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Kurt Kintner
08-18-2017, 9:58 AM
News clip.... Be safe out there ....

NASA says that the American Astronomical Society has verified manufacturers of eclipse glasses and handheld solar viewers that meet ISO standards: American Paper Optics, Baader Planetarium (AstroSolar Silver/Gold film only), Rainbow Symphony, Thousand Oaks Optical and TSE 17.

lowell holmes
08-18-2017, 10:21 AM
When there was a previous eclipse, I looked.

This time, I will see it on the news telecasts. :)

Pat Barry
08-18-2017, 11:44 AM
Got glasses last night that were stamped as ISO- something. I hope they are OK because that's what we're using. I am hoping to see a good show and will be bummed out if its cloudy.

Steve Peterson
08-18-2017, 12:10 PM
I remember the last several eclipses when we just used a pinhole in a sheet of paper to view it. This year everyone seems to be going crazy over solar glasses. My wife waited until Monday this week to ask for a pair. They were easy to find a month ago for $1-2 each. On Monday, I watched a few auctions on EBay. $62 for 2 pairs. $80 for 4 pairs. The auction prices were crazy. I found her a "buy it now" pair for $6 including shipping that guaranteed delivery before Monday.

Steve

Yonak Hawkins
08-18-2017, 12:24 PM
Even if it's cloudy there will be a show of sorts. It will get eerily dark in the middle of the day for a short time. Critters may be confused. Observing them may be fun if you can. I'll be watching the birds to see how they react, if at all.

Regarding the glasses, our local library still has ones they are giving out for free. Not to be excessively cautionary but, counterfeit glasses can have any kind of insignia or number they want to print on them .. they're counterfeit. The recommendation is to get them from a reliable source. ..And be careful not to even peek or take fleeting glances without eye protection. They can add up and you won't know if any damage has been done until later. Now that I've spoiled your fun, enjoy a spectacle that happens only a few times in one's lifetime.

Edwin Santos
08-18-2017, 1:57 PM
Even if it's cloudy there will be a show of sorts. It will get eerily dark in the middle of the day for a short time. Critters may be confused. Observing them may be fun if you can. I'll be watching the birds to see how they react, if at all.


All accurate if you're in the total eclipse shadow path. If you're in the zone where it will be partial like most of us, you probably won't even notice because our eyes adjust involuntarily for the change. At least that was my experience in 1991 in Nevada where the eclipse was partial. Those in the total shadow path are fortunate.

James Baker SD
08-18-2017, 2:37 PM
I hate to be a downer, but there are reports of counterfeit goggles being sold, some apparently with fake certification numbers, that DO NOT filter the light adequately. For more info, google astronomy blogs and check them out. Most of them have current threads on the topic.

Mel Fulks
08-18-2017, 2:47 PM
My wife ordered some from a source owned by friends of local TV weather guy. After they got here we got a letter saying they were suspect and that they would send more.

John K Jordan
08-18-2017, 3:05 PM
Thanks, got a few good ones.

I'll be taking my 8" telescope with a pro solar filter to a friend's place smack on the centerline. The 8" filter is made of glass, multicoated with thin layers of metal - it looks like a mirror until you look through it.

I took this telescope to schools during two previous solar eclipses, long time ago. Kids would come out by class group and line up for a look. What was even better: I put a 4" scope with a right-angle eyepiece on a tripod where the image of the sun would be projected into a cardboard box with a piece of white paper taped inside. This made a beautiful image and lots of kids could see it at one time.

Even more interesting - during a partial eclipse I was walking on a sidewalk lined with small trees. The overlapping leaves made zillions of pinhole lenses and each projected an image of the eclipse on the sidewalk. It was so surreal - hundreds of thousands of little eclipse crescents, each moving slightly with the breeze on the trees!

JKJ

Stan Calow
08-18-2017, 3:34 PM
We're in the path of totality here in KC. Lot of schools are closing for the day, partly because they don't want liability of kids getting hurt whether supervised or not. On the advice of insurers.

Wade Lippman
08-18-2017, 4:26 PM
I am waiting for the 2024 eclipse. My house is almost on the centerline. Of course it will be April so there is a 10% chance of clear skies, but still...

