Total solar eclipse, April 8, 2024

[Fishheadjoe]

What a wasted weekend! My son and I spent some time sharpening the ends of hockey sticks to a point, expecting the dead to rise during the eclipse, all to no end! I checked, no arms sticking out of the ground!
Here in Toronto, we had mostly cloudy, with some breaks. We were able to see most of it, but no totality.
Fishheadjoe

 

[turf3]

We laid out on the grass in the backyard. Clouds were off and on, but the totality was clearly visible for maybe two minutes. A weird sort of twilight - we ran out to the front yard to get away from our photosensor security lights, and then had a few more seconds of clear viewing, and then clouds obscured the corona again. In one gap in the clouds we could see Venus (I think). The photos don't do justice to the effect of the corona. It streams away from the disk much much further than photos show, and it's WHITE (I expected yellow). Did not have magnification to view the corona, so did not see any solar flares, but we did see the two or three little orange dots as the shadow moved away from total coverage.

I probably won't see another one of these, and this is the first one I ever saw. I'm glad there was enough gap in the clouds to see it.

Of course, about the time the shadow had moved off the disk of the sun to "fat crescent" stage, all the clouds promptly dispersed!

 

[Black_In_Mind]

I didn't get to see the eclipse (only it becoming night for 10 minutes) but I did get to enjoy the benefit of driving on a very empty stretch of highway 75. Those who were on the road were overall better drivers than I'm used to seeing in the afternoon.

 

[gln1955]

I thought this was pretty interesting...

 

[bholder]

As captured by OreoCam haha:

 

[T_Bone_TL]

Top one needs some spiderwebs and threads sticking out of it.

Use pulled sugar to make those if you want to keep it classy and tasty.

 

[FilterFunk]

Pics from my nephew in Dallas - the last pic is really cool:

 

[turf3]

Thing is, that last picture doesn't capture how dark it really was - not 1 am dark, but like 8:30 pm dark.

Also, the actual size of the disk is of course reproduced accurately in the photo, but to the human eye it looked like a GREAT BIG black hole with white stuff streaming away from it in all directions.

I didn't even bother to get out a camera, figuring I'd rather spend that couple of minutes observing rather than fiddling with a camera. Anyway, I've got it up here.

 

[skycruiser]

Pics from my nephew in Dallas - the last pic is really cool:
View attachment 5414012 View attachment 5414013 View attachment 5414014

Those are great! My daughter was also down town and had a similar view.

An eclipse is pretty much the only way to view Venus so far from the horizon. That was a cool bonus.

 

[hbarcat]

Those are great! My daughter was also down town and had a similar view.

An eclipse is pretty much the only way to view Venus so far from the horizon. That was a cool bonus.

Jupiter was also visible, just a bit to the left of the sun.

 

[hbarcat]

The traffic from the Chicago area to Indianapolis was heavy on the way down, but we left very early and made it without too much hassle.

We headed back north about 2 hours after the eclipse was over and traffic was horrific. What should have been 4 hours of driving took over 8.

 

[hbarcat]

My friend and I both took pics and video. I have a couple of nice shots through my 5" telescope.

Unfortunately, the video I shot with my Zoom Q3 was ruined. I had the camera set up on a tripod next to a tree about 20 feet away from where most of the small crowd was milling around. I had it vertically framed so that the sun was near the top of the screen and you could see the park grounds at the bottom of the screen with random eclipse watchers in the background.

The next day, when I had time to look at the video, I was disappointed with the results.

I shot over several continuous hours of video, from first contact, through totality, and up to last contact.

I was eager to see the 4 minutes of totality so I fast forwarded it to that point. About 10 seconds before totality, three people suddenly walk in front of my video camera and stop right there to watch. I got a nice view of their backsides blocking the sun for four minutes. Then, ten seconds after totality ended, they walked away.

SERIOUSLY?!!

 

[skycruiser]

Jupiter was also visible, just a bit to the left of the sun.

Yeah but Jupiter can be seen all across the night sky. The unique thing is that we never see Venus directly overhead like that.

