Initial report from Nashville Tennessee, after the peak solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, by your faithful servant and his family
The birds went crazy, and so did the crickets, which sing in the courtyard of the SprigHill Suites hotel about 20 km north of downtown Nashville every evening. For a moment there was also a relief from the enormous heat that prevailed there just a few minutes before - 21 degrees. The shadows of the people who watched the eclipse on the hotel lawn using astronomical equipment brought by astronomy enthusiasts among them - telescopes and binoculars that were covered with a cover similar to the one on the glasses made it possible to view even details that are difficult to see - such as large sunspots.
One of them, Dennis, a member of the Dallas Astronomy Club, even brought hundreds of eclipse glasses and gave them to the receptionists to hand out to employees and guests who hadn't prepared for the event.
We watched the sun actually from the beginning of its covering by the moon, around 12 noon. There were families with us from Brazil, France, Canada and of course from the USA. Dennis, an astronomy enthusiast from The Dalles who brought the equipment, said that it was the great hour of astronomy enthusiasts' organizations in the USA.
Then, all at once there was complete darkness until the planet Venus could be seen not far from the sun. The light seen in the sky was special - it was actually a ring that looked hollow.
We were even able to see the phenomenon of the refraction of the light coming from different areas of the eclipsed sun at once in the minutes before and after the eclipse, when one of the attendees spread white sheets on the floor and waves were seen that resembled the refraction of the sun's rays at the bottom of a swimming pool.
Throughout the day the sky was full of clouds, it turns out that sometimes you also need luck because except for a few seconds when a cloud covered the sun for about half a minute - about ten minutes before the peak, you could see all phases of the eclipse without interruption. It turns out that spectators in downtown Nashville, where clubs and parks have been preparing for the eclipse for years, including the Festival of Lights in Bicentennial Park, saw nothing due to heavy clouds.
A solar eclipse is always an opportunity to learn new things about the energy balance of the earth, the moon, the sun itself, and of course remember the solar eclipse of 1919, which proved Einstein's theory of relativity and his claim about the bending of light due to the gravity of matter - in this case - the sun's gravity. We became citizen scientists for a day.
Later this week we will update with preliminary results of scientific studies.
More on the science website about the complete solar eclipse 2017:
- The moon takes center stage during a total solar eclipse
- Exclusive: An interview with the Israeli researcher who will chase the solar eclipse in NASA planes
- NASA is looking forward to the solar eclipse to help understand the Earth's energy system
- Live broadcast of the solar eclipse online from fifty balloons
- The guide to the solar eclipse of August 21 in the USA
18 תגובות
It's miracles of course...
rival
It was a complete eclipse, if that's the question. Think of it as the sun being a million times brighter than the moon. Therefore, when even a millionth of the sun is visible then the illumination level is like a full moon. This was not the case.
Until the total eclipse, even if only a small piece of sun is visible to the eye, it is not possible to look at the sun. All of a sudden - the sun disappears completely and only then do you see the aura around. In other words, there is a decrease in the intensity of illumination continuously for an hour, but the final phase is sudden, and surprising.
https://www.flickr.com/groups/nasa-eclipse2017
By the way, in this photo gallery there are some videos that capture the amount of darkening so that you can neutralize the effect of your eye's adaptation by stopping the image and waiting as long as you like.
There are some more nice photographs of phenomena that arise from the eclipse mentioned in the article.
rival
There is no doubt that the eye's adaptation to the transition between light and darkness has an effect on the perception of darkness in such an event and that the length of the event is not sufficient for the eye to reach its full potential for receiving light in the dark (though not due to the pupil (which reacts quickly (a few seconds)) but to the receptors in the eye (in the half hour plus areas) ))) But, the full eclipse lasts about two minutes and that is certainly enough to give you a very considerable percentage of the ability to absorb light. You can test this by quickly moving into a dark room from a room lit by daylight and see that despite this, even if you stay there for an hour, the difference is not that big between what you saw in a minute and what you will see after your eyes have completely acclimatized to the dark. What is also to be taken into account is that the eclipse does not bring you to such darkness and is also much more gradual.
In any case, regarding the photography, you can perform a light measurement that will give you the correct exposure.
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/measuring-dimming-daylight
And as for the eclipse being full and not sunken, you can see close-up photos that show that this was indeed the case in this eclipse.
rival
Yes, I think you are right. An eclipse will be annular if you are in the center of the occultation and see a ring. The condition for this is that the moon is far away from us.
