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Can't advise on marital stuff, been divorced twice. But I am traveling to watch the eclipse thru my 90mm Mak-Cass. I'm particularly keen to see what happens around the edges of the disk, hoping to catch a streamer or some such.
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Here in NW Ohio, we will see about 80% coverage....no plans currently to travel the 6-8 hours South to get into the 100% viewing area. The supposed large crowds would be a strong deterrent for me.
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Some folks get excited about heavyweight boxing. Some folks get excited about the Superbowl. I get excited about crazy astro events like this. We will be driving 650 miles to western Idaho and will spend several days in the area, watch the eclipse and drive home. The last total eclipse I saw was Munich Germany in 1999. Solar glasses, multiple cameras, binos, and telescope in tow.
If you have never seen totality, this will give you a clue as to whether you want to be under the shadow or not. Some folks would rather watch it on TV and I am ok with that. Different strokes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfNmKUtRD_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9GdfL_ToU |
Driving a bit south to SC to check it out! Anybody recommend any particular spot??
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Columbia. It's not dead center, but there's a science museum there doing a big festival for this, which will (possibly) give you access to things like publicly set up telescopes and, well, bathrooms and such ;) If you get closer to the edges of the band, the totality is much shorter. It goes down to 30-40 seconds near the edges, which seems silly when the center is just 30 miles away, and give you 2m40s of totality... |
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"common knowledge" states that a #14 or darker welders helmet is acceptable. I don't trust my eyes to "common knowledge". My personal opinion. |
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More than you ever wanted to know about solar eclipse filters: Eclipse Filters https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/safety |
Hate to admit, that's how I test my auto-dark helmet..... with the sun.
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Definitely agree about totality. Wife and I will be on Isle of Palms, rain or shine. No need to hate on the 912E. We old farts love our "E"'s :cool: |
So, the wife and were talking last night about taking the kids a little bit south of where we live to get in the path of totality, and so we pulled up the NASA map of the path to figure out where to go. Come to find out, my house is in the path. We should get about 1 minute, 30 seconds or so of total eclipse in my front yard.
Come on over! SmileWavy |
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Looked at Columbia (thank you for the recommendation), but boy do they have a ton planned...too many peeps for my crowd.
Instead, found a crossroads in BFE South Carolina that we will set up camp (probably in meth central, but that's what deterrent is for) Spot on the totality line...now to outfit the camera/telescope! |
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I'll have enough to do the binocs and make a viewing sheet mounted in matteboard or similar. |
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By chance we will be visiting home (Vancouver, BC) during the eclipse. Unfortunately we won't have time to drive to a totality zone. |
Am I the only one who could care less? I guess being old and wrinkled has blunted my enthusiasm for some things. There was a serious, if not total eclipse when I was young, and I did not get what all the fuss was about back then. I wonder what havoc it will cause.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baily's_beads |
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To answer your question, yes, you are the ONLY one who does not care. Do not let the eclipsed sunlight strike your skin, for you will be cursed with demons afterwards. Any children near you, make sure they stay locked in an interior room for the entire duration, because the rays will give them Lupus. Pregnant women? Put them in the basement, for the sun's horrible light will cause their unborn child to mutate into a vampire. No, really! Stay inside and watch Matlock. |
I'm trying to learn all there is about astrophotography in about one day...trying to get the telescope set up to track the sun using some app (and I don't know how a smart phone works!) and attach the camera.
Stoked!! |
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Equatorial mount, you can fake it to get plenty close enough. Rough align it to North, have the angle set to your latitude, then just grab and move the telescope tube around until the shadow it creates on the ground is the smallest, you will be pointed very close to the sun then. You can't really try to find it in the eyepiece, since it will be dead black everywhere until you get it on target (you have a big filter, right??) Alt az, is a bit trickier... |
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It's great for the moon, and I just got my sun filter yesterday, but it has been too cloudy to try it out. It has a neat computer program with a bunch of "pre-loaded" sights that the motor will take you to, but again, I've not been able to make use of it because I can't zero in on Polaris. Hopefully one of these apps (SKeye) will help. |
Any reports on hotel rooms? I hear Portland OR. is booked and was asking $400 (normally stay there for under $100).
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PLENTY close enough for what you're doing. Are you going to South Carolina? Actually, one way or the other, set it so that it's 35 degrees tilt. That means slightly more tilted than 45 degrees, since the pole is below 45 degrees for you. Put on sun filter, use the hand controls to move it around until the shadow of the tube is a circle, and you're set. You'll need to adjust it every now and then over the 2 hours, but that's it. Edit: Also, that's A HUGE telescope for the Sun, remember that it will appear as big as the Moon when you look at it. You won't be able to see any corona, since the Sun will mostly fill the eyepiece. If you put a camera on it, it'll act like a 1900mm lens, and the Sun will mostly fill the picture. |
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We plan to ride our bikes the 35 miles to Mt Angel to watch. It will be interesting to see what the roads look like! Hoping we can just scoot around the cars in the Worlds Largest Parking Lot!® |
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Here is a guide I found re: focal length [IMG]http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...pscgsu5jos.jpg[/IMG] I left this error message up, as photobucket now wants $400/yr to post images....anyway around this (clueless computer guy, I am)? |
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I followed along the red line and found a spot down-east in the middle of an alligator swamp at a crossroads...google maps showed a small clearing at an intersection. Sun should still be pretty high at 2:45pm, but if we need to move around a little we will. Taking my pick-up, some chairs, a tarp and a cooler...should be fun. Traffic is going to an issue as I've been told I-95 may be packed, but back roads shouldn't be an issue. Mapquest says three hours, so we'll plan for more and just take it easy. |
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Here is a guide I found re: focal length http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1502823424.jpg |
I haven't seen it posted so here is an interactive link to the eclipse. Enjoy.
USA - 2017 August 21 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier |
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I've seen eclipses before.
I've tried to get excited about this one. I really have. I've tried to convince myself it was important, that it was somehow a big deal. So far no joy. |
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The Flat Earth Society would say this is more accurate: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1502897346.jpg |
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If I had a dollar for every person who has said to me in the past 6 months "I've already seen one, it wasn't that special, why bother with this one", I'd have enough to pay off my trip. Were you in Montana in 1979? Baja Mexico in 1991? Atlantic coastal city in 1970? Far Northern Canada in in 1963 or 1972? Venezuela in 1998? Central Europe in 1999? If not, you haven't seen a total eclipse, which is why you don't think it's a big deal. If you were not in one of these stripes, on that data, at that time, you have not seen a total solar eclipse, and you might not think it's a big deal. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1502898859.gif |
1970 Mar 7 for me.
Not a total as we were a bit west, but I still remember making the pin-hole shoebox viewer. |
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A link to Portland's CBS affiliate: http://koin.com/tag/oregon-solar-eclipse/ |
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