The eclipse, anyone?

[Moutaineer]

Anyone else eclipse chasing?

We are getting up pre dawn tomorrow and driving North up into Idaho.

[StraightForward]

We are at about 99.5% here, so I have my glasses and plan to walk out in the office parking lot to check it out.

[Bip]

We are ready! We are visiting my parents just outside of Portland, about 98% coverage. My dad is a middle school science teacher and science guy in general, and has been planning this for about two years. He would have liked to get us all to totality, but with the kids (a 1 year old and rowdy 4 year old), I did not want to get fancy and try to camp, get a hotel, or brave the traffic. He's got our spot all picked out, approved glasses, boxes made, binoculars on tripod and ready to go (you don't look through the binoculars, they shine a beam on the ground).

[piedmontfields]

We are in the totality zone in Tennessee and are hosting a small gathering. My DH mowed a crop circle in the best viewing location in our fields

Some are worrying about traffic in our rural area, but I think that it will be heavy but not crazy. Given that I need to go work in the AM on Monday, I am prepared to use a backroads way to get home in case the interstate is bad.

Enjoy, everyone!

[PaulaO]

I will be at work and will wander outside. I don't have glasses so will be out for about 60 seconds.

[PaulaO]

My neighbor said you can use your cell on selfie mode to watch the eclipse. Turn your back to the sun and watch it on your phone. I will try that.

[texsuze]

Ready with our pinhole peepers and approved specs here We're probably only 70% totality; would love to be in The Path, you lucky guys! Remember to protect your eyeballs!

[Literiding]

I’ve experimented and finally have a pretty good pin hole view. Used a wrapping paper tube with a pin hole in foil at one end and parchment paper (baking) on the other. But since the weather is forecast too be pretty good I decided to see if I could get some photos. Started out with a pin hole on a couple of macro extension tubes. Ok but not good enough:

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So after a little internet research, I found that typical window glass reflects about 4% to 8% of the light that hits it at zero degrees incident. So I painted on side of an 11 inch pane of glass to avoid double reflection with some left over black spray paint. Set the camera ISO speed to 100, 4000th of a second shutter and stopped down to F22 with a tripler to further reduce the light:

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Still way too bright. More research indicated that water would reflect about half the light of glass. But I found in execution that the air has to be absolutely still to get a usable photo. So after enclosing my tray in an open box, did ok:

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There were some light clouds at the time of the photo and you can see them, particularly after some post processing:

(For reasons unknown, I can't get this file to upload!)

Still very bright. I downloaded an image from the NASA SOHO site and discovered there are some sun spots marching across the image of the sun. If I cranked the contrast way up on my water image, you could guess where the sun spots were at:

[Literiding]

Repeated from above!

There were some light clouds at the time of the photo and you can see them, particularly after some post processing:

(For reasons unknown, I can't get this file to upload!)

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Still very bright. I downloaded an image from the NASA SOHO site and discovered there are some sun spots marching across the image of the sun. If I cranked the contrast way up on my water image, you could guess where the sun spots were at:

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[Flight]

I want to hear what it's like!! Make sure you come back and tell me

[piedmontfields]

I will! I've only seen partial eclipses before, so am excited to be living in totality (who knew when we bought this place 9 years ago?!!!).

[heddylamar]

We're in Memphis this weekend, and leaving here in a bit (need to feed chickens, horses, cow, dogs, and cats) to drive tl the totallity zone. We have an elabprate picnic lunch packed

I'm not expecting traffic of the sort we see at home (Md/DC), but it'll likely be heavy.

[Tarlo Farm]

Have fun and be safe everyone! A weekend of music festival and possible cloud cover stopped my plans to drive south to totality today. Have to settle for 80%

[angela9823]

We are in a path of totality so we are just going to sit on top of our hill which is a field and should get a good view. I don't necessarily care about viewing the sun but I love the idea of the 360 degree sunset!

[heddylamar]

Okay, there was no traffic at all. So much for all of the big travel warning signs

Early morning picnicking in the heat at Fort Donelson.

[khall]

Here in middle GA it is about 94% eclipse. I'm sure I will be out and wandering around, looking forward to the cooling off while sun is partially hidden!! DS went with a friend and his family to Helen where there will be totality for a few seconds. They were going to drive further north to get longer totality, but traffic is apparently bad. Not sure when he will be home, they will have to contend with horrid ATL traffic to make it back.

DH is working, probably won't do much with the event.

