Explanation: Will the sky be clear enough to see the eclipse? This question was on the minds of many people attempting to view yesterday's solar eclipse. The path of total darkness crossed the mainland of the USA from coast to coast, from Oregon to South Carolina -- but a partial eclipse occurred above all of North America. Unfortunately, many locations saw predominantly clouds. One location that did not was a bank of Green River Lake, Wyoming. There, clouds blocked the Sun intermittantly up to one minute before totality. Parting clouds then moved far enough away to allow the center image of the featured composite sequence to be taken. This image shows the corona of the Sun extending out past the central dark Moon that blocks our familiar Sun. The surrounding images show the partial phases of the solar eclipse both before and after totality.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 12:26 pm
by neufer
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:48 pm
by E Fish
It was perfect over SE Idaho, where I was. We sat out on the front lawn and watched from the first moment of partial eclipse, through totality and about halfway after. Absolutely amazing experience and one I hope I get to repeat someday.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:59 pm
by Jim Leff
I was glum about missing out on totality, but observed the partial here in NY with my snazzy glasses. As I prepared to view, figuring I still had plenty of time, I noticed a certain harsh glare to the ambient light. And when I donned my glasses, I saw that the sun was already significantly eclipsed (the process was slower than I remembered).
So I pulled off my glasses again, and noticed there wasn't much apparent light reduction (nor would there be even when the sun was 70% eclipsed). It was no darker than if there'd been a passing cloud. But the effect was nothing like cloud diffusion. The light was somehow harsh and unpleasant. It reminded me of how things "feel" when you leave an eye doctor's office with dilated pupils. Strange, because we normally equate harshness with brightness!
I wound up leaving my glasses mostly off, contemplating whether this is how sunlight would look if Earth were at Mars' distance. And remembering how disappointed I'd felt during previous partial eclipses, when there was little darkness. But - deja vu - this sort of harsh light was always experienced....but I'd never associated it with the eclipse 'cuz it wasn't at all dark.
Anyway, that's my highly-subjective experience of the partial, fwiw....
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:12 pm
by geckzilla
Jim Leff wrote:So I pulled off my glasses again, and noticed there wasn't much apparent light reduction (nor would there be even when the sun was 70% eclipsed). It was no darker than if there'd been a passing cloud. But the effect was nothing like cloud diffusion. The light was somehow harsh and unpleasant. It reminded me of how things "feel" when you leave an eye doctor's office with dilated pupils. Strange, because we normally equate harshness with brightness!
Strange. To me I saw the light was notably dimmer (we reached 75% eclipse here in Modesto) and I felt that the light had an eerie softness to it.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
The path of the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse has been crossed by the tracks of 15 previous eclipses over the continental United States between 1503 and 1970.
This means that by standing on these various intersection points in space, we can imagine ourselves taking a hop-skotch of steps back in time to explore the history of this continent:
................................................................
1618 – This eclipse finds us in Idaho in the midst of the Shoshone Nation. The colony of Jamestown, Virginia had been founded in May 1607 by the colonists of the London Company, but did not survive. A small pox epidemic in New England decimated the Native American populations in that region within a few years. Back in the Old World, Johannes Kepler announced his Third Law of Planetary Motion on May 15, 1618. A decade before, Galileo Galilee had devised the first astronomical telescope and made revolutionary discoveries.
1679 – We join the Cheyenne Nation in what is now Wyoming. Although some settlers had founded Duluth, Minnesota by this time, before 1776, the West was of high priority for settlers and politicians and was essentially any part of the interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing settlements along the Atlantic coast. These regions of the continent were still reserved for explorers and trappers, who traveled through Cheyenne territory very carefully and usually unwelcomed.
1724 – The second eclipse to pass through Wyoming arrived on May 22 of this year. The historic Indians in Wyoming were nomadic tribes known as the Plains Indians. They were the Arapaho, Arikara, Bannock, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Nez Perce, Sheep Eater, Sioux, Shoshone and Ute tribes. Of all of these tribes, the Cheyenne and Sioux were the last of the Indians to be controlled and placed on reservations. By 1742 Francois Louis Verendyne entered Wyoming, discovered Big Horn Mountains
1834 – We in Wyoming with the Cheyenne Nation to watch the November 30 total solar eclipse. Artist George Catlin (1796–1872) traveled up the Missouri as far as North Dakota, producing accurate paintings of Native American culture. Helping settlers move westward were the emigrant "guide books" of the 1840s featuring route information supplied by the fur traders and the Frémont expeditions, and promising fertile farm land beyond the Rockies. With more emigrants from the East passing through these regions headed westward, more encounters with Native Americans were inevitable. Military posts such as Fort Laramie were established to maintain order in the area. In 1851, the first Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed between the United States and representatives of Native American nations to ensure peace and the safety of settlers on the trails.
