Friday, March 15, 2024
Total Solar Eclipse near me
I might be able to make a five hour drive to see the 8 April total solar eclipse. It will go through Erie PA, ROchester NY, and Burlington VT. The HoJo motel in Erie will rent the night of 7 April for $800. If it rains,you're sunk. There are other options I'm considering like going to some version of Possum S**t, Ohio. Right now,seeing an eclipse is the only thing on my bucket list. Next US eclipse, I'll be 95 if I make it and who knows what shape. Otherwise,I'd have to spend a fortune to go somewhere else on Earth. Wish me luck.
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Good luck, Stan!
ReplyDeleteLooking at 95.5 percent in my backyard, assuming it's not cloudy.
Fun thing to do: get a kitchen strainer (stainless steel with round holes). Hold it just right, and you can cast dozens of teeny round shadows on the sidewalk with bigger and bigger bites out of them as the eclipse progresses.
As we know, eclipses have often been viewed as portents of cataclysm. One was seen in 1066 in England, and then along came William the Bastard. Last time there was a big deal about an eclipse, Trump was pres. Hope this one is not some kind of predictor of a return of the Lizard King.
I hope you get to see it, Stanley! Yeah $800 bucks a night is a bit much. Do you have a big enough vehicle that you could just take a sleeping
ReplyDeletebag and sleep in it at a camp site? Take some food and water because you may not be able to get any, and it'll be overcharged if it is available.
We had some complete coverage last time in Nebraska, but not where we live. Ironically the complete coverage was on some land that I own in common with my siblings. 50 miles from a town and 10 miles on a dirt road before you get to the trail road that isn't even a gravel road and a barbed wire gate to open to get there. And oh, watch out for the cows and two bulls who are the normal occupants. Some family members did go there and got some awesome photos. We thought, 95% coverage here, that's good enough. We didn't want to fight the interstate traffic for four hours, heard it was crazy congested with Looky Lou's trying to see the eclipse. But it turned out that 95% coverage just looks overcast.
It was in summer and there were some neat shadows of tree leaves though during the eclipse.
Yeah, 95 percent is pretty much twilight, but looking at it with the right glasses is fun.
DeleteThere was an eclipse that went thru my college town in the 1970s. It got pretty dark. My astronomy prof had little telescopes and viewing apparatus set up in the concourse. For anybody who wanted to look.
That guy was great! Never knew what you'd get to do in that class. "Hey, people, let's look at the moon!" Or, "Tonight we're going to calculate the elliptical orbit of Halley's comet!" One night he handed us photos of a portion of the sky, and we had to try to identify it with star charts. First time I saw the Northern Lights, I wanted to call Dr Bizzard and tell him about it. But I was 50 miles from a phone in the UP and it was the middle of the night.
You're lucky that you got to see the northern lights. I've seen faint white ones, just once. You would have thought it was lights from a town just over the horizon. Except there wasn't any town just over the horizon.
DeleteFirst time I saw them I felt like I should do a dance or sing really loud, something to verify my presence. Nothing like it for making you feel like you are a speck on a dust particle in an vastness of space.
DeleteWe are in the path of totality.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately because Betty is immuno-compromised we are not encouraging relatives to come.
I suspect the traffic situation around us will be terrible. We have parking areas such as the county fairgrounds, a civic center, and a beach which are being used to accommodate visitors.
If any of my relatives from PA come, they will probably have to arrive at our house in the early morning to be sure they do not get stuck in traffic; then spend hours afterward with snarled traffic to get back home. That means that they will be around our house for a longer time period than I will likely find comfortable.
Of course, clouds can easily wipe out the event. I am not as excited about the possibility as I might have been when I was younger.
Jack, you have the perfect spot. I hope the weather cooperates. Glad Jean will see something. Yes, Jean, I've experienced partial eclipses and did the shadow projection thing. I also have a 60X spotting telescope. During the 2017 partial, I put a Quaker Oats box behind the eyepiece and looked back into it, adjusting the eyepiece until the image of the sun focused on the back. Neat thing was that sunspots could be seen. Getting a pair of eclipse glasses checked out for a friend by a friend. They look good with an eye check but I want to be sure they block in the ultraviolet. Another piece of advice. Only use one eye to watch.
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