APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse Close-Up in... (2024 Mar 03)

[APOD Robot]

A Total Solar Eclipse Close-Up in Real Time

Explanation: How would you feel if the Sun disappeared? Many eclipse watchers across the USA surprised themselves in 2017 with the awe that they felt and the exclamations that they made as the Sun momentarily disappeared behind the Moon. Perhaps expecting just a brief moment of dusk, the spectacle of unusually rapid darkness, breathtakingly bright glowing beads around the Moon's edge, shockingly pink solar prominences, and a strangely detailed corona stretching across the sky caught many a curmudgeon by surprise. Many of these attributes were captured in the featured real-time, three-minute video of 2017's total solar eclipse. The video frames were acquired in Warm Springs, Oregon with equipment specifically designed by Jun Ho Oh to track a close-up of the Sun's periphery during eclipse. As the video ends, the Sun is seen being reborn on the other side of the Moon from where it departed. Next month, on April 8th, a new total solar eclipse will be visible in a thin band across North America.

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[Deathfleer]

Insane

[JimB]

I have only experienced a total solar eclipse under a cloudy sky on a hill top in Dartmoor but it something that I will never forget. If you get the chance this year, than take it.

[Rauf]

I have only experienced a total solar eclipse under a cloudy sky on a hill top in Dartmoor but it something that I will never forget. If you get the chance this year, than take it.

Was it the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999?

[johnnydeep]

Just a gee whiz whit if type of question... From the "solar prominences" link, there is a size comparison of the Earth with a particularly immense CME on the Sun. What if the Earth were actually engulfed by that CME? Discounting being so close to the Sun in this image and subjected to the much greater solar flux there. That is, considering only the temperature and density, and possibly the velocity, of the CME itself.

Click to view full size image

[Chris Peterson]

Just a gee whiz whit if type of question... From the "solar prominences" link, there is a size comparison of the Earth with a particularly immense CME on the Sun. What if the Earth were actually engulfed by that CME? Discounting being so close to the Sun in this image and subjected to the much greater solar flux there. That is, considering only the temperature and density, and possibly the velocity, of the CME itself.

Click to view full size image

That's a prominence, not a CME.

My thinking is that the Earth would tolerate being inside a prominence without too much impact, except it would do a number on our satellites. I base that on considering that the particle density of the lower atmosphere is about 10¹⁹/cm³, the density of the thermosphere (where LEO satellites orbit) is about 10⁷/cm³, and the density of a prominence is about 10¹¹/cm³. The prominence is about 10 times hotter and 10,000 times denser than the thermosphere, so likely to mess up satellites. But it's still 100 million times less dense than our lower atmosphere, so a pretty hard vacuum. It's just not going to be able to transfer much energy into the atmosphere as heat.

[johnnydeep]

Just a gee whiz whit if type of question... From the "solar prominences" link, there is a size comparison of the Earth with a particularly immense CME on the Sun. What if the Earth were actually engulfed by that CME? Discounting being so close to the Sun in this image and subjected to the much greater solar flux there. That is, considering only the temperature and density, and possibly the velocity, of the CME itself.

Click to view full size image

That's a prominence, not a CME.

My thinking is that the Earth would tolerate being inside a prominence without too much impact, except it would do a number on our satellites. I base that on considering that the particle density of the lower atmosphere is about 10¹⁹/cm³, the density of the thermosphere (where LEO satellites orbit) is about 10⁷/cm³, and the density of a prominence is about 10¹¹/cm³. The prominence is about 10 times hotter and 10,000 times denser than the thermosphere, so likely to mess up satellites. But it's still 100 million times less dense than our lower atmosphere, so a pretty hard vacuum. It's just not going to be able to transfer much energy into the atmosphere as heat.

Thanks. Serves me right for trying to use CME properly, and considering that the LINK I referenced is about prominences not CMEs! At least Wikipedia says they can be somewhat interrelated:

The early evolution of CMEs is frequently associated with other solar phenomena observed in the low corona, such as eruptive prominences and solar flares. CMEs that have no observed signatures are sometimes referred to as stealth CMEs.[11][12]

Prominences embedded in some CME pre-eruption structures may erupt with the CME as eruptive prominences. Eruptive prominences are associated with at least 70% of all CMEs[13] and are often embedded within the bases of CME flux ropes. When observed in white-light coronagraphs, the eruptive prominence material, if present, corresponds to the observed bright core of dense material.[7]

[JimB]

I have only experienced a total solar eclipse under a cloudy sky on a hill top in Dartmoor but it something that I will never forget. If you get the chance this year, than take it.

Was it the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999?

Yes! That was it. I had cycled for 2 days from Poole in Dorset to get over to Dartmoor. The cloud base was quite low and in the minutes before totality approached the bottom of the cloud base changed and started to billow. It went eerily quiet and then the light went right down as totality swept across. Still gives me the shivers!

[johnnydeep]

I have only experienced a total solar eclipse under a cloudy sky on a hill top in Dartmoor but it something that I will never forget. If you get the chance this year, than take it.

Was it the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999?

