Starship Asterisk*

La Silla Eclipse Sequence

Explanation: The road to the high mountaintop La Silla Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert also led in to the path of July 2nd's total solar eclipse. Recorded at regular intervals before and after the total eclipse phase, the frames in this composite sequence include the moment the Moon's dark shadow fell across some of planet Earth's advanced large telescopes. The dreamlike view looks west toward the setting Sun and the approaching Moon shadow. In fact La Silla was a little north of the shadow track's center line, so the region's stunning, clear skies are slightly brighter to the north (right) in the scene.

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Awesome...must have been a great sight.

Tonight at sunset I was at a store, came out to the parking lot... my eye caught a very red glow...I thought it was a sign...like a red price sign for gas or something... it was the SUN!!!! I don't think I have ever seen it so very red...I was amazed...

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A magnificent time lapse image of the recent total eclipse from Petr Horálek. Note the planet Venus as a small white spot just to the right of the 10th sun image from below. as it became visible during totality.

With today's technology; eclipse's have become fairly commonplace!

Why don't solar observing satellites supply all we need to know about eclipses/corona by putting a disk in the lens to blot out the Sun?
Why are terrestrial observations still needed?

TheZuke! wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2019 2:54 pm Why don't solar observing satellites supply all we need to know about eclipses/corona by putting a disk in the lens to blot out the Sun?
Why are terrestrial observations still needed?

For the most part, they do. Terrestrial observation of eclipses yields little scientific information about the Sun anymore. Eclipse observation is about experiencing a natural wonder, it's about amateurs duplicating science of the past, it's about people testing their imaging skills.

That sequence confused me—until I remembered that it was from the southern hemisphere!

Once, when I was flying at night toward southern Chile, the pattern of stars and planets outside the window looked strangely familiar, yet somehow wrong. Then it struck me—the sky was “upside down”! (And I still had a flat-Earther the other day insist that I had to have personally created the flight plan and piloted the plane in order for my observations to count.)

I still need a bit of work on my northern hemisphere chauvinism. But in my defense, I’ve only been to the southern hemisphere 3 times.