What are readers doing to prepare for the 2017 total eclipse?
I went to Harvard Bookstore and, amidst the social justice titles (featured prominently were She Persisted, for children, MAD About Trump: A Brilliant Look at Our Brainless President, and An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, which turned out not to be about the limitations of MySQL compared to Oracle) found Totality: The Great American Eclipses of 2017 and 2024, which I recommend ordering in hardcopy (too many illustrations and photos to be handled gracefully by the Kindle).
Totality explains clearly why there are more solar eclipses than lunar and why there are more annular eclipses than total solar eclipses. It also contains some practical information for eclipse viewing.
[It seems that most of the text of this book is lifted from a 2009 version, at which point the topic of gender ID for science nerds wasn’t front and center for the public. So the book is missing the discussion of female astronomers that occupies much of a more recent work that I reviewed. On the plus side, leaving out the chapters on female victimhood left room for actual explanations of the orbital mechanics. Note that these are non-mathematical and heavily illustrated so you don’t have to bend your mind around Calculus 101-type material.]
My personal plans are to fly from KBED to KCKV, KCEU, or KCAE, depending on which has the best forecast. All of these airports are in the path of totality. I would be delighted to meet any readers who find themselves at one of these airports.
Readers: How are your eclipse plans shaping up?
Related:
I’m trying to find instructions to make an eclipse viewing box of the sort that I remember my dad building for me some 20+ years ago.
Due to Amazon’s co-mingling of inventory from different sellers you can’t trust any of the specialty eclipse viewing glasses for sale there: http://www.kgw.com/news/eclipse/amazon-recalling-some-solar-eclipse-glasses-week-before-event/463899601
Just use a filter on your optics. Wish I had time to travel to places on path of full eclipse. Maybe more luck in 2024, it is too far away to plan now. Would be nice to fly with sun movement – earth rotation along the eclipse’s path.
In 1999 there was an fine eclipse to bee seen in Germany. Two thoughts when remembering the event:
To be able to watch the vanishing sun, I used some cd-rom platters, stacked. I don’t remember if two, three or four were needed, but that could be easily checked a few minutes before the event. Start with five, then remove.
The weather may trick you: when the sun fades, the air will immediately cool down a bit. That means that the relative humidity will rise. It was enough to change a perfectly blue sky into a cloudy one. A friend who traveled several hundred miles to have a perfect view saw nothing but pouring rain.
West Tennessee is quite rainy in mid August by itself, but weather changes rapidly there.
Expect lots of company. This eclipse has received so very much attention. Wyoming expects 500K visitors which will double its population for that day. Some predict an epic traffic jam, like a disaster evacuation without the disaster. The skies will be crowded too. Casper, WY, is in the totality path and expects 163 aircraft to arrive that morning, according to this: http://k2radio.com/record-number-of-planes-are-flying-to-casper-for-the-eclipse/
I hope to make it through Casper on Saturday while on the way to Cody. On Monday we’ll drive to Shoshoni, Wyoming. We do expect traffic. We will have supplies to make crawling in traffic comfortable. Even with traffic we should be able to get close enough to the totality path. The eclipse is just an excuse to get together with family anyway.
So far the weather forecasts call for a better chance at TN/NC border, e.g., KMNV; will surely check TAF that morning. It’d be nice to admire your aircraft afterwards. Are you flying in your Cirrus or the Pilatus?
Finn: KMNV looks pretty tight for parking and minimal on the facilities (KCKV is huge by comparison and they have their entire crosswind runway for parking). How long is the totality going to be right there at the airport?
We are a group of 8 so it is PC-12 time! Remember that the plane was built in 2000 so “admire” is perhaps a stretch…
http://airnav.com/airport/KSRB actually looks pretty darn good. Huge runway. I would be worried about parking, though, as there is no crosswind runway.
We deplorables will be at Sam’s Club watching ultra TV with zero carbon footprint. FOX will have better lenses than us. philg’s FB Friends (TM) can go to Best Buy and watch CNN.
Interesting post, Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us
The best vantage point is a helicopter hovering over a large plain, to see the shadow progress. A stabilized camera could make a timelapse. A 360 camera on Mount Jefferson would also capture the shadow moving. A set of 4K video cameras, each taking different exposures could capture an HDR movie showing the prominences, beads, & corona, all moving simultaneously. Helas, none of these shots will be taken because they’re to difficult for the current generation.
Hi Phil, I am out west and will likely go to Oergon to see the eclipse. Be advised that most airports out here are reservations required. It is advisable to go the night before and camp unless you can afford 1500 dollars for a motel room.