Yes! That was it. I had cycled for 2 days from Poole in Dorset to get over to Dartmoor. The cloud base was quite low and in the minutes before totality approached the bottom of the cloud base changed and started to billow. It went eerily quiet and then the light went right down as totality swept across. Still gives me the shivers!

Ok, how on earth did Rauf guess that it was that particular eclipse? Is an eclipse visible from Dartmoor a rare event?

[Chris Peterson]

Was it the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999?

Yes! That was it. I had cycled for 2 days from Poole in Dorset to get over to Dartmoor. The cloud base was quite low and in the minutes before totality approached the bottom of the cloud base changed and started to billow. It went eerily quiet and then the light went right down as totality swept across. Still gives me the shivers!

Ok, how on earth did Rauf guess that it was that particular eclipse? Is an eclipse visible from Dartmoor a rare event?

A total solar eclipse visible from any one location is a rare event. Given a location, it is almost always trivial to determine what the date of the eclipse was. (The exception being where a location lies at the intersection of two recent eclipses... which is even rarer!)

[johnnydeep]

Yes! That was it. I had cycled for 2 days from Poole in Dorset to get over to Dartmoor. The cloud base was quite low and in the minutes before totality approached the bottom of the cloud base changed and started to billow. It went eerily quiet and then the light went right down as totality swept across. Still gives me the shivers!

Ok, how on earth did Rauf guess that it was that particular eclipse? Is an eclipse visible from Dartmoor a rare event?

A total solar eclipse visible from any one location is a rare event. Given a location, it is almost always trivial to determine what the date of the eclipse was. (The exception being where a location lies at the intersection of two recent eclipses... which is even rarer!)

Ok. As a test I googled for "total solar eclipse prescott arizona" (not where I live) and got loads of hits. Here's one - for just a month away, on APRIL 8, 2024:

https://eclipse2024.org/eclipse-cities/city/5223.html

The eclipse in Prescott Valley will be partial (with magnitude 68%), and we’ve calculated the local circumstances (using the lat/long noted above and ΔT=69.18s), as follows:
...

[Chris Peterson]

Ok, how on earth did Rauf guess that it was that particular eclipse? Is an eclipse visible from Dartmoor a rare event?

A total solar eclipse visible from any one location is a rare event. Given a location, it is almost always trivial to determine what the date of the eclipse was. (The exception being where a location lies at the intersection of two recent eclipses... which is even rarer!)

Ok. As a test I googled for "total solar eclipse prescott arizona" (not where I live) and got loads of hits. Here's one:

https://eclipse2024.org/eclipse-cities/city/5223.html

The eclipse in Prescott Valley will be partial (with magnitude 68%), and we’ve calculated the local circumstances (using the lat/long noted above and ΔT=69.18s), as follows:
...

A test of what? Not sure what you're getting at here.

(The next total solar eclipse crossing Prescott will be in 2207.)

[johnnydeep]

A total solar eclipse visible from any one location is a rare event. Given a location, it is almost always trivial to determine what the date of the eclipse was. (The exception being where a location lies at the intersection of two recent eclipses... which is even rarer!)

Ok. As a test I googled for "total solar eclipse prescott arizona" (not where I live) and got loads of hits. Here's one:

https://eclipse2024.org/eclipse-cities/city/5223.html

The eclipse in Prescott Valley will be partial (with magnitude 68%), and we’ve calculated the local circumstances (using the lat/long noted above and ΔT=69.18s), as follows:
...

A test of what? Not sure what you're getting at here.

Just that a simple search would most likely reveal the answer to a non-astronomer. Though searching for "total solar eclipse dartmoor england" wasn't as definitive.

[Chris Peterson]

Ok. As a test I googled for "total solar eclipse prescott arizona" (not where I live) and got loads of hits. Here's one:

https://eclipse2024.org/eclipse-cities/city/5223.html

A test of what? Not sure what you're getting at here.

Just that a simple search would most likely reveal the answer to a non-astronomer. Though searching for "total solar eclipse dartmoor england" wasn't as definitive.

I guess I still don't understand what your Prescott example demonstrated. It didn't identify a total solar eclipse at that location.

I Google ' "total solar eclipse" dartmoor ' and I get a bunch of hits for the 1999 event. But in general I'd not put in a specific location, just a region, then use the path maps to determine what cities or towns are underneath. That's how I identified 2207 as the next total eclipse in Prescott. Put in UK for your search, and you'll pull up pages listing all of the total eclipses there over a few thousand years, past to future, and it's quickly obvious which one crossed Dartmoor in recent times.

[johnnydeep]

A test of what? Not sure what you're getting at here.

Just that a simple search would most likely reveal the answer to a non-astronomer. Though searching for "total solar eclipse dartmoor england" wasn't as definitive.

I guess I still don't understand what your Prescott example demonstrated. It didn't identify a total solar eclipse at that location.

I Google ' "total solar eclipse" dartmoor ' and I get a bunch of hits for the 1999 event. But in general I'd not put in a specific location, just a region, then use the path maps to determine what cities or towns are underneath. That's how I identified 2207 as the next total eclipse in Prescott. Put in UK for your search, and you'll pull up pages listing all of the total eclipses there over a few thousand years, past to future, and it's quickly obvious which one crossed Dartmoor in recent times.

