Jupiter and Saturn have come back out from the far side of the Sun and, in early March, started becoming doable again. I'd started noticing Saturn appearing out the front / East facing window and through the gap in the tree canopy some months back in early morning insomnia hours some weeks ago but hadn't been motivated to pursue things beyond binocular shots from indoors. And under those conditions you'd only know it was Saturn by checking the schedule. (Well, the color...)
On 2021/05/06 around 04:00 EDT I grabbed the scope gear for first planet mission since 2021/02/03 and first successful planet mission since 2021/01/28. I'd previously been checking for good East options but a hundred yards up from the driveway... Last house on the right, single level, no problematic trees, ESE... Pretty good option - I discovered on that outing.
Spectacular view. Very low and just clearing the left edge of the frame a crescent Moon five days shy of new. Then a little up and a lot to the right - Jupiter. Got three moons. Missed Europa - which was just to the right - I didn't know where things were supposed to be and didn't look carefully enough. Then Saturn fairly evenly spaced farther along the line to the upper right.
A week or so later I couldn't remember the date on that one. But I COULD remember the pattern of the moons. Sky Walk 2 - on the Pad or Phone - I discovered, lets you change the time for your sky down to the minute. So I set the time for 04:30 and the date to a bit earlier than it could have been, blew up Jupiter on the display, added days until I hit my bull's-eye.
I was still pissed off about my 2021/01/30 car battery disaster which had cost me my last viable shot at Mercury before it orbited (counterclockwise - as we all do) to between us and the Sun. By late February it had passed to the right of the Sun and I suspect was becoming doable for morning shots - although In-The-Sky.org says otherwise - but I never chased and on 2021/04/19 it was lined up on the far side of the Sun (superior conjunction).
With it again back in evening mode - for the first period since I was doing my Pastures missions - I decided to do another Pastures run for 2021/05/13. Local sunset - 20:11 EDT at 295 degrees (way the hell later and north from where it had been on my winter runs (duh)).
All the planets orbit the Sun in something close to the same plane and thus will rise and set at close to the same two positions on the horizon. Mercury is by far the oddball out with a plane cocked seven degrees off of ours but... Close enough for the purpose of our exercise.
I get on site at maybe 20:30 and start trying to get my shit together. I figure Mercury's gotta be pretty low I don't have a lot of time to spare. And while the sky is mostly clear, to north there's a low projection of cloud with dark streaks of rain pouring down below it and it's advancing toward where I'd prefer it didn't.
There's a spectacular two day old crescent Moon up pretty high and I get Venus in fairly short order.
I'm using Star Walk 2 on my iPhone 5 but I find it difficult to hold the phone towards and perpendicular to the target zone. Just slight adjustments seem to throw things way off.
Plan B... Aim the phone at something known and brain-dead easy - the Moon would work nicely for this situation - and find your target off of that orientation. Bingo, I've got Mercury. (Rather lucky to have had a reference point like that.)
But it's WAY HIGHER than I thought it would and could be. Really blew me away. Later I find that I was four days shy of it maxing out. (That'll be this evening but the forecast isn't very promising.)
Mars was supposed to be above and closing on the Moon. Pretty high up and difficult for a birding scope, also some cloud issues - but I was able to get it with a bit of effort.
My problem cloud dialed down pretty substantially and I was able to track Venus down into a tree on the horizon and stayed until Mercury had followed it.
Then the idea of bagging two more planets started becoming appealing. Wasn't in bad shape when 04:00 rolled around, hauled my gear up to the top of the street and they were blazing away.
Locked onto Saturn fairly easily - maybe 'cause it was up at a comfortable altitude - but it was a major BITCH for me to lock onto Jupiter using my empty-handle-cylinder-as-finderscope trick. It's kinda tough to get your self and equipment lined up properly with your target in zilch light.
I think with recent practice I've gotten my technique a lot more refined and effective but it still really pisses me off that Swarovski eliminated their proper and highly effective finderscope feature to make way for their digiscoping gear and haven't bothered to provide a properly engineered replacement option - which they could easily and cheaply do. And I suspect they never will 'cause that would open them up to attack for providing a junk alternative while NOT bothering to provide the properly engineered replacement option.
birds
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Well, that was kinda fun - and it's nice this time of year not finishing up half dead from hypothermia. Let's try it again the next evening - 2021/05/14.
The Moon's a day fuller and a lot higher, Mercury and Venus are a little higher. Get on station with lotsa light left, know where to find things and do pretty quickly. And it doesn't need to be very dark to get even Mercury naked eye.
Add Mars to the collection and I'm pretty sure I had a quick glimpse of a bat coming in close to my right.
Watch Venus set into a tree to my WNW. Then I think that if I just reposition twenty yards up the drive I can watch it set again on a clean pasture horizon. Pretty cool. Also position to watch Mercury set clean a fair bit later.
I think it was while I was breaking down and facing the other way there was something blindingly bright white starting to go by towards the ENE. Had to be the Space Station. And I'm sure that this was the first time I'd just blundered into it without knowing a schedule beforehand.
Got back home, verified, was astonished to see that that was the first of FIVE viewing opportunities for my position for the night. Time and minutes of duration (horizons permitting):
- 21:25 - 6
- 23:02 - 6
- 00:42 - 1
- 02:19 - 3
- 03:55 - 6
Hadn't thought that was possible.
The path for the second one would be pretty good for the farm at the top end of my road and I geared for doing it on foot with the binocular. Trespassed in very quietly and everything was fine until the faint click of my stabilized glasses being switched on set off a Whitetail in the wooded strip between the farm and neighborhood. Totally exploded away through the undergrowth.
Got my first ever second pass but wasn't up for the other three.
The Moon's a day fuller and a lot higher, Mercury and Venus are a little higher. Get on station with lotsa light left, know where to find things and do pretty quickly. And it doesn't need to be very dark to get even Mercury naked eye.
Add Mars to the collection and I'm pretty sure I had a quick glimpse of a bat coming in close to my right.
Watch Venus set into a tree to my WNW. Then I think that if I just reposition twenty yards up the drive I can watch it set again on a clean pasture horizon. Pretty cool. Also position to watch Mercury set clean a fair bit later.
I think it was while I was breaking down and facing the other way there was something blindingly bright white starting to go by towards the ENE. Had to be the Space Station. And I'm sure that this was the first time I'd just blundered into it without knowing a schedule beforehand.
Got back home, verified, was astonished to see that that was the first of FIVE viewing opportunities for my position for the night. Time and minutes of duration (horizons permitting):
- 21:25 - 6
- 23:02 - 6
- 00:42 - 1
- 02:19 - 3
- 03:55 - 6
Hadn't thought that was possible.
The path for the second one would be pretty good for the farm at the top end of my road and I geared for doing it on foot with the binocular. Trespassed in very quietly and everything was fine until the faint click of my stabilized glasses being switched on set off a Whitetail in the wooded strip between the farm and neighborhood. Totally exploded away through the undergrowth.
Got my first ever second pass but wasn't up for the other three.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
2021/05/15 - third night in a row.
Back on station, get all my boxes checked. There's a stable/stationary low cloud mass running a few degrees above the horizon to the NW so I won't be getting proper sets. Venus gets eaten.
A car pulls in and parks behind mine. Young female driver emerges, says she's noticed me here a couple nights taking pictures...
Nope. And explain to her what the deal is and she's all in. Good news... She's totally thrilled to see the little dot of Mercury - quite high up as it still is. Bad news... The top of her head comes up to about the bottom of my sternum - and I stupidly haven't been throwing the step stool into the car for these outings. So I've had to do an inelegant but adequate job of partially collapsing the tripod to get her her shots.
We compare birth years. I have half a century on her and she's just getting out of high school. We click on all the issues... piece o' shit we recently got pried outta the White House, mass extinction, destruction of the planet upon which we're standing...
Got her the then four day old and fairly high up Moon and Mars less than one and a half degrees above it (which was a moderately BFD in the geek world).
She pointed out to me the Big Dipper near straight up. Oh yeah, hadn't even thought about that one since I-can't-remember-when. Ursa Major gets me Polaris and that can be a big help in getting oriented.
Then she had to roll and I had nothing left to stick around for. And there was a six minute, 36 max altitude, West to NorthEast ISS flyover starting at 22:14 I was gonna do on foot and binocular only back at my top-of-the-road farm field back home.
Rolled for home, unloaded the car, did a little R&R, started gearing up for the Space Station. Where the fuck are my Canon glasses? I'm still wearing the harness, they're not in the backpack, scope case, car... There's no way in hell I'd have set them on the ground while stowing the scope assembly - but I had to make that assumption.
Burned rubber for the mile back to Pastures station and came up totally empty. OK, nothing more I can do that's time critical so I just waited a few minutes for the flyover and followed it with my Leitz 7x42 backup glasses, returned home at a sane speed. Almost immediately saw the 42 millimeter objective lenses staring straight at me.
I'd plopped myself down in the armchair facing the television, unclipped the glasses (black), set them down on the closed tenor ukulele case (black) next to the chair, hadn't turned on extra lights... Really well camouflaged.
Oh well... Pastures had been the better observation platform and I'd been half tempted to return anyway. But it sure was a lot of unpleasant stress.
And we were gonna get the Space Station on its next orbit an hour forty later. And the home field WOULD work probably equally well for that one. Saw a bright satellite disappear into the trees to the south just as I was getting myself positioned, thought I'd screwed the pooch, checked my watch and memory... Nah. Got another nice flyover on schedule.
Back on station, get all my boxes checked. There's a stable/stationary low cloud mass running a few degrees above the horizon to the NW so I won't be getting proper sets. Venus gets eaten.
A car pulls in and parks behind mine. Young female driver emerges, says she's noticed me here a couple nights taking pictures...
Nope. And explain to her what the deal is and she's all in. Good news... She's totally thrilled to see the little dot of Mercury - quite high up as it still is. Bad news... The top of her head comes up to about the bottom of my sternum - and I stupidly haven't been throwing the step stool into the car for these outings. So I've had to do an inelegant but adequate job of partially collapsing the tripod to get her her shots.
We compare birth years. I have half a century on her and she's just getting out of high school. We click on all the issues... piece o' shit we recently got pried outta the White House, mass extinction, destruction of the planet upon which we're standing...
Got her the then four day old and fairly high up Moon and Mars less than one and a half degrees above it (which was a moderately BFD in the geek world).
She pointed out to me the Big Dipper near straight up. Oh yeah, hadn't even thought about that one since I-can't-remember-when. Ursa Major gets me Polaris and that can be a big help in getting oriented.
Then she had to roll and I had nothing left to stick around for. And there was a six minute, 36 max altitude, West to NorthEast ISS flyover starting at 22:14 I was gonna do on foot and binocular only back at my top-of-the-road farm field back home.
Rolled for home, unloaded the car, did a little R&R, started gearing up for the Space Station. Where the fuck are my Canon glasses? I'm still wearing the harness, they're not in the backpack, scope case, car... There's no way in hell I'd have set them on the ground while stowing the scope assembly - but I had to make that assumption.
Burned rubber for the mile back to Pastures station and came up totally empty. OK, nothing more I can do that's time critical so I just waited a few minutes for the flyover and followed it with my Leitz 7x42 backup glasses, returned home at a sane speed. Almost immediately saw the 42 millimeter objective lenses staring straight at me.
I'd plopped myself down in the armchair facing the television, unclipped the glasses (black), set them down on the closed tenor ukulele case (black) next to the chair, hadn't turned on extra lights... Really well camouflaged.
Oh well... Pastures had been the better observation platform and I'd been half tempted to return anyway. But it sure was a lot of unpleasant stress.