Miracles,
The definition you gave is exactly what I said, when the moon fails to hide the sun completely but only its center (and this is how it looks in the photos I saw) and it looks like a luminous ring that surrounds the moon, it is considered an annular eclipse.
I gave a link in the previous message that explains this.
rival
I agree with you about the darkness level. In total, you see few stars. It's like, say, ten minutes after sunset. It's probably time to stop fasting 🙂
What is beautiful is the effect on animals. Dogs got really scared and birds gathered for the night.
rival
Here is the definition from Wikipedia
An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line with the Earth, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the dark disk of the Moon.
walking dead,
It could be that it really is a matter of an aperture, but a different aperture, the one found in our eyeball - the pupil. It takes the eye several minutes to get used to the dark (you probably remember this from the army, at night ranges), it may be that what you see in the photo reflects the real situation, but people saw "total darkness" because their eyes still did not have time to adjust to the sharp transition (within seconds) from a clear day sun to a state of partial illumination.
I think that if the eclipse had lasted, say, half an hour, people would have seen what they see in the picture, such a twilight situation.
Miracles,
"An eclipse is called annular only when it is annular everywhere you see it"
I think you are wrong, is there even a situation where you see a total or annular eclipse at the same time from any point (on the bright side) of the Earth? According to the illustrations presented here, the eclipse is always visible only over a very narrow strip of land and sea, those who are on the edge of the strip will always see a partial eclipse and those outside the strip will not see an eclipse at all.
According to the definition that I know of, what determines whether it is an annular eclipse or not is only how an observer at a specific point on Earth sees it, and it does not depend on how his friend from another country sees the eclipse:
https://eureka.org.il/item/56561/mho-liko-hama-tveti
rival
It is a function of camera exposure conditions. A shorter exposure and/or with a smaller aperture and the light from the corona that the camera picks up was much smaller to the point of being invisible. The sky is relatively clear for the same reason.
Leo, write: April 8, 2024, upstate New York - will cross the US from Mexico to Canada
Like the Europe-wide pair in 1999, Africa-Turkey in 2006
rival
Even in my photos it looked like this, even though it was quite dark and they even saw a number of stars. You need a good camera to get good photos.
An eclipse is called annular only when it is annular everywhere you see it. This happens when the moon is at apogee, at the "far end" of the ellipse. The moon's orbit is roughly elliptical, and our orbit around the sun is nearly circular. We are far from the sun (ephelion) precisely in the summer.
Avi! I remember you also went to the total eclipse in Turkey. Where would you travel to see another total eclipse?
In the picture it doesn't look like a state of complete darkness, you can see the trees, the white clouds and even the blue of the sky quite well.
From what I read on Wikipedia, I understand that this is not a total solar eclipse, but an annular solar eclipse:
"When the moon completely covers the sun it is a total solar eclipse. A partial eclipse happens when the Moon is not close enough to the Sun-Earth axis to completely block the Sun's light. Even when a total eclipse occurs, it is fully visible only in a narrow band along the Earth, for a few minutes. During the total eclipse you can see the sun's corona. Since the distance of the moon from the earth changes slightly, sometimes an annular eclipse also occurs, where at the peak of the eclipse, instead of the moon hiding the entire sun, a luminous ring is seen around it.'
This is because Shay was shooting directly and not through a telescope or binoculars
There are beautiful pictures from before the total eclipse that she took through the telescope lens of one of the amateur astronomers
It's a shame you didn't take a picture of the volcano against the background of the eclipse, maybe one of your friends did?
I also got to see the eclipse in the Salem area of the state of Oregon. We were standing on an isolated hill in an agricultural area, without a single cloud in the sky. The eclipse takes about two hours, and it is easy to understand why: the moon orbits the earth for 30 days, that is, 12 degrees in 24 hours, and therefore one degree every two hours.. The angular size of the moon (and the sun) is half a degree, and the moon must move one degree from the beginning of the eclipse to ending The total eclipse time we saw was one minute and forty seconds. This time depends on the exact position of the observer as well as the distance to the moon on that date (the moon moves in an elliptical orbit and the distance to it is between 360 and 400 thousand km, a difference of 10%).
The situation of the total eclipse is very strange, and one can certainly understand the ancients who were very frightened by such events. Many dogs in the area were probably also frightened and started howling like puppies. The place is almost as dark as a moonless night, but a distant volcano covered in white snow looks bright in the full sun. Around the covered sun is a halo that is several times larger than the sun itself - this is what you see in Shay's photo above. The beauty of this aura is not visible in the photo, it is very weak with a very interesting structure.