dreadful purveyor of climate denial junk and crackpottery.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by toadstrike:
Hi speaking from the Faroe Islands on the good ship Boudicca.

Just had the most awesome experience of my life seeing the total eclipse in full.

It was cloudy at first on Friday morning but amazingly the clouds parted completely about 30 seconds before the first "diamond ring" and gathered again about 2 seconds after the second one. PERFECT timing

Saw the massive corona and Venus on the left.

Absolutely mega-magical seeing it all reflected in the sea.

Still gasping!!!

Ah ha - Thee and I were in the same place. And I was wondering about Sparrow.

My photos are rubbish (but I've good aurora pics).

Did you not think there was something odd about people who go on a cruise sold on the promise of viewing the eclipse (and the aurora) and then stay in the lounges?

[ 25. March 2015, 17:11: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :

I am still on the good ship Voyager - enjoying that as I am a Trek fan as well. Since the eclipse we have continued up to Iceland and seen some great auroras, seals, whales and spouting geysers.

Final destination is Belfast tomorrow to see the Giant's Causeway.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Glad that at least one other ship got that timely cloud thinning - the two others of the same line as the Boudicca didn't, and we couldn't see anyone else from where we were.
One of our astronomers woke in the night, having been going over weather satellite data, with the conviction that we were going to be in the wrong place and needed to head north at speed, and emailed the captain, who, when he woke at 5, read and followed advice.
I'm doing Iceland in the summer. Midge season.

[ 26. March 2015, 16:36: Message edited by: Penny S ]

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