And we were gonna get the Space Station on its next orbit an hour forty later. And the home field WOULD work probably equally well for that one. Saw a bright satellite disappear into the trees to the south just as I was getting myself positioned, thought I'd screwed the pooch, checked my watch and memory... Nah. Got another nice flyover on schedule.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
The 23:54 EDT three minute flyover calendar day was over, the night wasn't. Wanted to do another Jupiter-Saturn from my East Spot so back out on foot with four layers at probably a bit after 04:00.
Got my targets no problem, some little wisps of high clouds would dim and fuzz them from time to time, went back and forth to vary the view and practice zilch light acquisition. (Yeah, it helps. One DOES get better.)
At this point we're five weeks shy of the summer solstice, sunrise for my position was 04:52, the sky well to the north of my targets was lightening before I started, it wasn't long before things started getting real noisy with the "dawn chorus" of the feathered stuff. Also had a Great Horned Owl maybe a third of a mile to the SE.
I was still enjoying my planets and the four moons of the bigger closer one and thought it would be interesting to see how long into daylight my targets would remain visible. Jupiter (much lower an much to the left) was a zillion times brighter than Saturn so as soon as the latter started getting iffy I'd stay on it until it was totally vaporized. Then I'd go to Jupiter for the rest of its appearance.
At one point while Saturn was still easily doable and Jupiter was still BLAZING I stayed on Saturn for no more than a couple minutes. Checked back for Jupiter... TOTALLY GONE! Tried scanning with the binocular... Zilch.
I could not understand why/how that happened. My best guess is that it was a lot lower and angled a lot closer to the Sun and had a lot more well lit atmosphere between us at my end of the line.
Saturn... Goddam Energizer Bunny. The Sun had cracked the horizon (behind the trees where I couldn't see it)... No problem. Totally cleared the horizon, top third of the nearby Tulip Trees were fully lit. Still no problem. At min zoom I was still clearly seeing sharp disk and rings and separation.
At I believe 06:22 I decided to risk a center column height adjustment for comfort. That introduces some slop while the adjustment is effected but once you're reclamped you should be good to reacquire just panning a wee bit left/right. Totally lost it though. While the features had still been distinct and sharp the sky was so bright and the contrast so marginal that I'd known it would be hopeless. But it had still been pretty cool to be able to track such a distant planet that far into the day using amateur/birding equipment.
Got my targets no problem, some little wisps of high clouds would dim and fuzz them from time to time, went back and forth to vary the view and practice zilch light acquisition. (Yeah, it helps. One DOES get better.)
At this point we're five weeks shy of the summer solstice, sunrise for my position was 04:52, the sky well to the north of my targets was lightening before I started, it wasn't long before things started getting real noisy with the "dawn chorus" of the feathered stuff. Also had a Great Horned Owl maybe a third of a mile to the SE.
I was still enjoying my planets and the four moons of the bigger closer one and thought it would be interesting to see how long into daylight my targets would remain visible. Jupiter (much lower an much to the left) was a zillion times brighter than Saturn so as soon as the latter started getting iffy I'd stay on it until it was totally vaporized. Then I'd go to Jupiter for the rest of its appearance.
At one point while Saturn was still easily doable and Jupiter was still BLAZING I stayed on Saturn for no more than a couple minutes. Checked back for Jupiter... TOTALLY GONE! Tried scanning with the binocular... Zilch.
I could not understand why/how that happened. My best guess is that it was a lot lower and angled a lot closer to the Sun and had a lot more well lit atmosphere between us at my end of the line.
Saturn... Goddam Energizer Bunny. The Sun had cracked the horizon (behind the trees where I couldn't see it)... No problem. Totally cleared the horizon, top third of the nearby Tulip Trees were fully lit. Still no problem. At min zoom I was still clearly seeing sharp disk and rings and separation.
At I believe 06:22 I decided to risk a center column height adjustment for comfort. That introduces some slop while the adjustment is effected but once you're reclamped you should be good to reacquire just panning a wee bit left/right. Totally lost it though. While the features had still been distinct and sharp the sky was so bright and the contrast so marginal that I'd known it would be hopeless. But it had still been pretty cool to be able to track such a distant planet that far into the day using amateur/birding equipment.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Speaking of pretty cool... While the temperature had been pretty benign I hadn't planned on being out anywhere near that long and had gotten a bit chilled.
Packed up my gear, started walking home, got about twenty-five yards, stopped and picked up a Cicada from the middle of the street. Also chilled and slow but alive and well. Took it home to check it out a little more thoroughly while we warmed up and one of us got something to eat. A couple hours later - when we were both in better shape - took it back to the original vicinity, put it on the trunk of Sweet Gum sapling.
I was pretty excited 'cause it had been unseasonably cold for the past week or so, Brood X emergence had been delayed, and I had just discovered the first emerged individual in the region.
Last house on the right there's a single empty exoskeleton on the trunk of a small tree just off the edge of the road - possibly the one from which my bug had emerged. I point it out to adult female human coming out to walk the Elk Hound. Yeah, try going around the corner. There are ZILLIONS of them. (Crap.)
She and the other had wanted to go down the street for my Conjunction action but had never made it. They own an astronomy scope but it hadn't been out in a while. Tuned her in to what was currently going on with Jupiter and Saturn and thanked her for providing that great gap for the East stuff.
I went around the corner a bit later. There are ZILLIONS of them. But the emergence was just getting underway. A third of them were molting out, the rest were firming up. I picked up a new emergent - red eyes, white body and wings, wings expanded but limp. Also a couple more full colored with stiffened wings.
Put the three on a potted six foot ficus on the front porch. The firmed climbed and must've flown off after maybe twenty minutes, the new emergent stayed put low and I monitored the progress of the transformation for a few hours until that one also disappeared. Started hearing buzzing but faint and distant.
I think what we're getting here is Magicicada cassinii - Cassin's or Dwarf.
No astronomy missions subsequent to yesterday morning. Last evening Mercury was at its greatest elongation but the sky was pretty clouded and I was pretty fried.
Packed up my gear, started walking home, got about twenty-five yards, stopped and picked up a Cicada from the middle of the street. Also chilled and slow but alive and well. Took it home to check it out a little more thoroughly while we warmed up and one of us got something to eat. A couple hours later - when we were both in better shape - took it back to the original vicinity, put it on the trunk of Sweet Gum sapling.
I was pretty excited 'cause it had been unseasonably cold for the past week or so, Brood X emergence had been delayed, and I had just discovered the first emerged individual in the region.
Last house on the right there's a single empty exoskeleton on the trunk of a small tree just off the edge of the road - possibly the one from which my bug had emerged. I point it out to adult female human coming out to walk the Elk Hound. Yeah, try going around the corner. There are ZILLIONS of them. (Crap.)
She and the other had wanted to go down the street for my Conjunction action but had never made it. They own an astronomy scope but it hadn't been out in a while. Tuned her in to what was currently going on with Jupiter and Saturn and thanked her for providing that great gap for the East stuff.
I went around the corner a bit later. There are ZILLIONS of them. But the emergence was just getting underway. A third of them were molting out, the rest were firming up. I picked up a new emergent - red eyes, white body and wings, wings expanded but limp. Also a couple more full colored with stiffened wings.
Put the three on a potted six foot ficus on the front porch. The firmed climbed and must've flown off after maybe twenty minutes, the new emergent stayed put low and I monitored the progress of the transformation for a few hours until that one also disappeared. Started hearing buzzing but faint and distant.
I think what we're getting here is Magicicada cassinii - Cassin's or Dwarf.
No astronomy missions subsequent to yesterday morning. Last evening Mercury was at its greatest elongation but the sky was pretty clouded and I was pretty fried.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Went around the corner again Monday afternoon to monitor the Cicada action. Started seeing scores of them smashed on the asphalt - along with a small Garter Snake. Rescued a few of the insects until I was out of steam and had to turn back. I tossed one rescue back towards a tree and it would be the first I'd see fly - but just enough to stretch its glide and slow its descent.
Pockets of them were becoming audible but nothing particularly close.
Maybe last brood I'd brought home one working on getting into adult mode. But the molt failed, the bug died, and I felt guilty 'cause I thought the disaster was due to my interference. But now I'm seeing tons of failed transitions - dying partially trapped in the exoskeletons; wandering around with wings that had failed to fully deploy, expand, stiffen. No, that one wasn't my fault. I wonder if this stuff happens much / at all with the annuals. Can't recall any instances.
Yesterday it was clear, dry, warmed up rapidly. Saw lotsa new adults low on tree trunks. Nobody was calling nearby but the distant clusters were getting louder.
Rolled to Pastures maybe 20:15, set up, started scanning for my evening two planets. A bright one a fair bit up in the still light sky area - gotta be Venus. So where the hell is Mercury? Supposed to be well up from it.
Eventually figured out that WAS Mercury when the light had faded enough for Venus to be able to burn through the band of red haze on the horizon. A fairly blazing Mercury and a dim Venus - quite a switch.
Locked onto Mercury for a minute or two and before I checked back for Venus it was history - combination of the haze and sky brightness left that early in the evening. Reminded me of the way I'd abruptly lost Jupiter while locked onto Saturn Monday morning.
Hit the Moon - way high now - and Mars. My first mosquitos (I won that round) and fireflies of the year. Confirmed a small bat, think I was hearing American Toads.
Mercury was able to punch through the haze just fine all the way down - with the advantage of a sky 47 minutes darker than the one with which Venus was working.
The Space Station was scheduled for a six minute possible appearance up to 25 degrees starting at 21:29. Couldn't find it until about the first third was gone.
Wasn't intent upon pursuing Saturn and Jupiter but snapped awake at 03:45, clear sky, pretty warm, what the hell, took my walk with the bag to the top of the street. Blundered upon four satellites while targeting Saturn. A Red Fox silently bounding across the road to my side as I was packing back out at about 04:30 ended the show for me.
Cicadas are already pretty load as I post.
Pockets of them were becoming audible but nothing particularly close.
Maybe last brood I'd brought home one working on getting into adult mode. But the molt failed, the bug died, and I felt guilty 'cause I thought the disaster was due to my interference. But now I'm seeing tons of failed transitions - dying partially trapped in the exoskeletons; wandering around with wings that had failed to fully deploy, expand, stiffen. No, that one wasn't my fault. I wonder if this stuff happens much / at all with the annuals. Can't recall any instances.
Yesterday it was clear, dry, warmed up rapidly. Saw lotsa new adults low on tree trunks. Nobody was calling nearby but the distant clusters were getting louder.
Rolled to Pastures maybe 20:15, set up, started scanning for my evening two planets. A bright one a fair bit up in the still light sky area - gotta be Venus. So where the hell is Mercury? Supposed to be well up from it.
Eventually figured out that WAS Mercury when the light had faded enough for Venus to be able to burn through the band of red haze on the horizon. A fairly blazing Mercury and a dim Venus - quite a switch.
Locked onto Mercury for a minute or two and before I checked back for Venus it was history - combination of the haze and sky brightness left that early in the evening. Reminded me of the way I'd abruptly lost Jupiter while locked onto Saturn Monday morning.
Hit the Moon - way high now - and Mars. My first mosquitos (I won that round) and fireflies of the year. Confirmed a small bat, think I was hearing American Toads.
Mercury was able to punch through the haze just fine all the way down - with the advantage of a sky 47 minutes darker than the one with which Venus was working.
The Space Station was scheduled for a six minute possible appearance up to 25 degrees starting at 21:29. Couldn't find it until about the first third was gone.
Wasn't intent upon pursuing Saturn and Jupiter but snapped awake at 03:45, clear sky, pretty warm, what the hell, took my walk with the bag to the top of the street. Blundered upon four satellites while targeting Saturn. A Red Fox silently bounding across the road to my side as I was packing back out at about 04:30 ended the show for me.