 

[MoireBass]

My house was in the path of totality, but it was overcast. Two layers of clouds, moving at different rates. Three times prior to the eclipse, we got a brief simultaneous gap in the layers, so we were hopeful. But not at totality, was too cloudy. Was really disappointing after all of the buildup. At least I didn't spend hundreds of dollars and days traveling for the non-event, total outlay was $1.49+tax for the glasses.

Which brings up a question. Some of our (U.S.) Congresscritters (no need to be IDed by name or party affiliation) are claiming that eclipses and earthquakes are God's warning that we need to repent. But if we were prevented from seeing the eclipse by cloud cover, does that mean we're good, and don't need to repent of anything??

 

[gln1955]

My house was in the path of totality, but it was overcast. Two layers of clouds, moving at different rates. Three times prior to the eclipse, we got a brief simultaneous gap in the layers, so we were hopeful. But not at totality, was too cloudy. Was really disappointing after all of the buildup. At least I didn't spend hundreds of dollars and days traveling for the non-event, total outlay was $1.49+tax for the glasses.

Which brings up a question. Some of our (U.S.) Congresscritters (no need to be IDed by name or party affiliation) are claiming that eclipses and earthquakes are God's warning that we need to repent. But if we were prevented from seeing the eclipse by cloud cover, does that mean we're good, and don't need to repent of anything??

You might want to burn a witch, just to sure.

 

[mrpackerguy]

Couldn't beat the weather. Despite only being partial, it got noticeably colder outside.

it sure did. Id say 10+ degrees cooler

 

[turf3]

My house was in the path of totality, but it was overcast. Two layers of clouds, moving at different rates. Three times prior to the eclipse, we got a brief simultaneous gap in the layers, so we were hopeful. But not at totality, was too cloudy. Was really disappointing after all of the buildup. At least I didn't spend hundreds of dollars and days traveling for the non-event, total outlay was $1.49+tax for the glasses.

Which brings up a question. Some of our (U.S.) Congresscritters (no need to be IDed by name or party affiliation) are claiming that eclipses and earthquakes are God's warning that we need to repent. But if we were prevented from seeing the eclipse by cloud cover, does that mean we're good, and don't need to repent of anything??

Well, we all need to repent, always, and we don't need an eclipse to remind us of it.

The truth is, if we destroy humanity by overheating, or nuclear war, the cockroaches will still be seeing total eclipses periodically, every few years, until the moon gets close enough to the earth that it can only make an annular eclipse. Whether or not you believe in the BIG GUY UPSTAIRS, he (she? Yeah, probably SHE) has set the sumbitch in motion and it's going to keep on making solar eclipses for a VERY LONG TIME whether the hunan race continues on its current, part sinful, part virtuous course, repents en masse and becomes all saints (however you choose to define this) or turns virulently toward the sin end of things. This, at least, is gonna be the same no matter what. Kepler's laws of planetary motino have laid it all out for us.

 

[Winslow]

...until the moon gets close enough to the earth...

I think you mean far enough away from the Earth that only annular eclipses will be possible, especially since the moon is actually receding from us at about an inch & change per year.

As for repentance, I said this to someone the other day: As far as I'm concerned, the only "Rapture" worth taking note of is the one by Blondie.




Also, the version mashed up & remixed with The Doors:

 

[Winslow]

I got a nice view of their backsides blocking the sun for four minutes.

So...


...they mooned your camera.






(Sympathies for the frustration, though.)

 

[JRA]

I was eager to see the 4 minutes of totality so I fast forwarded it to that point. About 10 seconds before totality, three people suddenly walk in front of my video camera and stop right there to watch. I got a nice view of their backsides blocking the sun for four minutes. Then, ten seconds after totality ended, they walked away.

SERIOUSLY?!!

i feel for you, but i'm glad you got to see it. we were going to make a short day trip to indy but had to stay in cincinnati (death in the family) --- but we watched it with glasses and thought the almost total was pretty cool!