I was very excited about the 1970 partial eclipse and it was really nothing at all. So I am bothering to even look at this one. I had planned on traveling to see it in totality, but the idea of having bad weather was just too much.

Good luck to those on the path.

kevin nee
08-18-2017, 7:50 PM
I am going fishing during the eclipse. Wish me luck.

Mark Blatter
08-18-2017, 11:44 PM
People are going crazy. Reports of hotel rooms in Idaho and Oregon going for 3-5 times the normal rate. This morning an Idaho farmer woke up to tire tracks in his just planted field of mustard. He followed them and found a camper, pickup truck and a bunch of polite Canadians camping out in the middle of his field. He politely insisted they get the heck off his property.

I thought about going up to Wyoming from the Salt Lake area, but UDOT is predicting massive delays along the interstate. They said it could be as long as a 20 hour drive to return from Eastern ID (normally a 3 hour drive). I will be staying home and working.

John K Jordan
08-19-2017, 8:53 AM
People are going crazy.


I wonder how crazy it will get in TN. There have been hundreds of people in line waiting when new shipments of glasses were arriving, chaos inside some stores. The news is predicting a massive influx of people. I have a friend driving down from Maryland for the event.

I don't remember anything like this the last two eclipses.

JKJ

Jim Koepke
08-19-2017, 2:12 PM
Our local Kaiser clinic was giving out free glasses. My wife wanted to go, but after she heard about all the others going she decided we are staying home.

Traffic is already tied up in parts of Oregon. Some friends from California are driving to some friends in Oregon. After things settle down they plan to drive up to see us. I expect them sometime on Wednesday or Thursday even though in theory it is only about a six hour drive. My friend said the population of Oregon is expected to more than double for the event.

jtk

Matt Meiser
08-19-2017, 9:26 PM
Been seeing some posts from family west of St. Louis that they are expecting major traffic problems where they live too. Work (in St. Louis right on the edge of the path) is having a party but I was only invited at my own expense so I'll be working.

Pat Barry
08-19-2017, 11:19 PM
My daughter and I will be driving about 6 hours south towards KC to see this eclipse. Hope it's sunny!

daryl moses
08-20-2017, 8:44 AM
We are in the path of "totality" the weather forecast looks to be good. [mostly sunny]
The wife and I will be outside watching the show.
It's a media frenzy around here, they are telling people to keep their pets inside to prevent them from suffering retina damage. As if domesticated animals have a habit of staring at the sun lol. I suppose all the wildlife and farm animals will all go blind...............

John K Jordan
08-20-2017, 12:37 PM
It's a media frenzy around here, they are telling people to keep their pets inside to prevent them from suffering retina damage. As if domesticated animals have a habit of staring at the sun lol. I suppose all the wildlife and farm animals will all go blind...............

That's it. I need an immediate source for glasses to fit the llamas, alpacas, horses, donkeys, dogs, and cats. I wonder if peacocks and guineas need them. And how will I ever get them to stay on all 310,0013 honey bees? I am now fraught with anxiety.

JKJ

Mel Fulks
08-20-2017, 1:05 PM
Well...the peacocks have so many eyes , I wouldn't worry about the two beady small ones. Pretty sure that favorite bee of yours will get her pair !

John K Jordan
08-20-2017, 1:59 PM
Well...the peacocks have so many eyes , I wouldn't worry about the two beady small ones. Pretty sure that favorite bee of yours will get her pair !

My favorite is Gertrude.

I asked my bee mentor once if he named his bees. He said, yep, that one thar is Gertrude. I said how about that one? Gertrude. The queen? Gertrude. The drones? All Gertrude. Since I got my starting hives from him I figured the genetics carried over and today all of mine are Gertrude. I'll have to get Gertrude some glasses.

JKJ

Jim Barkelew
08-21-2017, 7:55 AM
I checked my welding helmet yesterday and it's not dark enough to look at the sun. The glass is shade 10 and 12-13 is needed. Bad planning when I bought the helmet 10 years ago. Time to make a pin hole viewer.

One cool effect I remember from the last partial eclipse is the shadows under a tree.

John K Jordan
08-21-2017, 8:32 AM
Time to make a pin hole viewer.


