Eclipse
 

Maximum coverage, about 85%, has just passed here in Cambridge. It's still gloomier than an hour ago and it's still 100% cloud cover. The clouds thinned enough for about a minute at 09:23 enough for me to see a dim crescent sun with the naked eye. Just long enough to dash inside, grab my phone, and take a snap with the last remaining seconds of battery power.

If anything can be seen after the phone has recharged I'll post the image here.

About 70% here and no clouds at all. Thanks to moving recently I didn't find my filter for the 1600mm mirror lens, but I managed to dig up the filter glasses from the total eclipse 1999. So I won't have any pics to share, just the memories.

We also saw it here in Irthlingborough.

100% cloud cover here (Netherlands), saw nothing of the eclipse :no:.

80% here in Copenhagen, but 100% clouds :-( and of course it has been clear skies for a while until today.

Was just about clear enough in Stockport to see it. The clouds acted as a filter so you could look at it longer.

[QUOTE=VictordeHolland;398170]100% cloud cover here (Netherlands), saw nothing of the eclipse :no:.[/QUOTE]
There were moments here (just by Haarlem) where the clouds were thin enough to glimpse the crescent of the partially eclipsed sun through them, and in those moments we didn't need eclipse glasses at all. Still, the weather did indeed generally let us down which was disappointing.

[QUOTE=xilman;398165]If anything can be seen after the phone has recharged I'll post the image here.[/QUOTE]Ok, here it is. The image is pretty cruddy but remember it was taken by pointing an almost dead phone at the sky and pressing the button. No image stabilization, no manual focus, no optical train in fromt of the tiny lens, no post-processing. The only filter used was ambient not-so-thin cloud. The 252x256 excerpt from the full 2560x1920 also shows a portion of a long defunct telephone line and the very top of a neighbour's tree.

Some day I might try to remove image shake and blur.

I didn't manage to take a clear picture from my iPhone....

From: [url]http://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/march-20-2015/[/url]

Looks like Paul was out in the [STRIKE]hemor[/STRIKE] asteroid belt.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;398255]Looks like Paul was out in the [STRIKE]hemor[/STRIKE] asteroid belt.[/QUOTE]

You've got to be careful about letting the sun shine on Uranus, especially if you're fair-skinned.

(Hey, someone was bound to make that, um, crack - might as well be Urs truly.)

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;398255]From: [url]http://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/march-20-2015/[/url]

Looks like Paul was out in the [STRIKE]hemor[/STRIKE] asteroid belt.[/QUOTE]Sounds about right. It was noticeably darker near maximum eclipse than before hand but nowhere near as dark as really thick clouds would make it.

The 99 eclipse, OTOH, was around 97% in Cambridge and very much darker than normal.

[QUOTE=xilman;398275]The 99 eclipse, OTOH, was around 97% in Cambridge and very much darker than normal.[/QUOTE]
I'll never forget that one. We travelled to Northern France to see the total eclipse. Unfortunately there was cloud cover during the couple of minutes of totality, as I believe there was in most of Western Europe, but the moment when everything suddenly went pitch dark (we had positioned ourselves in the countryside far from any civilisation) was still incredibly impressive. The light in the few minutes beforehand was very strange, as if we were sitting in a large cardboard box, and the moment when the eclipse became total felt like someone suddenly closing the lid of the box.

I was lucky to see the July 1981 99% total eclipse (via a large telescope, all the time for myself and one or two more people; the local astronomers' club left the city for the trip to the path of total 100km to south) and the 2012 annular (drove the whole family to Utah for that - the conditions for that one were perfect). And partial (without leaving San Diego), last October.

I've seen [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_11,_1999"]this one[/URL] from my balcony, and I have somewhere a photo almost the same as the photo in the link. It was good biz for Ro at that time, plenty of tourists, lots of propaganda ("don't look at the sun through the smoked glass, you will go blind, buy our $9.99 glasses", etc), we even [URL="http://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces8992.html"]coined it[/URL]... hehe.

Best I could do on last night's eclipse, attempting to get some good foreground Giant Saguaro cactus and Palo Verde trees. This one is prior to totality; the reddish color was better once it was actually total.