Finding glasses here was ridiculous. A friend got me a pair and I went back to get my parents some, they were sold out. I know of 2 shipments total of 8,000 were completely sold out in 2 days.

[Koolkat]

It's started here in the Pac NW!

DH walked outside with a colander and placed it above a piece of white paper = many mini eclipses!!

[demi]

Oh man! I looked!!!

[StraightForward]

Okay, there was no traffic at all. So much for all of the big travel warning signs

Early morning picnicking in the heat at Fort Donelson.

Yeah, the traffic did not materialize here. I thought people might be headed west to get to totality this morning, so I decided to wait until after work to ride today. Checked the freeway cam at 9:15 and it was totally open both ways.

Anyway, a bunch of us gathered in the office parking lot and watched it go over. The sun got to a sliver that then kind of went from the north, to the east, then out the west side of the moon. The temp dropped several degrees, it got kind of dusky, and for a minute or two, there were shadows going two directions, perpendicular to each other. Now it's back to a nice, sunny day.

[Koolkat]

That was EXTREMELY cool. If you want to go low tech, just tape a piece of paper to a support you can prop up (we used a piece of laminate board and a large pot) and aim it at the sun. Then hold a colander between sun and paper. The farther back you stand, the bigger the image. It works really well and creates a beautiful image.

[Literiding]

Big old puffy cumulous cloud parked it's self over the sun right for the five minutes of maximum coverage of the sun (86% - 87%). So here's a photo through the cloud:

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Knowing the likelihood of not getting anything is why I didn't spend any money on to get a better setup. But I saw it, I'm happy.

[Canyon]

We were at 87%.

Colander projection:

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Tree projection onto my arena:

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[piedmontfields]

Totality was really beautiful at our property. Clear and stunning views! I can see why people travel to see this.

[Moutaineer]

We drove 3.5 hours to the other side of Idaho Falls, to a little town called Roberts. We turned off down a dead-end dirt road, and stopped with a small group of other people just as the event was starting to happen.

There was a pasture with 4 horses in it behind us, and a wetland full of birds in front of us.

At first, the horses came over to check us out, and the birds were singing and flitting around. As the world got colder and darker, it started to go quiet. The horses stood together in a little circle with their noses together, then one broke away and stood guard watching the darkness glide in from the north east.

As totality came, there was an astonishing 360 degree sunset. In the two and a half minutes of darkness, we could see Venus, and a halo of whispiness around the moon. The sky all around the horizon was indescribable.

Then it was like someone turned on a flashlight--a ping of light as the sun made it's first appearance, and a pink sky all around the horizon again.

The birds began to sing, the horses went back to grazing, and warmth began to return.

Amazing, moving experience.

[goldhorse]

Fogged in here (San Francisco area) but DD sent me this picture from NYC. She admitted to looking at the eclipse. I yelled at her via text!

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[Moutaineer]

Driving back was pretty ugly until past Pocatello. Then busy but smooth sailing all the way home.

[Flight]

LOL Demi!!!!

Mountaineer thanks for your description, it gave me goose bumps. That would have been so cool, I would have loved to have seen it. Interesting to hear what the horses did, I was curious to what they would do.

[piedmontfields]

It was a really beautiful experience. Super cool to see it in our own hayfields. It was a little weird when two military planes flying low buzzed our fields moments before totality (I assume they were filming). The farm where I board had a shorter totality period but awesome ridge top views.

[Koolkat]

So was it truly dark? Just curious. . . .

We had 92% coverage here, and the light effect was eerie, but it wasn't "dark".

[piedmontfields]

It wasn't middle of the night dark, but it was darker than when I got back from the barn last night at 9 pm EST. You could see stars and planets during totality. The odd light was wonderful as totality approached and then went away.

But really, being the in the path was spectacular. If I were in a 90% location at another viewing opportunity, I would travel to get to 100%. It is that different.

[Flight]

I've been seeing some awesome photos on the net, I love this stuff!
Canyon, now I understand your pics lol I didn't at first. Very cool

[Literiding]

Some of my better shots. The moon's apparent motion is from right to left and leaves a sliver of sun visible on the bottom. 86% to 87% of the sun was covered. Camera was a EOS-M 12 mega pixel with a 35 year old Canon 400 mm telephoto, tripler and a 4x neutral density filter giving an effective focal length of 1200 mm.

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[Literiding]

These were taken with my Canon 30D 8 megapixel (?) CCD mounting a 100 - 300 mm zoom lens and a polarizer on it. These images have been cropped while the images above are as they appeared on the CCD. All images have been reduced in width to 800 pixels.

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