1878 – The July 28 eclipse again finds us in the Shoshone Nation in what is now Wyoming, but by now the fragile peace between the Native Americans and Westerners had dissolved into warfare. As encounters between settlers and Indians grew more serious in 1865, Major General Grenville M. Dodge ordered the first Powder River Expedition to attempt to quell the violence. The expedition ended in a battle against the Arapaho in the Battle of the Tongue River. The next year the fighting escalated into Red Cloud's War which was the first major military conflict between the United States and the Wyoming Indian tribes. The second Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 ended the war by closing the Powder River Country to whites. Violation of this treaty by miners in the Black Hills lead to the Black Hills War in 1876, which was fought mainly along the border of Wyoming and Montana. Meanwhile, The Union Pacific Railroad played a central role in the settlement of Wyoming. The land was good for cattle ranches, but without transportation it was too far for a cattle drive. The UP reached the town of Cheyenne, which later became the state capital, in 1867. The railroad eventually spanned the entire state, boosting the population, and creating some of Wyoming's largest cities, such as Laramie, Rock Springs and Evanston. After the arrival of the railroad, the population began to grow steadily in the Wyoming Territory, which was established on July 25, 1868.
1889 – This eclipse finds us in Idaho. During this time, the region was part of an unorganized territory known as Oregon Country, claimed by both the United States and Great Britain. In 1853, areas north of the 46th Parallel became Washington Territory, splitting what is now Idaho in two. The first of several gold rushes in Idaho began in 1860 at Pierce in present-day Clearwater County. The original Idaho Territory included most of the areas that later became the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and had a population of under 17,000. Idaho Territory assumed the boundaries of the modern state in 1868 and was admitted as a state on July 3, 1890.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:39 pm
by rstevenson
geckzilla wrote:
Jim Leff wrote:So I pulled off my glasses again, and noticed there wasn't much apparent light reduction (nor would there be even when the sun was 70% eclipsed). It was no darker than if there'd been a passing cloud. But the effect was nothing like cloud diffusion. The light was somehow harsh and unpleasant. It reminded me of how things "feel" when you leave an eye doctor's office with dilated pupils. Strange, because we normally equate harshness with brightness!
Strange. To me I saw the light was notably dimmer (we reached 75% eclipse here in Modesto) and I felt that the light had an eerie softness to it.
I also noticed a change in quality of the light, even here in Nova Scotia where we only got close to 50% of the eclipse. The light took on a sort of bronzey tone even though it was not noticably darker overall. I assume this effect would vary from place to place depending on, perhaps, how much water vapour and dust happened to be in the air nearby. It must certainly have something to do with the relatively huge Moon shadow, huge compared to typical cloud shadows.
Rob
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 5:55 pm
by Chris Peterson
geckzilla wrote:
Jim Leff wrote:So I pulled off my glasses again, and noticed there wasn't much apparent light reduction (nor would there be even when the sun was 70% eclipsed). It was no darker than if there'd been a passing cloud. But the effect was nothing like cloud diffusion. The light was somehow harsh and unpleasant. It reminded me of how things "feel" when you leave an eye doctor's office with dilated pupils. Strange, because we normally equate harshness with brightness!
Strange. To me I saw the light was notably dimmer (we reached 75% eclipse here in Modesto) and I felt that the light had an eerie softness to it.
What I noticed was the landscape around me became curiously low contrast as the Sun was increasingly blocked.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:00 pm
by Chris Peterson
This is my first cut at a 5-min sequence (also in Wyoming). It's still got a bit of the processing problem that is apparent in today's APOD, namely that the corona image is somewhat blown out, which results in it spilling in over the Moon. That makes the Moon in the totality frame look too small (it should be the same size as the partial Sun, of course). I improved it a bit by making a quick HDR for that frame, but I still need to do a better job to get the total frame looking right. I'll keep working on it over the next few days.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:17 pm
by BPCooper
Nice shot Chris, and thanks all!
The light does not really start to change dramatically until the final few percent. The sun, even in the last tiny sliver, is incredibly blinding.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:28 pm
by Chris Peterson
BPCooper wrote:Nice shot Chris, and thanks all!
The light does not really start to change dramatically until the final few percent. The sun, even in the last tiny sliver, is incredibly blinding.