Norm

[QUOTE=Spherical Cow;411509]Best I could do on last night's eclipse, attempting to get some good foreground Giant Saguaro cactus and Palo Verde trees. This one is prior to totality; the reddish color was better once it was actually total. [/QUOTE]

Nice.

Here in Silicon Valley, due to low clouds in the east, things were looking bleak for the first hour post-moonrise - I went out ~7:45, no joy, still some fog and low clouds over the bay, but cleared up enough in the next hour that I got a good look around 8:30, just after the fully illuminated lower limb crescent had started showing, as the moon started moving back out of earth's shadow. [Roughly like in your pic but flipped so the bright portion is at lower left.]

Due to ambient (urban lights) brightness the reddish color was barely evident when just looking up, but shielding my eyes from the surrounding streetlights as best I could helped a lot.

This is a few minutes into totality. Taken a few miles north of Boston.

Nice- looks like you had a good-sized telephoto lens? I was using a 75mm zoom, and needed a 10-second exposure. Plus I had to use a flash during the exposure to get the cactus to show up.

Norm

[QUOTE=Spherical Cow;411576]Nice- looks like you had a good-sized telephoto lens?[/QUOTE]

200mm max telephoto on a DSLR. I also had to crop the picture to satisfy mersenneforum pixel limit, providing some more "apparent" magnification. Exposure was 2 sec.

My shots are on [url]http://fivemack.livejournal.com/273195.html[/url] and mostly demonstrate that my lens is too long and my tripod too wobbly

[URL="http://imgur.com/gallery/Zm4JOKb"]Link[/URL]

[URL="http://www.tetherdcow.com/like-a-big-pizza-pie/"]Link[/URL]

[SPOILER][I]“WOW, that is so beautiful. God is amazing!”[/I][/SPOILER]

[STRIKE]That is the most striking eclipse photo I have yet seen. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! :smile:[/STRIKE]

Oops. It helps to read the article.

It is also embarrassing that I took it at face value in the first place. Any of the faults should have been obvious.

[QUOTE=kladner;412159][STRIKE]That is the most striking eclipse photo I have yet seen. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! :smile:[/STRIKE]

Oops. It helps to read the article.

It is also embarrassing that I took it at face value in the first place. Any of the faults should have been obvious.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, didn't mean to catch you out. :smile: I'd certainly have been taken in too if I hadn't seen it on that blog first, knowing the author's skills at debunking rubbish.

Strangely, though, the (only) fishy feature which I noticed about the picture before reading the article was one he doesn't actually mention, which is that the totally eclipsed moon is apparently shining so much red light that you see it reflected in the water. The features which the author did mention escaped me.

[QUOTE=Brian-E;412162]Sorry, didn't mean to catch you out. :smile: I'd certainly have been taken in too if I hadn't seen it on that blog first, knowing the author's skills at debunking rubbish.

Strangely, though, the (only) fishy feature which I noticed about the picture before reading the article was one he doesn't actually mention, which is that the totally eclipsed moon is apparently shining so much red light that you see it reflected in the water. The features which the author did mention escaped me.[/QUOTE]

I think I caught myself. Not to worry. :smile:

Same here. I said "what a lucky son/daughter of the... moon!" to be there at that time. Then I read the link. :blush:
(actually, the sharpness of the waves seemed a bit odd, I know how [U]my[/U] night photos look, at least the objects that move fast in a night photo,they are all a blur, but I am not an expert, and people today have amazing good photocameras, not comparable with my mobile phone's, so I didn't think to a fake).

The moon seemed to be just a bit too low to me for all of it to be visible. But the lack of distortion right at the horizon quickly raised a red flag in my mind.

Also, at full moon, especially if it's supposed to be totally eclipsed, the moon and sun should be almost exactly opposite each other in the "sky." So the sun should be just below the horizon, so there should still be fairly strong twilight at the time.

[QUOTE=cuBerBruce;412211]Also, at full moon, especially if it's supposed to be totally eclipsed, the moon and sun should be almost exactly opposite each other in the "sky."[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
[QUOTE]So the sun should be just below the horizon, [...][/QUOTE]Now you've lost me...

