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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the come-join-in dept.

NASA site. Eclipse2017.org.

[Ed. addition] Please join in the comments with links to other sites that you have found. Also, what plans do you have, if any, for viewing the eclipse? Ignoring it? Getting together with friends? Traveling to get a better view? Would love to see comments with people's experiences of seeing the eclipse.

Also, I forgot where I'd seen it, but there was a suggestion to keep pets inside and away from windows, especially if you are where there is [nearly] total obscuration, as they may become confused and accidentally view the eclipse. I don't know about that. There seems to be quite a bit of wildlife that cannot go indoors during an eclipse and I'd never heard of large die-offs following an eclipse.

Maps for each of the United States showing the amount of obscuration at various points across the state and time of maximum obscuration.

Ars Technica story about what happens when you view an eclipse without protection.

The American Astronomical Society has a variety of resources at: https://eclipse.aas.org/

JAMA Ophthalmol journal article http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullarticle/2648904 (doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2017.2936) explains damage that can come from viewing the sun directly:

Damage to the fovea in solar retinopathy (sometimes called photic retinopathy or solar retinitis) occurs in 2 ways and by 2 distinct physical mechanisms. The spectrum of sunlight contains a significant fraction of near-infrared radiation (700-1500 nm), which can cause direct thermal injury (burns) via heat. Because we cannot see this light, and the retina lacks nociceptive receptors to signal pain, damage can occur without our knowledge. However, the more pressing concern when viewing a solar eclipse is for visible light, which in excess causes photochemical toxicity through rapid accumulation of reactive oxygen species and free radicals. This is especially damaging to the retinal pigment epithelium and choroid, which contain an abundance of photoactive materials rife for oxidation: heme proteins, melanosomes, lipofuscin, and the like.

Sky & Telescope article http://www.skyandtelescope.com/2017-total-solar-eclipse/solar-partial-eclipse-rest/ general information on eclipses and some viewing suggestions.

Pinhole Astrophotography http://users.erols.com/njastro/barry/pages/pinhole.htm has a somewhat technical explanation of how you can design a device for projecting an image of the eclipsing sun. An example is provided where the author projected an image 24.1 cm in diameter at a distance of 25.9 meters from the tripod-mounted 5.9mm mirror 'pinhole'. (That's a BIG pin.)


[TMB Note]: One of the perks of living in Tennessee now is I'll be less than an hour's drive from the path of totality. The Roomie and I will be hauling some viewing glasses, five cameras, two phones, a cooler of water, and a pair of huge sammiches up to it to look for a good viewing/photographing spot in an hour or so. Expect at least a few good quality shots either this evening or by the morning, depending on how much offline life decides to keep me otherwise busy.

Any of you who beat me to the punch and can spare the bandwidth, feel free to post links to your own shots here. If you include a copyright release for us to do so, we may use them either in an update to this story or in a latter dedicated images story.

Enjoy the show and make sure not to burn your retinas out.


[Update]: Excuse the quality. My camera was confirmed to be a cheap piece of crap whilst The Roomie's was confirmed to be smarter than him. At least the auto-focus setting is smarter than him. And, lastly, excuse the lack of embedded video. It's been a long day and I can't be arsed to figure out how to get rehash to quit stripping the video tag out at the moment. Have a link to the video and be happy with it.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:45AM (#557413)

    Runaway2017 ran away from the eclipse, as obviously it was a sign of the second coming of Zog, the god of White supremacy. And, .. . once again it didn't happen! How many time do you have to get fooled by that preacher down the road at the MegaChurch, who seems to have a "special" relationship with not only your wife, but your daughters and nieces of a certain age? OMG! How many times has he predicted the end of the world, and how many times were we stupid enough to give him all our money so he could convert it into "BitCoin" that would be accepted in Heaven, so we actually could take it with us, anonymously! Except, not. Everything is written in the Great Book, including how much of a racist Runaway has been. He may object, but you know, omniscience is a bitch, bros! You going down, Runaway!