Ok, but I still find it odd the Rauf would have know - seemingly off hand - about the particular eclipse. But perhaps he also did some sort of search.

And I only used Prescott, AZ (where I might want to eventually retire to) because it came to mind. Yes, it wasn't a total eclipse, but my main point was only to confirm that a quick google search might be able to reveal the answer, as opposed to having to query some "astronomer only" database.

[Chris Peterson]

Just that a simple search would most likely reveal the answer to a non-astronomer. Though searching for "total solar eclipse dartmoor england" wasn't as definitive.

I guess I still don't understand what your Prescott example demonstrated. It didn't identify a total solar eclipse at that location.

I Google ' "total solar eclipse" dartmoor ' and I get a bunch of hits for the 1999 event. But in general I'd not put in a specific location, just a region, then use the path maps to determine what cities or towns are underneath. That's how I identified 2207 as the next total eclipse in Prescott. Put in UK for your search, and you'll pull up pages listing all of the total eclipses there over a few thousand years, past to future, and it's quickly obvious which one crossed Dartmoor in recent times.

Ok, but I still find it odd the Rauf would have know - seemingly off hand - about the particular eclipse. But perhaps he also did some sort of search.

And I only used Prescott, AZ (where I might want to eventually retire to) because it came to mind. Yes, it wasn't a total eclipse, but my main point was only to confirm that a quick google search might be able to reveal the answer, as opposed to having to query some "astronomer only" database.

Ok. But the search here was for a place where we knew a total eclipse had occurred, not a place where we were simply searching for eclipses. So a slightly different situation.

Eclipses that cross a broad swath of highly populated economically strong western countries get a lot of attention. That includes the 1999 eclipse that traveled across Europe. Which also cut right across Iran, with a centerline only 300 km from Rauf's town. So in this case, I doubt much research was necessary!

[johnnydeep]

I guess I still don't understand what your Prescott example demonstrated. It didn't identify a total solar eclipse at that location.

I Google ' "total solar eclipse" dartmoor ' and I get a bunch of hits for the 1999 event. But in general I'd not put in a specific location, just a region, then use the path maps to determine what cities or towns are underneath. That's how I identified 2207 as the next total eclipse in Prescott. Put in UK for your search, and you'll pull up pages listing all of the total eclipses there over a few thousand years, past to future, and it's quickly obvious which one crossed Dartmoor in recent times.

Ok, but I still find it odd the Rauf would have know - seemingly off hand - about the particular eclipse. But perhaps he also did some sort of search.

And I only used Prescott, AZ (where I might want to eventually retire to) because it came to mind. Yes, it wasn't a total eclipse, but my main point was only to confirm that a quick google search might be able to reveal the answer, as opposed to having to query some "astronomer only" database.

Ok. But the search here was for a place where we knew a total eclipse had occurred, not a place where we were simply searching for eclipses. So a slightly different situation.

Eclipses that cross a broad swath of highly populated economically strong western countries get a lot of attention. That includes the 1999 eclipse that traveled across Europe. Which also cut right across Iran, with a centerline only 300 km from Rauf's town. So in this case, I doubt much research was necessary!

All right - that sounds reasonable. Perhaps Rauf will chime in.

[Rauf]

Ok, but I still find it odd the Rauf would have know - seemingly off hand - about the particular eclipse. But perhaps he also did some sort of search.

And I only used Prescott, AZ (where I might want to eventually retire to) because it came to mind. Yes, it wasn't a total eclipse, but my main point was only to confirm that a quick google search might be able to reveal the answer, as opposed to having to query some "astronomer only" database.

Ok. But the search here was for a place where we knew a total eclipse had occurred, not a place where we were simply searching for eclipses. So a slightly different situation.

Eclipses that cross a broad swath of highly populated economically strong western countries get a lot of attention. That includes the 1999 eclipse that traveled across Europe. Which also cut right across Iran, with a centerline only 300 km from Rauf's town. So in this case, I doubt much research was necessary!

All right - that sounds reasonable. Perhaps Rauf will chime in.

Well, not much research was necessary! First of all, JimB personally observed that total solar eclipse, which means the eclipse should be a relatively recent one. There aren't many total solar eclipses visible from England during recent times! I checked the list, and the only one was the one in 1999. And Chris is right, that was also the last total solar eclipse visible from my country, and the next one is on March 20, 2034.

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2034-march-20

Totality is going to be visible from my own town! Interestingly, March 20 is also Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year.

[Rauf]

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/@10244122

Here's another way to find out the eclipses that are going to happen in one location or have already happened in that location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_ecl ... t_11,_1999

It was the first total eclipse visible from Europe since 22 July 1990, and the first visible in the United Kingdom since 29 June 1927.

That just says how rare total solar eclipses are from a particular location

[johnnydeep]

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/@10244122

Here's another way to find out the eclipses that are going to happen in one location or have already happened in that location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_ecl ... t_11,_1999

It was the first total eclipse visible from Europe since 22 July 1990, and the first visible in the United Kingdom since 29 June 1927.

That just says how rare total solar eclipses are from a particular location