Yeah. I squeezed in a 4 EV range through the unfiltered wide angle camera at totality. I think that's enough to get a better corona image for that middle frame. We'll see!
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:31 pm
by Chris Peterson
And a quick-and-dirty 10.5 EV, 7-frame HDR image just a few seconds before the end of totality. Still needs more work, but I think I've got a lot of good material to work with.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:42 pm
by Joe Stieber
geckzilla wrote:
Jim Leff wrote:So I pulled off my glasses again, and noticed there wasn't much apparent light reduction (nor would there be even when the sun was 70% eclipsed). It was no darker than if there'd been a passing cloud. But the effect was nothing like cloud diffusion. The light was somehow harsh and unpleasant. It reminded me of how things "feel" when you leave an eye doctor's office with dilated pupils. Strange, because we normally equate harshness with brightness!
Strange. To me I saw the light was notably dimmer (we reached 75% eclipse here in Modesto) and I felt that the light had an eerie softness to it.
I was at home in southern New Jersey, where the eclipse reached a maximum of 75% obscuration at 2:45 pm EDT (18:45 UT). It was largely cloudy, so I only saw periodic glimpses of the eclipsed sun through passing gaps in the clouds and could only muster a handful of telephoto snapshots.
I stepped back outside at 2:45 pm to see if there was a chance of catching the maximum, but it was completely overcast and generally sort of dark. My first reaction was that building cloud cover could mean rain was on the way, so I took the camera setup back inside. A little later, while sitting inside, I noticed looking out the window that it was getting brighter.
Duh -- It only dawned on me today (August 22) that what I was probably seeing was darkening from the eclipse itself. 75% obscuration means that my location was only getting 25% of the usual sunlight at the 2:45 pm maximum. That's a loss of two (2) photo stops!
BTW, I like Chris' eclipse sequence with a spare foreground better than today's APOD. I know it's good to have foreground stuff to frame a picture, but the leaning tree on the left of the APOD is really irksome. I suspect it's due to converging verticals from a wide angle lens rather than an actual "Leaning Tree of Wyoming."
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:53 pm
by bls0326
Here in Amarillo we had about a 78% partial eclipse along with high, broken clouds. I took a few pictures of our neighborhood street before and during the eclipse. Due to the cloud movement, the street picture taken during the maximum eclipse is brighter than one ten minutes or so before the maximum. Still, we had eclipse glasses and got to see the moon take "a bite" out of the sun. Quite an event!
Brian
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:36 pm
by Boomer12k
Really nice sequence shot...
"Dunt, dant, dunt, dunt, dant....MYYYY CO-RONA".....with a star to the lower left...
Why can't I click on my picture for a bigger version????
:---[===] *
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:19 pm
by MarkBour
Capture.GIF (38.53 KiB) Viewed 6249 times
Went down to Carbondale, IL to see the total eclipse. Traffic on and around I-57 in Illinois was brutal, really brutal. There in Saluki Stadium for the event, a cloud moved right in front of the Sun shortly before totality. The cloud began to clear out of the way just seconds before totality ended. We got to see the last 15 seconds or so of totality, but as it had not fully cleared the edge of the cloud, it was still somewhat obscured. Other people nearby, but out from under that cloud (e.g. 20 miles away from us) had much better views. I got a shot of the eclipse shortly before totality ended (at the right). I believe the image shows the corona, but again, a lot of what you see here is really just cloud.
I'd love to see some sort of highlights progression that shows the eclipse viewed across the U.S. I thought NASA was working on this. Actually, I was hoping they were doing a live feed during the day and that it was going to be shown at the Saluki stadium event. But no such program was presented there, and while I was in the stadium, I did not have a means to tune in NASA TV myself. So, did I miss it? Or are they working up a nice presentation?
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 4:17 pm
by pjwardau
Just beautiful.
What a fantastic piece of planning and final result.
Wish I'd been there....but no complaints as the weather in Jackson was perfect.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 4:35 pm
by MarkBour
neufer wrote: ... GOES loop image ...
Thanks, that GIF is really superb!
From that view, the moon's shadow appears "pretty dark" over a larger area than the region of totality. I think this makes sense. Even though you can't bear to look at the Sun in a 90% partial eclipse, the light hitting the ground has to be somewhere around 10% of normal. When one diagrams this, usually the umbra and penumbra are just given two different shades of black/gray, for pedagogy. But of course the penumbra is really a gradient from dark to light.
Re: APOD: A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming (2017 Aug 22)
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 4:04 am
by alter-ego
My son pointed me to this video of a group of guys who set out to capture this ISS crossing in Wyoming. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's real and it's entertaining.