Cicadas are already pretty load as I post.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
On Friday morning got my first solar eclipse action since 2017/08/21. Not:
- a total
- the full annular one could've gotten in some godforsaken patches of the Northern Hemisphere
- mostly obstructed
- cloud free
but a pretty astounding experience nevertheless.
I hadn't known anything was gonna be happening before it hit the mainstream media a week and a half or so prior and in this neck of the woods the show was gonna be mostly over by the time the Sun climbed to the horizon at 05:58 EDT and totally over about 29 minutes later - weather permitting.
I scouted three reasonably local locations with fair shots to the NE but wasn't thrilled with the treelines at any of them. Started gravitating towards the end of the pier at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation - 38°55'55.23" N 076°27'41.58" W.
Errands had taken me to Annapolis both days of the prior weekend and on that Saturday afternoon I ran things by a staffer. He said the gate would be locked at that time of "day" but suggested parking just outside of it and hiking in - 0.27 miles.
Scoped from the dock hoping to score Dolphins. Hot and windy and the turbulence neutralized me pretty well. After about a third of the way straight across the Bay everything was garbage.
Next afternoon was back, air was a lot more civilized but nothing particularly interesting for the glass. Sun (and Moon) would be cracking the horizon at an azimuth of about 62 degrees - from my position pretty much precisely at the far end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
As the hour approached late in the week the forecast and weather were fairly crappy. Thursday afternoon hauled my scope out onto and up the street for a practice run as the Sun was making a showing, nearly drowned in an abrupt downpour.
Was able to make a second effort shortly thereafter, went down the street and around the corner to my old Jupiter/Saturn conjunction post. After a little effort I was able to get some reasonably clean disk time. (And had to redirect a Cicada who'd mistaken me for a tree.)
Evening sky looked crappy for my regular evening planets station and I happily bailed on that mission and worked on getting organized. Lotsa prep, very little sleep, sky looking good at 03:00, took a scope up the street to nail Jupiter and Saturn - both well in the clear and brilliant.
Was planning on going in with just the 95 and broke everything down for backpack configuration. Had the alarm set for 04:30 just in case, was organized, loaded, and rolling shortly thereafter. Nice look at a Red Fox shortly before goal.
Was starting to maneuver for the little patch outside the gate when I noticed that the gate was wide freakin' open. That sure made things a lot easier and better. I was out on the pier by about 05:00.
The overhead sky had gotten fairly light but Jupiter was still blazing naked eye. Hit it with the binocular, got the 95 up and on it pretty quick for the moons, no sign of Saturn.
Still lotsa time so back to the car for the 85 assembly.
Two scopes, stabilized binocular, filters for everything, step stool, Walkstool, folding lawn chair, packing gear organized and safely stowed and secured. There was a low thick cloud layer over the relevant horizon but it obviously wouldn't be a problem for very long.
You could see things starting to glow where you knew the Sun was coming up and you knew it wouldn't be long. Fairly abruptly a deep red parallelogram punched through and you could see some of the left area had a black disk cut into it.
In no time a lot of the eclipse had emerged still deep dark cool red - and black - and I hit it with the 95 - unfiltered - for a few seconds. Then I chickened out, put filters on everything, gave it another shot.
Doable but real dark for a short bit. Continued to climb, clear, brighten, emerge. Looked like really great effects from a quality sci-fi movie. Didn't look like anything you'd expect to see from this planet.
This:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/photos-ring-of-fire-solar-eclipse-seen-in-dc-maryland-virginia/2697726/
Photos: 'Ring of Fire' Solar Eclipse Over DC, Maryland, Virginia - NBC4 Washington
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51242082767_0912068330_o.jpg
is a wee bit under thirty miles west from where I was set up and very close to what I was seeing.
It soon fully cleared (as it has above) and climbed through I think two more cloud layers - alternating between full and zero visibility with a fair bit less Moon disk each time.
One more cloud layer, disappeared, waited, reemerging, kept watching and praying for a little fragment of remaining black disk... Nope. Over. Xavier...
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/
...says it quit at 06:28:59.2 EDT.
During cloud-outs I scanned 2.3 miles of the shoreline - just off of which I was parked - between the mouths of the Severn and South Rivers and I feel safe in saying there wasn't one single motherfucker with the slightest interest in what was going on in the sky.
Several guys upstream were strolling towards me within easy view of my setup. Zero interest.
Downstream on the beach within easy hailing distance there was a female person with a fairly serious looking camera aiming towards the Sun but it was obvious she just taking artsy shots of the morning Sun reflecting off the water - probably with zero awareness and virtually certainly zero interest in this global news event. And there was no way in hell I was gonna call out an invite.
Tons of Cicadas washed up on the beach. At one point one of the nearby clusters of Canada Geese took a break from floating and grazed on them for a bit.
Did a counterclockwise scan of all the water surface in range. Pretty good visibility but nothing unusual showed up. Broke down, packed up, hauled out - totally fried physically.
Night skies were wiped out that and the next and the situation wasn't looking great last evening but I gave it a go anyway.
I think it was Wednesday evening that I realized that what I'd been seeing and reporting as Mercury for some time was actually Venus. Need to go back and figure out when, how, why I started making the substitution.
Most of yesterday the sky was mostly clear but crudded up in the West in the evening. Thought I'd be able to do something with it anyway and headed out to my Observatory station. Heavy clouding in the action area but their were breaks through which I thought I'd be able to score.
Soon got a two and a half day old sliver of the Moon high and mostly clear of the crud and kept checking small open patches for Venus. Scored that one after a bit. Then the clouding drifted off to the left and left my horizon wide open. Clear and rather cool, nice view but that also translated to condensation and dampness.
Watched Venus and the Moon get eaten by the horizon, had never done that with the latter before. Distance between us and Mars is currently increasing and it's getting a bit tough to hit but got it in the bag before breaking down at about 22:45.
- a total
- the full annular one could've gotten in some godforsaken patches of the Northern Hemisphere
- mostly obstructed
- cloud free
but a pretty astounding experience nevertheless.
I hadn't known anything was gonna be happening before it hit the mainstream media a week and a half or so prior and in this neck of the woods the show was gonna be mostly over by the time the Sun climbed to the horizon at 05:58 EDT and totally over about 29 minutes later - weather permitting.
I scouted three reasonably local locations with fair shots to the NE but wasn't thrilled with the treelines at any of them. Started gravitating towards the end of the pier at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation - 38°55'55.23" N 076°27'41.58" W.
Errands had taken me to Annapolis both days of the prior weekend and on that Saturday afternoon I ran things by a staffer. He said the gate would be locked at that time of "day" but suggested parking just outside of it and hiking in - 0.27 miles.
Scoped from the dock hoping to score Dolphins. Hot and windy and the turbulence neutralized me pretty well. After about a third of the way straight across the Bay everything was garbage.
Next afternoon was back, air was a lot more civilized but nothing particularly interesting for the glass. Sun (and Moon) would be cracking the horizon at an azimuth of about 62 degrees - from my position pretty much precisely at the far end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
As the hour approached late in the week the forecast and weather were fairly crappy. Thursday afternoon hauled my scope out onto and up the street for a practice run as the Sun was making a showing, nearly drowned in an abrupt downpour.
Was able to make a second effort shortly thereafter, went down the street and around the corner to my old Jupiter/Saturn conjunction post. After a little effort I was able to get some reasonably clean disk time. (And had to redirect a Cicada who'd mistaken me for a tree.)
Evening sky looked crappy for my regular evening planets station and I happily bailed on that mission and worked on getting organized. Lotsa prep, very little sleep, sky looking good at 03:00, took a scope up the street to nail Jupiter and Saturn - both well in the clear and brilliant.
Was planning on going in with just the 95 and broke everything down for backpack configuration. Had the alarm set for 04:30 just in case, was organized, loaded, and rolling shortly thereafter. Nice look at a Red Fox shortly before goal.
Was starting to maneuver for the little patch outside the gate when I noticed that the gate was wide freakin' open. That sure made things a lot easier and better. I was out on the pier by about 05:00.
The overhead sky had gotten fairly light but Jupiter was still blazing naked eye. Hit it with the binocular, got the 95 up and on it pretty quick for the moons, no sign of Saturn.
Still lotsa time so back to the car for the 85 assembly.
Two scopes, stabilized binocular, filters for everything, step stool, Walkstool, folding lawn chair, packing gear organized and safely stowed and secured. There was a low thick cloud layer over the relevant horizon but it obviously wouldn't be a problem for very long.
You could see things starting to glow where you knew the Sun was coming up and you knew it wouldn't be long. Fairly abruptly a deep red parallelogram punched through and you could see some of the left area had a black disk cut into it.
In no time a lot of the eclipse had emerged still deep dark cool red - and black - and I hit it with the 95 - unfiltered - for a few seconds. Then I chickened out, put filters on everything, gave it another shot.
Doable but real dark for a short bit. Continued to climb, clear, brighten, emerge. Looked like really great effects from a quality sci-fi movie. Didn't look like anything you'd expect to see from this planet.
This:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/photos-ring-of-fire-solar-eclipse-seen-in-dc-maryland-virginia/2697726/
Photos: 'Ring of Fire' Solar Eclipse Over DC, Maryland, Virginia - NBC4 Washington
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51242082767_0912068330_o.jpg
is a wee bit under thirty miles west from where I was set up and very close to what I was seeing.
It soon fully cleared (as it has above) and climbed through I think two more cloud layers - alternating between full and zero visibility with a fair bit less Moon disk each time.
One more cloud layer, disappeared, waited, reemerging, kept watching and praying for a little fragment of remaining black disk... Nope. Over. Xavier...
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/
...says it quit at 06:28:59.2 EDT.
During cloud-outs I scanned 2.3 miles of the shoreline - just off of which I was parked - between the mouths of the Severn and South Rivers and I feel safe in saying there wasn't one single motherfucker with the slightest interest in what was going on in the sky.
Several guys upstream were strolling towards me within easy view of my setup. Zero interest.
Downstream on the beach within easy hailing distance there was a female person with a fairly serious looking camera aiming towards the Sun but it was obvious she just taking artsy shots of the morning Sun reflecting off the water - probably with zero awareness and virtually certainly zero interest in this global news event. And there was no way in hell I was gonna call out an invite.
Tons of Cicadas washed up on the beach. At one point one of the nearby clusters of Canada Geese took a break from floating and grazed on them for a bit.
Did a counterclockwise scan of all the water surface in range. Pretty good visibility but nothing unusual showed up. Broke down, packed up, hauled out - totally fried physically.
Night skies were wiped out that and the next and the situation wasn't looking great last evening but I gave it a go anyway.
I think it was Wednesday evening that I realized that what I'd been seeing and reporting as Mercury for some time was actually Venus. Need to go back and figure out when, how, why I started making the substitution.
Most of yesterday the sky was mostly clear but crudded up in the West in the evening. Thought I'd be able to do something with it anyway and headed out to my Observatory station. Heavy clouding in the action area but their were breaks through which I thought I'd be able to score.
Soon got a two and a half day old sliver of the Moon high and mostly clear of the crud and kept checking small open patches for Venus. Scored that one after a bit. Then the clouding drifted off to the left and left my horizon wide open. Clear and rather cool, nice view but that also translated to condensation and dampness.
Watched Venus and the Moon get eaten by the horizon, had never done that with the latter before. Distance between us and Mars is currently increasing and it's getting a bit tough to hit but got it in the bag before breaking down at about 22:45.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
The Great North American Eclipse of 2024/04/08... Not to be confused with the Great (not North) American Eclipse of 2017/08/21.
