Starship Asterisk*

https://weather.com/forecast/national/news/solar-eclipse-weather-forecast-august-2017 wrote:
USA National Forecast
Solar Eclipse Weather Forecast: Will Clouds Block Your View?
By Linda Lam5 hours agoweather.com

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Chris Peterson wrote:
My current plans put me somewhere on the road between Casper and Riverton (WY), so things are looking good. Of course, I'll be watching the weather forecasts closely so as to adjust my plans as necessary. We've had a very wet July and August here, after a bone dry June. The monsoons really kicked in. But they peter out further north, and seem like they might be slowing down over the next week.

orin stepanek wrote:
We Will be just off the edge here in Columbus; Nebraska, on the 21st; but I'll not look for it anyway! I'm sure they will show something about it on the news!

neufer wrote:

http://eclipsophile.com/overview/ wrote:

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:arrow: Graph of average morning (10:30 am) and early afternoon (1:30 pm) fractional cloudiness along the central axis of the [August 21, 2017] eclipse track across the United States derived from 15-17 years of satellite imagery. The locations of prominent communities along the track are indicated, as are the more significant terrain features (in italics). The afternoon cloud line is most useful for states east of the Mississippi River; the morning graph is most appropriate for the Mountain States and the Great Plains. Data: NASA GSFC.

http://eclipsophile.com/overview/ wrote:

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Graph of average morning (10:30 am) and early afternoon (1:30 pm) fractional cloudiness along the central axis of the [August 21, 2017] eclipse track across the United States derived from 15-17 years of satellite imagery. The locations of prominent communities along the track are indicated, as are the more significant terrain features (in italics). The afternoon cloud line is most useful for states east of the Mississippi River; the morning graph is most appropriate for the Mountain States and the Great Plains. Data: NASA GSFC.

heehaw wrote:
Just think of a barber: eclipse your hair.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=clip wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

clip (v.1) "to cut or sever with a sharp instrument," c. 1200, from a Scandinavian source (compare Old Norse klippa, Swedish klippa, Danish klippe "clip, shear, cut"), which is probably echoic.

Meaning "to pronounce short" is from 1520s. The verb has a long association with shady activities, originally especially in reference to cutting or shaving metal from coins (c. 1400), but later extended to swindles from the sense "to shear sheep," hence clip-joint "place that overcharges outrageously" (1933, American English, a term from Prohibition). To clip (someone's) wings figuratively (1590s) is from the method of preventing a captive bird from flying.

clip (v.2) "fasten, hold together by pressure," also (mostly archaic) "to embrace," from Old English clyppan "to embrace, clasp; surround; prize, honor, cherish;" related to Old Frisian kleppa "to embrace, love," Old High German klaftra, German klafter "fathom" (on notion of outstretched arms). Meaning "to fasten, bind" is early 14c. Meaning "to fasten with clips" is from 1902.

clipper (n.) late 14c., "sheepshearer;" early 15c., "a barber;" c. 1300 as a surname; agent noun from Middle English clippen "shorten". The type of fast sailing ship so called from 1823 (in Cooper's "The Pilot"), probably from clip (v.1) in sense of "to move or run rapidly," hence early 19c. sense "person or animal who looks capable of fast running."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse wrote:
<<The term is derived from the ancient Greek noun ἔκλειψις (ékleipsis), which means "the abandonment", "the downfall", or "the darkening of a heavenly body", which is derived from the verb ἐκλείπω (ekleípō) which means "to abandon", "to darken", or "to cease to exist," a combination of prefix ἐκ- (ek-), from preposition ἐκ (ek), "out," and of verb λείπω (leípō), "to be absent".>>

suicidejunkie wrote:

JohnD wrote:The numbering of Saroses (Saroi?) is confusing. This APOD is described as "Saros 145", wth the link putting Saros 1 in the 17th Century, but 145x18= 2610, so that No.1 was in 593 BCE, and a NASA page dates 'Saros 1" as from 2004-2011 (https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros001.html) !

That's because we get another member of 145 every 18 and a bit years.
So "Team 145" includes the one in 1999, and the one in 2017, and will include another in 2035.
Saros 144 members are interleaved with those.

Edit:
Another way to think of it is in video game terms: Saros 1 is like Madden, and Saros 145 is like FIFA.
They both keep putting out sequels on a very regular basis, and while the two sets of games are quite different from each other, all the games of a particular series are basically identical.

JohnD wrote:The numbering of Saroses (Saroi?) is confusing. This APOD is described as "Saros 145", wth the link putting Saros 1 in the 17th Century, but 145x18= 2610, so that No.1 was in 593 BCE, and a NASA page dates 'Saros 1" as from 2004-2011 (https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros001.html) !

ta152h0 wrote:The guys over at the Science channel are claiming " we waited 99 years for the total eclipse on August 21. Wonder if this is a word engineered statement for I remember well the feb 1979 event at Goldendale, Washington. I have the event on film/

neufer wrote:

JohnD wrote: And if "saros" is Greek, it means 'dry' - did the Mesopotatamians predict a cycle of droughts with it?

Plural of 'saros' = 'saroi' ; the Greek word apparently comes from the Babylonian word "sāru" meaning the number 3600.

JohnD wrote:
The numbering of Saroses (Saroi?) is confusing.

Anyway, the word 'saros' was used by Edmund Halley, "who took it from the Suda, a Byzantine lexicon of the 11th century" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saros_(astronomy)) that described the period as used by the Chaldeans of Mesopotamia, hundreds of years BCE, so the first interpretaion should be correct. Ish, as if the cycle never hapened before the Chaldeans.

And if "saros" is Greek, it means 'dry' - did the Mesopotatamians predict a cycle of droughts with it?

ta152h0 wrote:
The guys over at the Science channel are claiming " we waited 99 years for the total eclipse on August 21. Wonder if this is a word engineered statement for I remember well the feb 1979 event at Goldendale, Washington. I have the event on film/