Solar eclipse

There was a solar eclipse on August 21 2017. This page is a collection of all the things going on. The next total one within the US is: April 8, 2024.

Glasses

***BE SAFE***

Solar viewing can damage your eyes. https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/iso-certification

Glasses are hard to find online and in Wichita. MakeICT had some, but we no longer have any.

Alternatives to glasses include: Welding Lenses: Shade 14

Note: The article above says 12, but a lot of other places have advised 14, go to a reputable welding store. As of now, the 15th, I (James) can't find a pair on Amazon, that I know will get here.

Projection viewing: This allows you to make a pinhole projector.

DO NOT DO THIS WITH TELESCOPES, or BINOCULARS. At best, it can fry the optical instrument, at worst, it will focus and reflect well enough that your eyes are damaged.

Road Trip

Several of us from MakeICT are planning a road trip. The thread is here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/makeict/1UROgfkw5IU/eu9KFze_BgAJ;context-place=forum/makeict

We will be choosing our destination the day before the eclipse when we have a good weather forecast. Probably St. Joseph MO, or near York, NE Schedule:

0700 - Leave for eclipse (likely earlier, I'm thinking 5am or earlier given the traffic) 1000 - Arrive at location (optimistic) 1130 - Partial Eclipse starts 1300 - Full Eclipse 1430 - Partial Eclipse ends, Leave for Wichita 1730 - Arrive in Wichita (optimistic)

The Eclipse Trip - August 21st 2017

If you missed out. Good news, the next one total eclipse within easy travel is in 2024. Here is where it will be on wikipedia.

Seeing Totality is worth it. Seriously.

We met and departed by 6 (I was actually holding us up by a few minutes, but it was for a good cause. I'd meant to do things the day before, but took a nap, and drifted in and out of sleep, and only got up early Monday Morning. Oops) from MakeICT, with a destination of Salina, due to concerns about the weather. We got up there, used the rest stop that's past it, and found basically the same thing, so we went up to Fairmount. Again we evaluated the weather, and from the general look, norht and west was better. Since much further north wasn't an option... we stopped at a gas station, then went West. One the way, found a nature center that was a bit past the turn off for Grand Island (Crain Trust Nature Center).

We got there and parked in a field. The people were nice. I setup a telescope and two cameras, while we compared glasses, and got a picture taken. It started, and it slowly got darker. It was not a rapid thing, which was easily noticable, but when you looked around it was noticable. It started from the upper left, and proceeded towards totality. It took quite a while for it to be noticably darker. I'm sure that something which wasn't very good at compensating for light unlike our eyes, like a camera would notice it more.

One thing that people didn't see were the Shadow bands, coming up towards totality. When it happened, it was not unlike twilight, or a full moon. Only the brightest stars and planets visible. There were a few things, like almost a sunrise around us, and of course, the big bright really cool corona, which was errie, and totally beautiful. It's hard to describe it, and frankly, pictures don't cover it. They are beautiful, but wow. After it reappeared, we all had our glasses on.

If you went and saw it, you can add yourself to this map, and describe how things were, if you want to: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qQ5dKKthuhKYG37OiJ0DxEf_qB8&usp=sharing

Suggestions

1. If you stayed in Wichita, find some way to go see totality in 2024.

2. For C3, when the sun begins to come out of shadow, leave your glasses off a little, so you can see things like the diamond ring. Yes, there's a little bit of staring at the sun, for a second, but I think it's likely worth it. I wouldn't suggest doing that at C2, because you will have spots in your vision, and that will be the worst time to have them: totality.

3. Check the weather, and make sure you travel to some place that has no clouds. There were some very fine wispy clouds at our location, others traveled to places, and had rain, or clouds. Some of the people at Lake Afton, got about 10 seconds of totality. We got lucky (somewhat planned) by not deciding until a few days before, putting that off, again and again until the eclipse.

4. Look into places that aren't completely ordinary to view. We viewed it at the Crane Trust Nature Center, which was a pretty cool place, and unlike some of the more popular spots, wasn't a huge trouble to get to. (I luckily found it just before we got to Grand Island.)