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html
Mexico - USA - 2024 April 8 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8%2C_2024
Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 - Wikipedia
- 
Had planned for it for years - based upon my 2017/08/21 in the desert at 43°54'05.93" N 112°47'22.92" W. It was gonna max out in Durango - 25°17'22.04" N 104°08'53.12" W - 4:27.5. I thought it would be simpler, safer 29°14'18.46" N 100°09'29.00" W - between Uvalde and Bracketville along US 90 and very safely within the boundaries of the Chihuahuan Desert. Based upon weather records there were several areas which tied it but nothing that beat it. But as time got short things started going south.
No parking on highway shoulders - and the State Police were gonna make sure. And there are no public side roads. Just gated private roads into humongous cattle ranches. Some of those guys would allow access for a few hundred bucks but close to none of them listed locations - just provided phone numbers.
Then the ten day forecast started looking iffy. What the hell, at that range they're mostly throwing darts. But as time grew shorter the dire predictions just got more dire and widespread. It looked like the pattern along the coast to coast Path had done a flip. Cancelled the plane tickets and extensive touring activity plans and started looking towards the NE corner of the country.
I'd contacted Zack 2024/03/27 with hopes that we might be a lot closer together for this one than we were for the 2017. Nope.
On the morning of 2024/04/06 (Saturday) we started rolling the gear-packed Passat towards the West Springfield Best Western. Early in the drive approaching the I-895 Baltimore Harbor Tunnel got a fairly good view of what was left of the Francis Scott Key Bridge - impact plus eleven days.
Spent a lot of Sunday looking at forecasts for Centerline locations within halfway sane range. Good news... Started looking not bad from the Lake Champlain ballpark and downstream. Bad news... A lot of that track was allowing chances of clouds getting in the way at around totality time. But late in the game Maine was looking bulletproof.
http://www.weather.gov/bou/2024SolarEclipse
Jackman. Never heard of it before. Centerline was crossing US 201 at 45°40'03.00" N 070°16'38.05" W about three miles north of town. At some point prior to 2013/09/17 some extremely thoughtful loggers had opened up a clearcut on the upstream side of the road a very short walk beyond which the 2022/08 Street View imagery showed as still a pretty good excuse for a field.
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53705483960_1c0091b0b6_o.png
Set the alarm for 02:50. Forecast remained everything for which one could possibly hope. Started rolling north at 04:00 - I-90 - I-290 - I-495 - I-95 - I-295 - I-95 - ME-104 - US-201. At some point I heard on the radio that NPR would be broadcasting from Jackman. Sounded like I wasn't the only one on this strategy wavelength. Shortly off the Interstate we found ourselves in the middle of a parade of maybe ten other vehicles moving north at normal speed. Yep.
It's midmorning as we're closing on Jackman, lotsa snow cover, cool but clear with light wind. We begin a moderate steady climb and shortly reach an end of a long unbroken line of vehicles parked on the right shoulder. The climb tops out at an Attean Overlook state highway rest area at 45°34'59.50" N 070°10'45.69" W. Stunning view to the SSW of forest, lakes, mountains. Astronomical Woodstock. Crammed with eclipsees of all ages all glowing with happiness. I'm maintaining modest convoy speed and scanning the crowd as best as safely possible and see one serious reflector scope setup. No clue as to how many I missed.
This was the place to be. Still about seven and a half miles off Centerline but that only translated to a cost of under two seconds of unfiltered time. The smart money knew this and at least one of them had set up camp two days in advance (as I would find in the course of our retreat late in that day). I was tempted but at least wanted to check out my Centerline target.
When I arrived I was stunned. We were the third car in and those had disgorged about a half a dozen. WTF?! Yeah, I can live with this.
Precise Centerline would've been a crappy place to set up - substantial forest regrowth - and I parked about a football field beyond at 45°40'05.64" N 070°16'41.35" W on the SW shoulder - clear of the asphalt and bow pointed towards retreat. The shoulders were steep and the plowed snow over them was deep. Took a slip and hard fall at one point and a wrist was hurting a bit for a few minutes.
Early on there was some very thin light clouding in the sky to the NE. Looked like it would very shortly burn off and it very shortly did. And a passenger jet overhead at 35K left some contrail that was vanishing less than half a mile behind.
On that subject... This:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/2426062-eclipse-2024-5-of-the-best-pictures-of-the-total-solar-eclipse/
Eclipse 2024: 5 of the best pictures of the total solar eclipse | New Scientist
Kendall Rust - Jonesboro, Arkansas
would've been pretty cool. Probably no more than eighty miles downstream of Zack.
Place started filling up FAST very soon after our arrival. I had the back seats folded forward and the relevant cubic footage packed with tripods for filtered glass magnification toys to make available to any and all. But I started with my Swarovski 85 and 95 millimeter ATXs, got them on the Sun, noticed that people were conspicuously not swarming them. Fine, I'm already too fried to have much enthusiasm for drawing and managing crowds and tending extra equipment.
I'd set the two Tripods up with the Level 1 and 2 Extensions fully extended and the Level 3s fully collapsed. A family from a couple cars to the SE had what I'll call an eleven-year-old. He was fine behind one of the Scopes at that level on the Sun and - using the proper technique - so was I (at a bit over six feet). OK, I can probably also leave in the trunk the heavy steel stepstool I'd hauled up there.
Heard and saw a few Ravens in the vicinity.
I had a flock of MIT kids (all male) all of whom had shown up with two dollar eclipse glasses. Very quickly massed around the Scopes. Also a few other adults - both genders - very interested in the glass I had to offer.
Proper technique... Left eye. Stand to port of back end, bend at the waist and twist waist, shoulders, neck counter. Right eye. Mirror image.
Focus Collar. Tweak it to sharpen as determined by your eye - preferably minus corrective glasses.
Zoom Collar. Comfortable views at min - 25 for the 85 / 30 for the 90. 45 can have its charms but probably don't wanna go up beyond.
I think I handled all the adjustments to keep reasonably well centered.
Low point of the day... Everybody's parked neatly on the shoulders and - if on foot - on the asphalt on the extreme edges of same. Through traffic is light - pretty much all very widely spaced singles coming through from one direction or the other. Some of the light traffic is heavily loaded logging trucks coming through at speed but there's nothing problematic. At one point some undoubtedly local pigfucker in a pickup blasts through on a northerly heading and leans on his horn to let all us useless eclipsees know we better stay the hell outta his way. (Hope you got a nice long look during lead-up to totality minus the glasses and filters all us fags were using.)
The tone I got from the Uvalde neck of the path was... There are gonna be zillions of eclipsees swarming this area. Let's squeeze every penny we can outta them. The Jackman tone was... There are gonna be zillions of eclipsees swarming this area. Let's do everything possible to handle the influx, keep people safe, accommodate positive experiences.
There was a well publicized NASA project to send zillions of helium balloons with data gathering instrumentation payloads into the Path. I think it was shortly before C1 that one was sighted from our location. Soon everyone and his dog - 'cept for Yours Truly - was on it. I was scanning with my 8x42s and getting NOTHING - despite the best efforts of my MIT flock. I lay down on my back and eventually got it naked eye as a one second flash of reflected sunlight. Shortly after I discovered that my glasses were focused in for about 75 yards for some reason I couldn't and can't recall. (Nice to have stars available to immediately let ya know how sharply you're focused on infintity.)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/2426062-eclipse-2024-5-of-the-best-pictures-of-the-total-solar-eclipse/
Eclipse 2024: 5 of the best pictures of the total solar eclipse | New Scientist
My one moderate disappointment for that event at that location... We're with people we like and we're talking to each other. I'd been too busy and stressed to set an alarm on the phone or even know that C1 was gonna happen at 18:18:54.6 UTC. And I was subconsciously assuming that we'd be alerted by warning calls from other nearby eclipsees. Reportedly there were some but my little group and I stayed clueless until a substantial bite had been taken out of the Sun. Shit.
OK, let's get people cycling behind the Scopes. I'm going back and forth between the two keeping them reasonably well centered. And my group members would get distracted and I was frequently having to call, "Open scope!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8%2C_2024
Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 - Wikipedia
I'd packed a Swarovski VPA 2 adapter to allow one to quickly and properly clamp a phone on the back end of an ATX and take pictures approaching and receding from totality. And I'd done a couple of test shots at the Sun a month prior. Got sharp discs and little or nothing beyond. But I was gonna ban or discourage shots during and close to totality. But when I was on site I decided to leave the adapter in the bag and make no mention of the issue. I didn't have the energy and any effort by anyone wasn't gonna be worth it.
But approaching totality I was with the 95 watching one of the MIT kids trying to get his phone straight and centered behind the 85 and then going back and getting together with another kid to try to evaluate the results. Then I did an announcement something close to...
"Look guys. Tomorrow there are gonna be thirty billion high quality photos of exactly what we're seeing here and now up on the Web shot by people with really serious gear with which they've been practicing for years. The best you're gonna be able to get here with an iPhone is gonna be relative total garbage. Don't try to photograph this event. Experience it."
And everyone was very obviously and instantly in total agreement.
The VPA 2 will continue to live in the gear bag to be made available to folk who wanna get souvenirs of their Moon, Jupiter, Saturn sightings. Those can be fun targets but tend not to be very time critical and total solars are:
- unique
- very short duration
- for many:
-- very expensive
-- once or twice in a lifetime events
All that having been said it's currently damn near impossible to find quality photos of this 2024 in anything further outside of max total than Bailey's (Halley's) Beads mode. And I find that a bit... The Sun itself with nothing going on save for maybe a bit of spotting is a spectacular astronomical target. Whenever I put a first timer on it the response is damn near always "Wow!". And with ANY degree of obstruction by the Moon - coming or going...
At some point close to totality I noticed and commented on the unworldly color of the sky and lighting of our surroundings.
From the 2017/08/21 I had a regret of missing the shadow bands that several others in my group had caught on the sandy desert floor. Hadn't known about / prepped for them. This time I'd packed a couple of white pillowcases I'd prepped for the flight to San Antonio. But for this one there was extensive nearby snow cover so the pillowcases stayed stowed. And as we neared C2 I made an announcement. People started getting ones I wasn't but I did manage one distinct one.
I announced that I was gonna hog the 95 for myself for a good bit of totality and they could manage the 85 for themselves and everyone was fine with that. But a little shy of three and a half minutes is a long time, there's tons of other cool stuff to look around at during totality - including the naked eye unmagnified event - and I'm sure the 95 wasn't much less accessible for guest use during totality than it had been during the lead-up.
As we were into Bailey's Beads stage...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baily%27s_beads
Baily's beads - Wikipedia
...I was on the 95 with a hand on the filter watching the visible sliver of the Sun rapidly shrink towards nothing. Called "Filters off!" as I yanked mine - about two seconds too soon. I think the blast knocked me back four feet and and I'm sure that the other Scope didn't react quickly enough to enjoy that experience.
This wasn't the first time I'd pulled a stunt like this and on that other one I'd caught the full disk without damage so I wasn't overly worried about this one. Did a lot of blinking for the next ten seconds and wasn't getting an afterimage.
In the lead-up days however I'd been hearing cautions that one didn't need to stare at the unfiltered Sun long enough to heat up and permanently trash the retinas - which had always been my understanding. (Most of us Earthlings with eyes have evolved to survive incidental shorter looks at the Sun all the freakin' time - not to mention having the Sun peripherally in our fields of view for extended periods.) That short direct looks at high frequency could also do the trick. I'm not sure how legitimate that caution is but I have no interest in doing tests to find out for sure.
Totality...
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html
Mexico - USA - 2024 April 8 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier
Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 - Wikipedia
The pink prominences - eruptions of plasma - were immediately apparent (one might say prominent) and spectacular.