EDIT: And seconds later, I realise what you mean! Because the moon is shown just above the horizon. Yes, of course! That's another point the writer of the article didn't mention.

We just viewed the partial eclipse here (with Eclipse glasses), only about 17% covered but still impressive!

[QUOTE=kladner;412159][STRIKE]That is the most striking eclipse photo I have yet seen. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! :smile:[/STRIKE]

Oops. It helps to read the article.

It is also embarrassing that I took it at face value in the first place. Any of the faults should have been obvious.[/QUOTE]It's not wrong, to want to believe in someone's skill and integrity. Full-on pessimistic paranoia is an unpleasant way to go through life.

On the other hand, perhaps it's just as well the fakery was incompetent. "This is the 21st century, people. If you’re going to fake an image, there is no excuse to be less competent than a 1950s Russian propagandist."

[QUOTE=Nick;580531]We just viewed the partial eclipse here (with Eclipse glasses), only about 17% covered but still impressive![/QUOTE]100% covered and very unimpressive down in Somerset where I was this morning.

I watched it too, with homemade eclipse glasses, which consist of three layers of slightly transparent black tape (basically an ordinary transparent tape with a very dark red coloured foil added). Only about 9% cover, I think.

I've seen better...

A few years ago there was a relatively huge partial eclipse, which covered, by the estimate of my memory, about 40% of the sun. It was covered enough I watched it back then without any eye protection, however, me and my eyes being about 10 years old may have helped somehow.

[QUOTE=Viliam Furik;580568]I watched it too, with homemade eclipse glasses,[/QUOTE]This is how people damage their vision. :gah:
:failed:

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;580577]This is how people damage their vision. :gah:
:failed:[/QUOTE]
Open air carbon arcs are pretty effective at close range too. (center electrodes from 2 dead zinc dry cells, on a 110v AC power cord; do not try this at home or elsewhere, alone, or without proper ventilation and protective gear. Or at all.)

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;580577]This is how people damage their vision.[/QUOTE]

LOL... I was wondering who was going to bat that ball first! :smile:

Hand-held pin-hole cameras are taught in elementary school.

And yet a certain POTUS looked at an eclipse without any eye protection recently (fortunately it was cloudy at the time; the US.SS security detail didn't fully understand the risk profile)...

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;580577]This is how people damage their vision.[/QUOTE]

In my defense, they are very efficient. The sunlight going through was dimmer than my monitor's light, and I have measured the UV-B light coming through to be about 0% (our school physics teacher has a device for measuring UV-B radiation.). Measurement was done using real sunlight on a two-layer version in March, I think, so three layers should be plenty for June. They seem to only let through a bit of red-to-yellow mix because the sun looked orange through them.

[QUOTE=Viliam Furik;580586]I have measured the UV-B light coming through to be about 0% (our school physics teacher has a device for measuring UV-B radiation.)[/QUOTE]
0% of what? Don't you know that 0% (0.4% rounded) of the radiation inside the containment at Chernobyl is still bad for you? For reference the Sun's apparent magnitude is −26.7, that of the full Moon is about −11, and that of the bright star Sirius, −1.5. And that is a log scale. -23 will still hurt you.
And the UV-A, C, and IR values? The IR is just one part that will get you.

Nice shots from Pittsburgh on [URL="https://twitter.com/DaveDiCello/status/1402946939864469507"]twitter.[/URL]

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;580589]0% of what?

And the UV-A, C, and IR values? The IR is just one part that will get you.[/QUOTE]

About 0% of sunlight's UV-B, as I mentioned. For other UVs, I don't think the amount is much different. About IR, I don't think it can stop it, but neither can many things. For exposure as short as taking a look at an eclipse, I think even if I looked directly I would be ok after few minutes of seeing one big blur.

1/4000 f/36 through cloud, after a short drive to get a bit south of Cambridge where the cloud cover was less complete:

[url]https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~twomack/eclipse.jpg[/url]

[QUOTE=fivemack;580600]1/4000 f/36 through cloud, after a short drive to get a bit south of Cambridge where the cloud cover was less complete:[/QUOTE]
A great shot!

Courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day

[URL="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html"]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html[/URL]

Enjoy