I've loved astronomy and NASA since I was a kid. I learned about the Space Shuttle when I was in 3rd grade in 1973 and was hooked. Our school in Winslow Arizona- amazingly- had a really cool model of the solar system with arms holding and rotating the planets and moons and there were pulleys and chains and a high wattage light bulb in the middle of the sun to cast shadows and such. I learned how seasons worked and what an eclipse was. You would flip a switch and it would go through an entire years worth of orbit in a couple of minutes.
I couldn't resist partaking in the viewing of a solar eclipse in my area. We had intended to jet out after church and drive up to the Navajo Nation to get exactly under the eclipse but upon studying the nature of an annular eclipse, decided to stay home. The moon was further from the earth at this time than usual and would at best would only create about 87% coverage. Places like Albuquerque NM and Page AZ would have a perfect "ring of fire" but no additional coverage than other places within 200 miles or so. Viewed from Mesa AZ, we got as full a viewing as we could but the outer edge of the moon touched the outer edge of the sun leaving a crescent shape but not a ring of fire.
We are all laughing in this shot because I had tickled Shaw to get a smile out of him and he elbowed me in the nubbins!
The local community college science department invited the public down for some planetarium shows and they had a few telescopes set up with filters for viewing the eclipse. They also provided these cool viewing shades for the public.
They anticipated about 100 people and nearly 500 showed up.
These telescopes allowed us to see sunspots and flares and the shape of the moon as it passed. It was really brilliant.
The science geeks (students and teachers) from the astronomy department at Mesa Community College were most gracious and helpful and friendly and informative and they were sooooo buzzed about the general public paying them some attention. They made sure to invite us all back on June 5th when Venus will pass directly in front of the sun. That will be just a tiny speck but they promised they would get out the telescopes for us if we come down.
A citizen astronomy enthusiast brought this device. It's a series of lenses and mirrors that project the image of the eclipse on a screen for safe viewing.
This is just snapped from my camera with the viewer you saw earlier.
This is something that everybody should have learned in elementary school... poke a pinhole in a piece of tin foil. You can adjust the distance between the foil and a paper plate or piece of white paper to see the image of the eclipse projected on the white surface.
You can see the little thumbnail on the plate in the center of the tin foils shadow. Lesa was amazed and commented that when she was in 4th grade, there was a partial eclipse and her teacher had the students poke pin holes in paper plates and look directly at the sun through the hole... She didn't "get it" and had a bunch of 4th graders looking directly at the sun through a pin hole in a paper plate! Sheesh!
I'm a huge lover of people watching. There was a woman there who just couldn't get her brain around what was happening. Couldn't grasp orbits and where we are relative to the sun and the moon etc. I fought back thinking she was an idiot because it was crazy-awesome that she was trying to understand as a few people attempted to explain what she was seeing. In reality, eclipses happen all they time with various planets and moons and stars blocking certain views from certain viewers. It's just extra interesting when they happen where WE can see them.
Here's the coverage at about its peak. Viewed on the mirror image above and straight in to my camera below.
There will be a total solar eclipse in 2017 that will go directly across the center of the U.S. in mid-day and it will completely black out the sun. ROAD TRIP! Who's in?