Venus and Jupiter - the next two brightest balls in Earth's sky - were clearly and easily visible. But I didn't scope them or try for anything else - as I had thought I might in earlier planning stages. The Galilean Moons would've been easily doable.
I don't remember how I managed the transition at C3 but probably just watched for the first millisecond and refiltered. I do remember that I hadn't wired myself to look for the shadow bands at that end. And I'm sure nobody at my 2017 station was looking at that end either.
All of my group and most others stuck around for C4. Then the show was over, the pressure was totally off, we could relax, talk, pack up gear.
Started rolling south, gassed up at the Gulf station in Jackman. Stopped at the Attean Overlook, soaked up the incredible view, talked with some stragglers.
Continued on with zilch sign of extraordinary traffic for some miles in waning daylight thinking we may have really dodged all the expedition's potential bullets. Not quite. Didn't take us too long to reach the back end of the linear parking lot. I'd never before been in one like that. And I think that there was a choke point in Skowhegan which needed to be managed and wasn't being. We weren't moving at a snail's pace. We weren't moving AT ALL for unbelievably long periods. But at least that meant that anyone who felt like it could kill his engine for unbelievably long periods. But I suspect I may have been a major rarity in doing it.
After some hours I started realizing I had a night sky that would've been stunning with all the headlights switched off and would still be pretty amazing with them on. Jumped outta the car with my 8x42s and did a quick survey to get my bearings. Should've known that that move would've worked like nothing else to get things in front of me moving.
Sprinted back to the car minus any assholes behind me leaning on horns. They knew my stunt would make zero difference in travel time and were probably wishing they'd been geared to do the same.
Now in hindsight it occurs to me that we could've stayed at our Centerline point - or stopped at the Attean Overlook - and gotten a night sky like I've seldom seen before at very little cost in southern progress time.
At some point around the aforementioned ballpark I realized I was getting a persistent afterimage. Did some blinking and it wasn't going anywhere. Started thinking and worrying a bit about my slightly premature filter pull. But it wasn't the razor thin crescent one would've expected but rather a fat red triangle or trapezoid. Soon realized the issue was due to a brake light from the car in front of me.
Eventually we started making slow but steady and steadily increasing rates of progress. Soon thereafter I started falling asleep at the wheel, handed it over, went out like a light.
Switched back on after we'd gotten in the clear on I-95. En route to Augusta was able to use the iPhone for Web access to find and reserve a rather desperately needed room for what was left of the night. Days Inn, one room available. Docked about midnight. Lotsa plowed snow masses in and around the parking areas. At the desk there were a couple of young female Chinese refugees from the Totality Path. They were from a group of six and had had reservations for three rooms but had failed to jump through some hoop to retain two of them. But the desk guy was able to find them two more within closish range. I talked with the two a bit about our experiences before crashing.
Up earlyish the next morning (2024/04/09), got the car reparked in the sunlight, unloaded it, repacked as organized for departure from home. Breakfast, departed for our West Springfield Best Western. Pulled off onto the Kennebunkport Service Plaza - 43°24'39.41" N 070°33'36.98" W - for some organizational reason I can't recall. Looked around the fairly heavily packed parking area after prepping for resumption, developed a suspicion. A woman some years my senior was returning to her nearby vehicle a bit after her probable husband had taken the wheel.
"Excuse me. Where were you two yesterday afternoon around three o'clock and what were you doing?"
Bullseye. We spent the next ten or fifteen minutes recounting our experiences. I speculated that at least 85 percent of the passenger vehicles stopped there were retreating eclipsees.
Continued south back to the West Springfield Best Western. I'd gotten Sam - from behind the front desk - onto some astronomical targets on the way up, we'd connected on some interests, and I was looking forward to giving him a report. Wasn't there when we checked back in - same room near the lobby. Oh well...
Were to meet HM's two nieces (deceased older brother's daughters) and the husband of one for dinner at La Cucina di Hampden House. The couple own, rent out, personally use a cabin on First Connecticut Lake way the hell up in northern New Hampshire and under twenty miles off of Centerline. All three of them had gone up I think primarily to keep an eye on things during the eclipsees onslaught.
When I have a sky during a restaurant outing I typically will set the 95 up near the entrance, put it on a target - the Sun if it's up, a planet (preferably Jupiter if available) if not. And I'll check on it periodically to see if it's attracting any interest, curiosity. And that's what I was doing on this occasion.
On about the second or third check I saw what I'll call a seventeen year old kid on a mountain bike at a parking lot entrance. Within about a second and a half the front wheel had turned 90 starboard instantaneously and he got pitched hard forward onto the asphalt and screamed in pain. I did my best imitation of a sprint to the crash zone.
He was harnessed with a substantial backpack which secured a fishing rod and was wearing near zilch in the way of clothing. A forearm was very badly scraped and a knee also took some abrasion damage. I don't really understand how that happened but he reported that the loosely strapped backpack had shifted and precipitated the instantaneous and catastrophic loss of control.
The derailleur had gotten knocked outta commission and he was now stuck in top gear too high for practical riding in absence of a steep descent. Stayed with him until he'd recovered enough to continue on home.
So I missed the report on the First Connecticut Lake eclipse perspective and will have to get up to speed on a future occasion.
By the time dinner was over I was able to get three very interested and grateful restaurant staffers on Jupiter.
The other niece has a son I've known for many years. Very talented musician and photographer and will be graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology on 2024/05/10 and immediately strolling into a high powered tech career. Rochester was virtually within walking distance of Centerline but was getting near totally fucked by the weather. And he wasn't able to mobilize 'cause he had too much critical shit going on at the time.
Sam was back at the desk the next morning (2024/04/10) and I was giving him a report on our eclipse experience. Laptop gave me a notice that it was getting critical in the juice department, went back to the room, got the power supply, plugged it into an outlet in the lobby. But then Sam got busy with his job and I went back to 107 and started packing and organizing for departure. Hadn't realized for a fair bit his shift was ending but then wrapped things up, got him on the Sun out front a last time, saw him off.
I continued organizing, packing up, loading the car. Checked every cubic inch of every recess in the room, broke down and loaded the Scope. Rolled south for a friend visit (and lunch) in Tarrytown. And it wasn't until well south of Hartford that it dawned on me that the PowerBook was still charging in the lobby back at the hotel. Was able to get on the phone to the desk and get it secured. But that was still a devastating mistake.
Did a birding trip to Puerto Rico 2023/12/28-2024/01/25. Delayed prepping too long, pulled a nighter prior to the morning of departure, managed to leave the power supply for the laptop plugged into the surge protector, wasn't able to get a replacement for this nine year old machine on the trip. It stayed asleep save for several semi-critical situations and got back home still holding a few minutes of charge but I told myself never again. Get your shit together with much time to spare, pack the power supply in the case before putting the laptop in. But on the way back when my brain was running on fumes I got thrown a curve ball I hadn't anticipated.
Back home I was demolished to the point that I was half wishing that the eclipse had never happened. Ditto for a healthy bit of the lead-up time. Paid a huge price in terms of stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, establishing fairly intimate friendships with scores of other eclipsees I'll never see again...
Had to make do with the iPhone to recover from the trip and work on getting the laptop back and I totally suck on using an iPhone for anything beyond making and receiving calls and a handful of specialty apps. And I know that your average twelve-year-old on his/her phone is gonna be able to challenge or kick my laptop ass but I'm not gonna live long enough to scratch that surface significantly.
In order to recover the laptop I had to get to the FedEx Office in Annapolis, purchase:
- a cardboard shipping box (off the rack in folded flat configuration)
- shipping labels to get it:
-- up to West Springfield
-- back with the laptop, charger, cables in the case and boxed
I tried to get the relevant digital stuff done at one of their computer stations but started running into brick walls. FedEx Office John thought I was a total moron, got on the keyboard, found himself slamming into the same impenetrable brick walls. Took forever to get the mess untangled. I told him stuff about my recent experiences, the adult Bald Eagle I'd just watched climbing out over the parking lot in weak thermal lift, the Coyotes I regularly hear at my local cattle farm astronomy station and he went nuts. We're great friends now.
So the box started rolling from that office early that 04/15 evening and reached goal early 04/16 afternoon; got packed with my stuff, taped, labeled; started rolling back south just before noon 04/18; hit the front steps 04/19 16:47 (while I was out for the evening). Still near fully charged, unsaved work still on the screen. One of the longer nine and a half day periods of my existence. Thanks Sam.
http://www.centralmaine.com/2024/04/08/from-near-and-far-thousands-flock-to-jackman-to-take-in-total-solar-eclipse/
Watch: From near and far, more than 10,000 people flock to Jackman to take in total solar eclipse
Zack and his father were able to identify and get into and back from a substantial patch of blue a fair bit closer to homes and probably with magnitudes lower levels of stress at 35°31'06.59" N 092°00'43.40" W - or something a very short walk from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsNV0sTNH08
Total Eclipse - 4/8/24
A solar eclipse is ALWAYS preceded OR anteceded by a lunar eclipse but NEVER preceded AND anteceded by lunar eclipses. Up until working on this post I'd been thinking that we'd expect to get lunars on both ends but I now understand why that can't happen.
But if the relevant alignment ain't all that great all we might only get a penumbral lunar - a shadow scattered by Earth's atmosphere. Or the distinct shadow may only fall on part of the disk. Now I've seen totals, partials, and one penumbral only.
The Moon (whose orbit is tilted five degrees off the ecliptic) has to be on its full night (which happens every 29.5 days) and passing through the ecliptic plane. And that alignment ain't gonna be happening again the following full night. (Ditto with respect to the subsequent or preceding full.)
2024/03/25 04:53-09:33 UTC we had a penumbral and I watched it (through the 95 at the beginning and end and periodically monitored it through the duration. Early in the game I convinced myself that I was noticing some darkening in the right area but as the event wore on... I think the only way I'd have been able to have any confidence would've been to have had a switch with which I could've flipped the effect on and off.
On 2024/04/23 I was thinking we should again be having or close to another lunar as it was hitting full at 23:49 UTC but (of course) nobody was talking about anything. Got to my cattle farm station a bit after that and got a lock on a nice, low, rising disk as a completion of this eclipse event. (Save for all the substantially unpleasant aftermath/recovery stuff with which I'm still dealing.)
http://www.centralmaine.com/2024/04/08/from-near-and-far-thousands-flock-to-jackman-to-take-in-total-solar-eclipse/
Watch: From near and far, more than 10,000 people flock to Jackman to take in total solar eclipse
At the Attean Overlook area.
Note that:
- there are no Maine or Texas state cops ordering eclipsees to move off the US Highway's shoulder
- traffic is flowing through just fine - even with pedestrians parked out into the NW bound lane
- we've heard zero reports of relevant problems
(Mildly happy that you guys got fucked by the weather.)
From way the hell south of Jackman at Robbins Hill Scenic Overlook somewhere close to 44°53'41.19" N 069°48'37.20" W but the environment is similar to what we had at our Jackman clearcut. 'Cept zilch in the way of snow - elevation as well as latitude substantially lower.
My brother and his wife rolled from Northern Virginia up to near the south end of Grand Isle in Lake Champlain to his Cornell College roomate's place. That was about ten miles south of Centerline and about 164 miles upstream of my Jackman site with an advantage of about three seconds of totality. There were no problematic clouds but much further upstream would've been asking for and/or getting trouble. Dave is a real serious photographer including in the astro department.
This:
http://www.facebook.com/david.horak.14661/photos
is his interpretation of what was going on very shortly before I prematurely yanked the filter.