Do you have a small telescope or binoculars? I use an 8" telescope with a solar filter, but I also also do a projection through a 4" scope and got a nice 2" to 5" diameter sun image onto a piece of paper (depending on the projection distance). Far better than a pinhole.

My small scope has a 90-deg eyepiece so I project the image sideways into a cardboard box with a piece of white paper taped inside. This allowed lots of kids to view from the same time.

You can project with binoculars but the light from the sun and sky can drown out the image unless you shield by putting the eyepiece lens up to a hole in a piece of cardboard or something.

I got my telescope out yesterday and checked it out with the solar filter. There are sunspots now, five in a line near the center of the sun! I held my phone camera up to the eyepiece and took a (poor) sunspot photo. Another thing I tried was holding the 10x image stabilized binoculars behind the 8" solar filter. The image wasn't too big but I could still see the sunspots clearly.

JKJ

Curt Harms
08-21-2017, 1:28 PM
I'm in E. Kentucky today and it looks like around 94% coverage so should be worth looking at. Re the use of welding lenses I wonder if there's a duration of exposure element there. A #10 lens is pretty dark unless there are damaging light frequencies (Infrared/Ultra Violet) that aren't filtered by welding lenses. Lots of information out there, I'm sure some of it is even correct.

Ken Fitzgerald
08-21-2017, 2:32 PM
We are about 150 miles north of the expected arc so it got a little "dusky" here and that was it.

A DIL and grandkids were driving home to Southern California from here yesterday and today. As advertised, she said the traffic around Madras, OR to Bend, OR was heavy but moving quite well. They watched the eclipse from Mt. Shasta, CA where they overnighted.

Brian Tymchak
08-21-2017, 2:47 PM
We had cloud cover come in right at the same time as peak eclipse, so it's hard to say the effect of the eclipse was here. Overall, it looked about 7-8 pm on a cloudy day here.

daryl moses
08-21-2017, 3:10 PM
All i can say is it was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!
Not a cloud in the sky, it got eerily dark. The best part was when it reached totality and you could look directly at it without the glasses.

Brian Tymchak
08-21-2017, 3:36 PM
And right on time, as the eclipse ends, our skys have cleared and it is a bright sunny day... go figure...

Von Bickley
08-21-2017, 5:12 PM
Had my eclipse glasses on and stayed cool at the same time. We were in the perfect place in Lexington, SC. The traffic on interstate I-20 was bumper to bumper. The eclipse was totally amazing.

Dave Richards
08-21-2017, 7:32 PM
The forecast was not looking good for eclipse viewing but it cleared up in time so I made a quick pinhole projector from a 3 foot long box I found at work. A scrap of aluminum tape on top for the pinhole and a piece of printer paper in the bottom for a projection surface and Bob's yer uncle.
366530
This was taken within a minute of max coverage. We were only supposed to get about 83% coverage. could have used another three feet or so of box.
366529

Lot's of people stopped to have a look and when we were finished, I dropped it in the box crusher on my way back to the shop.

About two minutes afterward it began to cloud up. In another 20 minutes it was heavy overcast and by the time I left work it was raining.

Michael Weber
08-22-2017, 11:52 AM
you only had to look down

scott vroom
08-22-2017, 2:56 PM
We watched it from our yard. The eclipse started at 9:04 AM and peaked at 10:21 AM with 99% coverage at our place. I took this pick at 10:21 holding the dark viewing glasses over my camera lens. It was noticeably darker outside at the peak, but not as much as we had expected. That tiny 1% sliver throws off a surprising amount of light. The temperature dropped 7 or 8 degrees which was eerie. At the peak it was dead quiet...everyone stopped doing what they were doing, cars were off the road...except for dogs barking and howling. I guess the darkness bothered them. Our lab was anxious and whining as the light dimmed.

We live close to the totality zone but decided to not drive up (normally 20 mins) due to the massive amount of traffic on all the roads in central Oregon. It was quite an event, and added badly needed $millions to the local economy.

Brian Elfert
08-22-2017, 8:02 PM
I didn't even bother to go outside for this. A local weatherman and astronomer drove from Minneapolis to Grand Island, Nebraska for the eclipse and then drove back Monday getting in at 2 am due to all the traffic. That is simply nuts to me.