---
2024/05/16
Rochester student became Rochester grad 2024/05/10. I know for sure 'cause I attended the ceremony. He insists he could've joined us for the Jackman expedition, his mother begs to differ.
I bumped into lotsa other eclipsees on that trip. At breakfast in the hotel graduation morning another guest was wearing a 2024/04/08 eclipse T-shirt and I violated her privacy accordingly. And there were about five other eclipsees in the room. Pity we were all constrained by the day's events schedule.
I'm getting myself a "Total Solar Eclipse - Twice In A Lifetime - 2017 - 2024" baseball cap to wear when I'm out in public areas. Bet it won't take me too long to draw in a fellow Centerliner who rolled up from this area. Maybe even a Jackmanner.
The forecast for the Rochester area for the duration of the trip was (again) pretty dismal but there were substantial breaks and I was able to get nice shots of the Sun and Moon and guests on targets. The Sun was again in the news regarding the solar storm with which it began slamming our planet 2024/05/11. I'd gotten the scope, myself, guests on the associated massive sunspots field. Cluster was on the extreme western edge 05/13 morning.
---
2024/05/24
More from Zack 2024/05/22 00:26:53 UTC...
He did know that he had Jupiter - not to mention Venus - in view during totality. But didn't know which was which at the time.
He'd rolled up the day before and split the day after to avoid traffic issues but I'd wager there wouldn't have been any significant ones. There were zillions of Centerline proximity options in that area and eclipsees would've been coming in and going out in all directions. Jackman was THE spot to be for that quarter of the country and close to EVERYONE (I'd wager) had ONE approach/exit route option.
There was undoubtedly something of a Canadian element (border crossing 13 road miles NNW) but virtually all of the US contingent was rolling around seventy miles (76 from my Centerline field) south to Skowhegan before anything of a choice became available. And that choice for the overwhelming majority was gonna be Augusta.
Heber Springs will again get totaled 2045/08/12 (Zack informed me) but I'm not real optimistic about my chances of still being around for that one.
---
2024/05/27
More response to Zack's note...
Got praise for sharing my expensive equipment with other eclipsees who'd shown up on Centerline armed with nothing more effective than two dollar cardboard eclipse glasses. If I'd been up there without a bit of a crowd with which to share my equipment and work my butt off keeping everybody centered I'd have been a fair bit miserable. I have hundreds of great friends from around my home turf and excursions to Idaho, Alaska, Texas, the US northeast and southwest, Costa Rica, Brazil... very few of whom I'll ever see again. The reaction of a first timer is almost invariably "WOW!"
I used to frequent an Islamic center a two mile drive from home 'cause it was high ground with fairly distant and mostly low treelines. Didn't advertise or hide the fact that I'm a rabid infidel but in a couple years worth of very frequent astro missions I think I was probed once and mildly evangelized once or twice. And there was a lot of interest in and appreciation for what I was doing and offering. And I'll take their company over the typical Jesus crowd any night (or day) of the week.
But they kept the center, parking lot, approach, often basketball court, occasionally cricket field blasted with electric lighting that rivaled noon. And maybe a year ago I'd had all I could take and moved about a half mile ENE to the cattle farm where the light pollution situation is the best I'm gonna do this side of the Chesapeake. The actual horizons situation is a notch down but the Islamic center's lighting situation totally blasts that apparent advantage outta the water. The owners like me and appreciate what I'm doing but I rarely have any human company.
But I digress a bit.
At or near the beginning of a Ramadan cycle I'd rolled over to make my scopes available but things were hopeless and I retreated out scouting for a less miserable set-up position. The corner at the public road looks doable, I get the scopes on targets, soon have a couple lines. Very shortly afterwards a county cop car pulls up and the uniform has this "Oh!" reaction. There's been a report that a car with my license plate was "driving slowly". Then a backup car pulls in and they're both in line for the planets.
After a bit the radios crackle with a report of a shooting. "Well, I guess you guys..." No. They're staying with the scopes. It was about another ten minutes before "Well, I guess we better... Thanks loads!"
A later occasion I'm set up on the farm's entrance drive a bit in from the county road. A(nother) cop paints me with a blinding searchlight. I approach, give him the situation, he spends the next hour on the targets I'm getting him.
Sunday 05/19 evening after an Annapolis Symphony event gonna stop for dinner on the way home. Two options. Jalapeños has the menu I'd prefer but the scope set situation kinda sucks. Maggiano's at the Annapolis Mall is great to the NW and doesn't totally suck to the SE. I can do both the low Sun and rising Moon easy.
Also... I can keep the scope in full view at all times.
For years now I've had zilch concern about a scope being stolen - 'specially from any public area. Nineteen out of twenty individuals will walk by or around it without giving it the slightest glance. And put yourself in a mindset of an individual who might want to steal it. What are you gonna do with it? Sell it on eBay? Use it yourself for birding or astronomy?
Whenever I see somebody pause for a closer look that's gonna be a friend. I'll be out in a flash; put him, her, them, the kids on a target; probably be able to answer all questions and more. And occasionally I'll get a retired space program pro - as came to be the case on this occasion.
Set up, go in. A manager says, "You're not paying for this dinner. We all love what you're doing for us and are always praying for you to show up." I resist, lose, thank him, order light (which I'd have done anyway), spend ninety percent of the next hour and a half getting staffers and customers on the setting Sun and rising ten day old waxing Moon, talking about the eclipse, explaining astronomical concepts and my targeting techniques.
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html
Mexico - USA - 2024 April 8 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8%2C_2024
Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 - Wikipedia
- Had planned for it for years - based upon my 2017/08/21 in the desert at 43°54'05.93" N 112°47'22.92" W. It was gonna max out in Durango - 25°17'22.04" N 104°08'53.12" W - 4:27.5. I thought it would be simpler, safer 29°14'18.46" N 100°09'29.00" W - between Uvalde and Bracketville along US 90 and very safely within the boundaries of the Chihuahuan Desert. Based upon weather records there were several areas which tied it but nothing that beat it. But as time got short things started going south.
No parking on highway shoulders - and the State Police were gonna make sure. And there are no public side roads. Just gated private roads into humongous cattle ranches. Some of those guys would allow access for a few hundred bucks but close to none of them listed locations - just provided phone numbers.
Then the ten day forecast started looking iffy. What the hell, at that range they're mostly throwing darts. But as time grew shorter the dire predictions just got more dire and widespread. It looked like the pattern along the coast to coast Path had done a flip. Cancelled the plane tickets and extensive touring activity plans and started looking towards the NE corner of the country.
I'd contacted Zack 2024/03/27 with hopes that we might be a lot closer together for this one than we were for the 2017. Nope.
On the morning of 2024/04/06 (Saturday) we started rolling the gear-packed Passat towards the West Springfield Best Western. Early in the drive approaching the I-895 Baltimore Harbor Tunnel got a fairly good view of what was left of the Francis Scott Key Bridge - impact plus eleven days.
Spent a lot of Sunday looking at forecasts for Centerline locations within halfway sane range. Good news... Started looking not bad from the Lake Champlain ballpark and downstream. Bad news... A lot of that track was allowing chances of clouds getting in the way at around totality time. But late in the game Maine was looking bulletproof.
http://www.weather.gov/bou/2024SolarEclipse
Jackman. Never heard of it before. Centerline was crossing US 201 at 45°40'03.00" N 070°16'38.05" W about three miles north of town. At some point prior to 2013/09/17 some extremely thoughtful loggers had opened up a clearcut on the upstream side of the road a very short walk beyond which the 2022/08 Street View imagery showed as still a pretty good excuse for a field.
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53705483960_1c0091b0b6_o.png
Set the alarm for 02:50. Forecast remained everything for which one could possibly hope. Started rolling north at 04:00 - I-90 - I-290 - I-495 - I-95 - I-295 - I-95 - ME-104 - US-201. At some point I heard on the radio that NPR would be broadcasting from Jackman. Sounded like I wasn't the only one on this strategy wavelength. Shortly off the Interstate we found ourselves in the middle of a parade of maybe ten other vehicles moving north at normal speed. Yep.
It's midmorning as we're closing on Jackman, lotsa snow cover, cool but clear with light wind. We begin a moderate steady climb and shortly reach an end of a long unbroken line of vehicles parked on the right shoulder. The climb tops out at an Attean Overlook state highway rest area at 45°34'59.50" N 070°10'45.69" W. Stunning view to the SSW of forest, lakes, mountains. Astronomical Woodstock. Crammed with eclipsees of all ages all glowing with happiness. I'm maintaining modest convoy speed and scanning the crowd as best as safely possible and see one serious reflector scope setup. No clue as to how many I missed.
This was the place to be. Still about seven and a half miles off Centerline but that only translated to a cost of under two seconds of unfiltered time. The smart money knew this and at least one of them had set up camp two days in advance (as I would find in the course of our retreat late in that day). I was tempted but at least wanted to check out my Centerline target.
When I arrived I was stunned. We were the third car in and those had disgorged about a half a dozen. WTF?! Yeah, I can live with this.
Precise Centerline would've been a crappy place to set up - substantial forest regrowth - and I parked about a football field beyond at 45°40'05.64" N 070°16'41.35" W on the SW shoulder - clear of the asphalt and bow pointed towards retreat. The shoulders were steep and the plowed snow over them was deep. Took a slip and hard fall at one point and a wrist was hurting a bit for a few minutes.
Early on there was some very thin light clouding in the sky to the NE. Looked like it would very shortly burn off and it very shortly did. And a passenger jet overhead at 35K left some contrail that was vanishing less than half a mile behind.
On that subject... This:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/2426062-eclipse-2024-5-of-the-best-pictures-of-the-total-solar-eclipse/
Eclipse 2024: 5 of the best pictures of the total solar eclipse | New Scientist
Kendall Rust - Jonesboro, Arkansas
would've been pretty cool. Probably no more than eighty miles downstream of Zack.
Place started filling up FAST very soon after our arrival. I had the back seats folded forward and the relevant cubic footage packed with tripods for filtered glass magnification toys to make available to any and all. But I started with my Swarovski 85 and 95 millimeter ATXs, got them on the Sun, noticed that people were conspicuously not swarming them. Fine, I'm already too fried to have much enthusiasm for drawing and managing crowds and tending extra equipment.
I'd set the two Tripods up with the Level 1 and 2 Extensions fully extended and the Level 3s fully collapsed. A family from a couple cars to the SE had what I'll call an eleven-year-old. He was fine behind one of the Scopes at that level on the Sun and - using the proper technique - so was I (at a bit over six feet). OK, I can probably also leave in the trunk the heavy steel stepstool I'd hauled up there.
Heard and saw a few Ravens in the vicinity.
I had a flock of MIT kids (all male) all of whom had shown up with two dollar eclipse glasses. Very quickly massed around the Scopes. Also a few other adults - both genders - very interested in the glass I had to offer.
Proper technique... Left eye. Stand to port of back end, bend at the waist and twist waist, shoulders, neck counter. Right eye. Mirror image.
Focus Collar. Tweak it to sharpen as determined by your eye - preferably minus corrective glasses.
Zoom Collar. Comfortable views at min - 25 for the 85 / 30 for the 90. 45 can have its charms but probably don't wanna go up beyond.
I think I handled all the adjustments to keep reasonably well centered.
Low point of the day... Everybody's parked neatly on the shoulders and - if on foot - on the asphalt on the extreme edges of same. Through traffic is light - pretty much all very widely spaced singles coming through from one direction or the other. Some of the light traffic is heavily loaded logging trucks coming through at speed but there's nothing problematic. At one point some undoubtedly local pigfucker in a pickup blasts through on a northerly heading and leans on his horn to let all us useless eclipsees know we better stay the hell outta his way. (Hope you got a nice long look during lead-up to totality minus the glasses and filters all us fags were using.)
The tone I got from the Uvalde neck of the path was... There are gonna be zillions of eclipsees swarming this area. Let's squeeze every penny we can outta them. The Jackman tone was... There are gonna be zillions of eclipsees swarming this area. Let's do everything possible to handle the influx, keep people safe, accommodate positive experiences.
There was a well publicized NASA project to send zillions of helium balloons with data gathering instrumentation payloads into the Path. I think it was shortly before C1 that one was sighted from our location. Soon everyone and his dog - 'cept for Yours Truly - was on it. I was scanning with my 8x42s and getting NOTHING - despite the best efforts of my MIT flock. I lay down on my back and eventually got it naked eye as a one second flash of reflected sunlight. Shortly after I discovered that my glasses were focused in for about 75 yards for some reason I couldn't and can't recall. (Nice to have stars available to immediately let ya know how sharply you're focused on infintity.)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/2426062-eclipse-2024-5-of-the-best-pictures-of-the-total-solar-eclipse/
Eclipse 2024: 5 of the best pictures of the total solar eclipse | New Scientist
My one moderate disappointment for that event at that location... We're with people we like and we're talking to each other. I'd been too busy and stressed to set an alarm on the phone or even know that C1 was gonna happen at 18:18:54.6 UTC. And I was subconsciously assuming that we'd be alerted by warning calls from other nearby eclipsees. Reportedly there were some but my little group and I stayed clueless until a substantial bite had been taken out of the Sun. Shit.
OK, let's get people cycling behind the Scopes. I'm going back and forth between the two keeping them reasonably well centered. And my group members would get distracted and I was frequently having to call, "Open scope!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8%2C_2024
Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 - Wikipedia
I'd packed a Swarovski VPA 2 adapter to allow one to quickly and properly clamp a phone on the back end of an ATX and take pictures approaching and receding from totality. And I'd done a couple of test shots at the Sun a month prior. Got sharp discs and little or nothing beyond. But I was gonna ban or discourage shots during and close to totality. But when I was on site I decided to leave the adapter in the bag and make no mention of the issue. I didn't have the energy and any effort by anyone wasn't gonna be worth it.
But approaching totality I was with the 95 watching one of the MIT kids trying to get his phone straight and centered behind the 85 and then going back and getting together with another kid to try to evaluate the results. Then I did an announcement something close to...
"Look guys. Tomorrow there are gonna be thirty billion high quality photos of exactly what we're seeing here and now up on the Web shot by people with really serious gear with which they've been practicing for years. The best you're gonna be able to get here with an iPhone is gonna be relative total garbage. Don't try to photograph this event. Experience it."
And everyone was very obviously and instantly in total agreement.
The VPA 2 will continue to live in the gear bag to be made available to folk who wanna get souvenirs of their Moon, Jupiter, Saturn sightings. Those can be fun targets but tend not to be very time critical and total solars are:
- unique
- very short duration
- for many:
-- very expensive
-- once or twice in a lifetime events
All that having been said it's currently damn near impossible to find quality photos of this 2024 in anything further outside of max total than Bailey's (Halley's) Beads mode. And I find that a bit... The Sun itself with nothing going on save for maybe a bit of spotting is a spectacular astronomical target. Whenever I put a first timer on it the response is damn near always "Wow!". And with ANY degree of obstruction by the Moon - coming or going...
At some point close to totality I noticed and commented on the unworldly color of the sky and lighting of our surroundings.
From the 2017/08/21 I had a regret of missing the shadow bands that several others in my group had caught on the sandy desert floor. Hadn't known about / prepped for them. This time I'd packed a couple of white pillowcases I'd prepped for the flight to San Antonio. But for this one there was extensive nearby snow cover so the pillowcases stayed stowed. And as we neared C2 I made an announcement. People started getting ones I wasn't but I did manage one distinct one.
I announced that I was gonna hog the 95 for myself for a good bit of totality and they could manage the 85 for themselves and everyone was fine with that. But a little shy of three and a half minutes is a long time, there's tons of other cool stuff to look around at during totality - including the naked eye unmagnified event - and I'm sure the 95 wasn't much less accessible for guest use during totality than it had been during the lead-up.
As we were into Bailey's Beads stage...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baily%27s_beads
Baily's beads - Wikipedia
...I was on the 95 with a hand on the filter watching the visible sliver of the Sun rapidly shrink towards nothing. Called "Filters off!" as I yanked mine - about two seconds too soon. I think the blast knocked me back four feet and and I'm sure that the other Scope didn't react quickly enough to enjoy that experience.
This wasn't the first time I'd pulled a stunt like this and on that other one I'd caught the full disk without damage so I wasn't overly worried about this one. Did a lot of blinking for the next ten seconds and wasn't getting an afterimage.
In the lead-up days however I'd been hearing cautions that one didn't need to stare at the unfiltered Sun long enough to heat up and permanently trash the retinas - which had always been my understanding. (Most of us Earthlings with eyes have evolved to survive incidental shorter looks at the Sun all the freakin' time - not to mention having the Sun peripherally in our fields of view for extended periods.) That short direct looks at high frequency could also do the trick. I'm not sure how legitimate that caution is but I have no interest in doing tests to find out for sure.
Totality...
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html
Mexico - USA - 2024 April 8 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8%2C_202445°40'03.00" N 070°16'38.05" W
Alt - Azi - P - V - LC
C1 - 18:18:54.6 - 46.6° - 216.0° - 234° - 05.0
C2 - 19:29:29.4 - 37.7° - 236.5° - 056° - 11.3 - -0.7s
MX - 19:31:13.0 - 37.5° - 236.9° - 146° - 08.3
C3 - 19:32:56.2 - 37.2° - 237.3° - 236° - 05.3 - -0.9s
C4 - 20:39:27.2 - 26.7° - 252.4° - 058° - 11.5
Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 - Wikipedia
The pink prominences - eruptions of plasma - were immediately apparent (one might say prominent) and spectacular.
Venus and Jupiter - the next two brightest balls in Earth's sky - were clearly and easily visible. But I didn't scope them or try for anything else - as I had thought I might in earlier planning stages. The Galilean Moons would've been easily doable.
I don't remember how I managed the transition at C3 but probably just watched for the first millisecond and refiltered. I do remember that I hadn't wired myself to look for the shadow bands at that end. And I'm sure nobody at my 2017 station was looking at that end either.
All of my group and most others stuck around for C4. Then the show was over, the pressure was totally off, we could relax, talk, pack up gear.
Started rolling south, gassed up at the Gulf station in Jackman. Stopped at the Attean Overlook, soaked up the incredible view, talked with some stragglers.
Continued on with zilch sign of extraordinary traffic for some miles in waning daylight thinking we may have really dodged all the expedition's potential bullets. Not quite. Didn't take us too long to reach the back end of the linear parking lot. I'd never before been in one like that. And I think that there was a choke point in Skowhegan which needed to be managed and wasn't being. We weren't moving at a snail's pace. We weren't moving AT ALL for unbelievably long periods. But at least that meant that anyone who felt like it could kill his engine for unbelievably long periods. But I suspect I may have been a major rarity in doing it.
After some hours I started realizing I had a night sky that would've been stunning with all the headlights switched off and would still be pretty amazing with them on. Jumped outta the car with my 8x42s and did a quick survey to get my bearings. Should've known that that move would've worked like nothing else to get things in front of me moving.
Sprinted back to the car minus any assholes behind me leaning on horns. They knew my stunt would make zero difference in travel time and were probably wishing they'd been geared to do the same.
Now in hindsight it occurs to me that we could've stayed at our Centerline point - or stopped at the Attean Overlook - and gotten a night sky like I've seldom seen before at very little cost in southern progress time.
At some point around the aforementioned ballpark I realized I was getting a persistent afterimage. Did some blinking and it wasn't going anywhere. Started thinking and worrying a bit about my slightly premature filter pull. But it wasn't the razor thin crescent one would've expected but rather a fat red triangle or trapezoid. Soon realized the issue was due to a brake light from the car in front of me.
Eventually we started making slow but steady and steadily increasing rates of progress. Soon thereafter I started falling asleep at the wheel, handed it over, went out like a light.
Switched back on after we'd gotten in the clear on I-95. En route to Augusta was able to use the iPhone for Web access to find and reserve a rather desperately needed room for what was left of the night. Days Inn, one room available. Docked about midnight. Lotsa plowed snow masses in and around the parking areas. At the desk there were a couple of young female Chinese refugees from the Totality Path. They were from a group of six and had had reservations for three rooms but had failed to jump through some hoop to retain two of them. But the desk guy was able to find them two more within closish range. I talked with the two a bit about our experiences before crashing.
Up earlyish the next morning (2024/04/09), got the car reparked in the sunlight, unloaded it, repacked as organized for departure from home. Breakfast, departed for our West Springfield Best Western. Pulled off onto the Kennebunkport Service Plaza - 43°24'39.41" N 070°33'36.98" W - for some organizational reason I can't recall. Looked around the fairly heavily packed parking area after prepping for resumption, developed a suspicion. A woman some years my senior was returning to her nearby vehicle a bit after her probable husband had taken the wheel.
"Excuse me. Where were you two yesterday afternoon around three o'clock and what were you doing?"
Bullseye. We spent the next ten or fifteen minutes recounting our experiences. I speculated that at least 85 percent of the passenger vehicles stopped there were retreating eclipsees.
Continued south back to the West Springfield Best Western. I'd gotten Sam - from behind the front desk - onto some astronomical targets on the way up, we'd connected on some interests, and I was looking forward to giving him a report. Wasn't there when we checked back in - same room near the lobby. Oh well...
Were to meet HM's two nieces (deceased older brother's daughters) and the husband of one for dinner at La Cucina di Hampden House. The couple own, rent out, personally use a cabin on First Connecticut Lake way the hell up in northern New Hampshire and under twenty miles off of Centerline. All three of them had gone up I think primarily to keep an eye on things during the eclipsees onslaught.
When I have a sky during a restaurant outing I typically will set the 95 up near the entrance, put it on a target - the Sun if it's up, a planet (preferably Jupiter if available) if not. And I'll check on it periodically to see if it's attracting any interest, curiosity. And that's what I was doing on this occasion.
On about the second or third check I saw what I'll call a seventeen year old kid on a mountain bike at a parking lot entrance. Within about a second and a half the front wheel had turned 90 starboard instantaneously and he got pitched hard forward onto the asphalt and screamed in pain. I did my best imitation of a sprint to the crash zone.
He was harnessed with a substantial backpack which secured a fishing rod and was wearing near zilch in the way of clothing. A forearm was very badly scraped and a knee also took some abrasion damage. I don't really understand how that happened but he reported that the loosely strapped backpack had shifted and precipitated the instantaneous and catastrophic loss of control.
The derailleur had gotten knocked outta commission and he was now stuck in top gear too high for practical riding in absence of a steep descent. Stayed with him until he'd recovered enough to continue on home.
So I missed the report on the First Connecticut Lake eclipse perspective and will have to get up to speed on a future occasion.
By the time dinner was over I was able to get three very interested and grateful restaurant staffers on Jupiter.
The other niece has a son I've known for many years. Very talented musician and photographer and will be graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology on 2024/05/10 and immediately strolling into a high powered tech career. Rochester was virtually within walking distance of Centerline but was getting near totally fucked by the weather. And he wasn't able to mobilize 'cause he had too much critical shit going on at the time.
Sam was back at the desk the next morning (2024/04/10) and I was giving him a report on our eclipse experience. Laptop gave me a notice that it was getting critical in the juice department, went back to the room, got the power supply, plugged it into an outlet in the lobby. But then Sam got busy with his job and I went back to 107 and started packing and organizing for departure. Hadn't realized for a fair bit his shift was ending but then wrapped things up, got him on the Sun out front a last time, saw him off.