John K Jordan
08-22-2017, 10:31 PM
I didn't even bother to go outside for this. A local weatherman and astronomer drove from Minneapolis to Grand Island, Nebraska for the eclipse and then drove back Monday getting in at 2 am due to all the traffic. That is simply nuts to me.

Tennessee was not like that, at least those I heard from. We live outside the totality so my wife drove to a spot about 20 miles away and got a good look without fighting any traffic. I drove almost 2 hours to a good friend's house but not because I had too but just to hang out. With all the media warnings of traffic insanity we worried about the traffic and left early. There was no need - I-40 traffic was light as normal and there were no traffic issues off the interstate either. All the motels, hotels and campgrounds were sold out in advance so that might have been a problem for last-minute travelers.

JKJ

Lee Schierer
08-23-2017, 11:08 AM
We went to Hopkinsville, KY and the viewing was great. We had one small cloud pass by during the 30% partial phase, but then it was completely clear. At totality I took this photo.
366633
As it started getting dark the Cicadas started calling and then quit when it got dark. As it started getting light again they started calling again. When it was completely dark we had several bats start flying around. We didn't notice any birds and the dogs near us didn't seem to care. There were about 2,000 people near us and they all cheered when it went to totality. The temperature did drop about 7 degrees as it got close to totality and then went up again as the light came back.

We had no traffic problems around Hopkinsville. We left shortly after the total part and it took us maybe 15 minutes to leave the Fairgrounds and get on the highway. We had moderate traffic between Hopkinsville and I-24 and light traffic on I -24 headed back to Tennessee. Going North past Louisville and Cincinnati traffic was heavy, but we hit both places during their normal rush hour and there was a major detour on I-71 north due to the bridge closing across the Ohio river at Cincinnati.

Ed Aumiller
08-23-2017, 10:28 PM
Tennessee was not like that, at least those I heard from. We live outside the totality so my wife drove to a spot about 20 miles away and got a good look without fighting any traffic. I drove almost 2 hours to a good friend's house but not because I had too but just to hang out. With all the media warnings of traffic insanity we worried about the traffic and left early. There was no need - I-40 traffic was light as normal and there were no traffic issues off the interstate either. All the motels, hotels and campgrounds were sold out in advance so that might have been a problem for last-minute travelers.

JKJ

We drove from VA, spent Sunday night in Knoxville and drove to Sweetwater, TN about 9 AM, traffic was not bad, took 1 hour to get there (about 45 miles)...

Had a great experience for my daughter, grandson, great-grand-daughter.. perfect weather and clear sky...

When we left Sweetwater, it took 5 1/2 hours to get back to a motel in Knoxville !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Absurd... Police would only allow only so many cars to head north on I-75 and we were forced to go south for 8 miles then turn around to get on I-75 north !!!

This is a photo of what we saw using a small scope with solar filters..

366673

If you can see the little red spots, they are solar flares at the time this was taken..

It was a headache traffic wise, but worth it for the kids to see / experience it...

Brian Tymchak
08-24-2017, 9:25 AM
This is a photo of what we saw using a small scope with solar filters..

366673

If you can see the little red spots, they are solar flares at the time this was taken..


Awesome photo Ed! Thanks for sharing!

John K Jordan
08-24-2017, 2:43 PM
If you can see the little red spots, they are solar flares at the time this was taken..


Great shot! That was exactly what I saw through my big scope. But I suspect that shot was taken with the filter removed from the scope - the image was so dim during totality that I had to take the filter off to see the corona and red solar prominences. Could look at it with bare eyes then, through the unfiltered binoculars, and telescope.

That was the first time my my long life I've ever seen solar prominences except in photographs or video. Incredible.

Did you see the sunspots too? I set up the scope and filters on the binoculars and saw sunspots near the center two days before. On Monday those had moved significantly and a few more were visible coming around the limb.

JKJ

Ole Anderson
08-24-2017, 9:01 PM
My 17 YO granddaughter really got into the eclipse spirit when she raided her makeup stash.

lowell holmes
08-25-2017, 9:24 AM
We watched on TV. I look at lunar eclipses, not solar.