I continued organizing, packing up, loading the car. Checked every cubic inch of every recess in the room, broke down and loaded the Scope. Rolled south for a friend visit (and lunch) in Tarrytown. And it wasn't until well south of Hartford that it dawned on me that the PowerBook was still charging in the lobby back at the hotel. Was able to get on the phone to the desk and get it secured. But that was still a devastating mistake.
Did a birding trip to Puerto Rico 2023/12/28-2024/01/25. Delayed prepping too long, pulled a nighter prior to the morning of departure, managed to leave the power supply for the laptop plugged into the surge protector, wasn't able to get a replacement for this nine year old machine on the trip. It stayed asleep save for several semi-critical situations and got back home still holding a few minutes of charge but I told myself never again. Get your shit together with much time to spare, pack the power supply in the case before putting the laptop in. But on the way back when my brain was running on fumes I got thrown a curve ball I hadn't anticipated.
Back home I was demolished to the point that I was half wishing that the eclipse had never happened. Ditto for a healthy bit of the lead-up time. Paid a huge price in terms of stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, establishing fairly intimate friendships with scores of other eclipsees I'll never see again...
Had to make do with the iPhone to recover from the trip and work on getting the laptop back and I totally suck on using an iPhone for anything beyond making and receiving calls and a handful of specialty apps. And I know that your average twelve-year-old on his/her phone is gonna be able to challenge or kick my laptop ass but I'm not gonna live long enough to scratch that surface significantly.
In order to recover the laptop I had to get to the FedEx Office in Annapolis, purchase:
- a cardboard shipping box (off the rack in folded flat configuration)
- shipping labels to get it:
-- up to West Springfield
-- back with the laptop, charger, cables in the case and boxed
I tried to get the relevant digital stuff done at one of their computer stations but started running into brick walls. FedEx Office John thought I was a total moron, got on the keyboard, found himself slamming into the same impenetrable brick walls. Took forever to get the mess untangled. I told him stuff about my recent experiences, the adult Bald Eagle I'd just watched climbing out over the parking lot in weak thermal lift, the Coyotes I regularly hear at my local cattle farm astronomy station and he went nuts. We're great friends now.
So the box started rolling from that office early that 04/15 evening and reached goal early 04/16 afternoon; got packed with my stuff, taped, labeled; started rolling back south just before noon 04/18; hit the front steps 04/19 16:47 (while I was out for the evening). Still near fully charged, unsaved work still on the screen. One of the longer nine and a half day periods of my existence. Thanks Sam.
http://www.centralmaine.com/2024/04/08/from-near-and-far-thousands-flock-to-jackman-to-take-in-total-solar-eclipse/
Watch: From near and far, more than 10,000 people flock to Jackman to take in total solar eclipse
Zack and his father were able to identify and get into and back from a substantial patch of blue a fair bit closer to homes and probably with magnitudes lower levels of stress at 35°31'06.59" N 092°00'43.40" W - or something a very short walk from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsNV0sTNH08
Total Eclipse - 4/8/24
Zack doesn't know he scored Jupiter (as well as Venus) as of this post time. Freeze it at 0:49. Venus is obvious at 04 o'clock. Go out at 10 o'clock about twice as far. Blow up a bit if necessary.ZuluCharlie - 2024/04/10
Heber Springs, Arkansas. My second total eclipse. As with the first, capturing it on video wasn't a high priority for me, as even professional footage cannot come close to conveying the in-person experience.
The shadow bands were a lot easier to see in person.
Cameras: GoPro HERO 11 Mini (head mount); Panasonic HDC-TM900 (tripod mount)
A solar eclipse is ALWAYS preceded OR anteceded by a lunar eclipse but NEVER preceded AND anteceded by lunar eclipses. Up until working on this post I'd been thinking that we'd expect to get lunars on both ends but I now understand why that can't happen.
But if the relevant alignment ain't all that great all we might only get a penumbral lunar - a shadow scattered by Earth's atmosphere. Or the distinct shadow may only fall on part of the disk. Now I've seen totals, partials, and one penumbral only.
The Moon (whose orbit is tilted five degrees off the ecliptic) has to be on its full night (which happens every 29.5 days) and passing through the ecliptic plane. And that alignment ain't gonna be happening again the following full night. (Ditto with respect to the subsequent or preceding full.)
2024/03/25 04:53-09:33 UTC we had a penumbral and I watched it (through the 95 at the beginning and end and periodically monitored it through the duration. Early in the game I convinced myself that I was noticing some darkening in the right area but as the event wore on... I think the only way I'd have been able to have any confidence would've been to have had a switch with which I could've flipped the effect on and off.
On 2024/04/23 I was thinking we should again be having or close to another lunar as it was hitting full at 23:49 UTC but (of course) nobody was talking about anything. Got to my cattle farm station a bit after that and got a lock on a nice, low, rising disk as a completion of this eclipse event. (Save for all the substantially unpleasant aftermath/recovery stuff with which I'm still dealing.)
http://www.centralmaine.com/2024/04/08/from-near-and-far-thousands-flock-to-jackman-to-take-in-total-solar-eclipse/
Watch: From near and far, more than 10,000 people flock to Jackman to take in total solar eclipse
At the Attean Overlook area.
Note that:
- there are no Maine or Texas state cops ordering eclipsees to move off the US Highway's shoulder
- traffic is flowing through just fine - even with pedestrians parked out into the NW bound lane
- we've heard zero reports of relevant problems
(Mildly happy that you guys got fucked by the weather.)
From way the hell south of Jackman at Robbins Hill Scenic Overlook somewhere close to 44°53'41.19" N 069°48'37.20" W but the environment is similar to what we had at our Jackman clearcut. 'Cept zilch in the way of snow - elevation as well as latitude substantially lower.
My brother and his wife rolled from Northern Virginia up to near the south end of Grand Isle in Lake Champlain to his Cornell College roomate's place. That was about ten miles south of Centerline and about 164 miles upstream of my Jackman site with an advantage of about three seconds of totality. There were no problematic clouds but much further upstream would've been asking for and/or getting trouble. Dave is a real serious photographer including in the astro department.
This:
http://www.facebook.com/david.horak.14661/photos
is his interpretation of what was going on very shortly before I prematurely yanked the filter.
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2024/05/16
Rochester student became Rochester grad 2024/05/10. I know for sure 'cause I attended the ceremony. He insists he could've joined us for the Jackman expedition, his mother begs to differ.
I bumped into lotsa other eclipsees on that trip. At breakfast in the hotel graduation morning another guest was wearing a 2024/04/08 eclipse T-shirt and I violated her privacy accordingly. And there were about five other eclipsees in the room. Pity we were all constrained by the day's events schedule.
I'm getting myself a "Total Solar Eclipse - Twice In A Lifetime - 2017 - 2024" baseball cap to wear when I'm out in public areas. Bet it won't take me too long to draw in a fellow Centerliner who rolled up from this area. Maybe even a Jackmanner.The forecast for the Rochester area for the duration of the trip was (again) pretty dismal but there were substantial breaks and I was able to get nice shots of the Sun and Moon and guests on targets. The Sun was again in the news regarding the solar storm with which it began slamming our planet 2024/05/11. I'd gotten the scope, myself, guests on the associated massive sunspots field. Cluster was on the extreme western edge 05/13 morning.
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2024/05/24
More from Zack 2024/05/22 00:26:53 UTC...
He did know that he had Jupiter - not to mention Venus - in view during totality. But didn't know which was which at the time.
He'd rolled up the day before and split the day after to avoid traffic issues but I'd wager there wouldn't have been any significant ones. There were zillions of Centerline proximity options in that area and eclipsees would've been coming in and going out in all directions. Jackman was THE spot to be for that quarter of the country and close to EVERYONE (I'd wager) had ONE approach/exit route option.
There was undoubtedly something of a Canadian element (border crossing 13 road miles NNW) but virtually all of the US contingent was rolling around seventy miles (76 from my Centerline field) south to Skowhegan before anything of a choice became available. And that choice for the overwhelming majority was gonna be Augusta.
Heber Springs will again get totaled 2045/08/12 (Zack informed me) but I'm not real optimistic about my chances of still being around for that one.
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2024/05/27
More response to Zack's note...
Got praise for sharing my expensive equipment with other eclipsees who'd shown up on Centerline armed with nothing more effective than two dollar cardboard eclipse glasses. If I'd been up there without a bit of a crowd with which to share my equipment and work my butt off keeping everybody centered I'd have been a fair bit miserable. I have hundreds of great friends from around my home turf and excursions to Idaho, Alaska, Texas, the US northeast and southwest, Costa Rica, Brazil... very few of whom I'll ever see again. The reaction of a first timer is almost invariably "WOW!"
I used to frequent an Islamic center a two mile drive from home 'cause it was high ground with fairly distant and mostly low treelines. Didn't advertise or hide the fact that I'm a rabid infidel but in a couple years worth of very frequent astro missions I think I was probed once and mildly evangelized once or twice. And there was a lot of interest in and appreciation for what I was doing and offering. And I'll take their company over the typical Jesus crowd any night (or day) of the week.
But they kept the center, parking lot, approach, often basketball court, occasionally cricket field blasted with electric lighting that rivaled noon. And maybe a year ago I'd had all I could take and moved about a half mile ENE to the cattle farm where the light pollution situation is the best I'm gonna do this side of the Chesapeake. The actual horizons situation is a notch down but the Islamic center's lighting situation totally blasts that apparent advantage outta the water. The owners like me and appreciate what I'm doing but I rarely have any human company.
But I digress a bit.
At or near the beginning of a Ramadan cycle I'd rolled over to make my scopes available but things were hopeless and I retreated out scouting for a less miserable set-up position. The corner at the public road looks doable, I get the scopes on targets, soon have a couple lines. Very shortly afterwards a county cop car pulls up and the uniform has this "Oh!" reaction. There's been a report that a car with my license plate was "driving slowly". Then a backup car pulls in and they're both in line for the planets.
After a bit the radios crackle with a report of a shooting. "Well, I guess you guys..." No. They're staying with the scopes. It was about another ten minutes before "Well, I guess we better... Thanks loads!"
A later occasion I'm set up on the farm's entrance drive a bit in from the county road. A(nother) cop paints me with a blinding searchlight. I approach, give him the situation, he spends the next hour on the targets I'm getting him.
Sunday 05/19 evening after an Annapolis Symphony event gonna stop for dinner on the way home. Two options. Jalapeños has the menu I'd prefer but the scope set situation kinda sucks. Maggiano's at the Annapolis Mall is great to the NW and doesn't totally suck to the SE. I can do both the low Sun and rising Moon easy.
Also... I can keep the scope in full view at all times.
For years now I've had zilch concern about a scope being stolen - 'specially from any public area. Nineteen out of twenty individuals will walk by or around it without giving it the slightest glance. And put yourself in a mindset of an individual who might want to steal it. What are you gonna do with it? Sell it on eBay? Use it yourself for birding or astronomy?
Whenever I see somebody pause for a closer look that's gonna be a friend. I'll be out in a flash; put him, her, them, the kids on a target; probably be able to answer all questions and more. And occasionally I'll get a retired space program pro - as came to be the case on this occasion.
Set up, go in. A manager says, "You're not paying for this dinner. We all love what you're doing for us and are always praying for you to show up." I resist, lose, thank him, order light (which I'd have done anyway), spend ninety percent of the next hour and a half getting staffers and customers on the setting Sun and rising ten day old waxing Moon, talking about the eclipse, explaining astronomical concepts and my targeting techniques.