Sweet! Didn't think we'd get to see any of the #eclipse because this is #Humboldt & it was a bit cloudy this morning, but here are the shadows dancing through the redwood trees on the side of the garage.
Johannes de Sacrobosco ("John of Hollywood") published detailed geometric descriptions of a solar eclipse in the year 1230. People in the "dark ages" were not so dumb!
I dig through 5000 years of eclipse investigations in my latest Invisible Universe column:
Did you use a colander to see or take pics of the eclipse? I know we laugh at it, but I seriously enjoy seeing others’ colander pics. In such a divided time, at least we all have colanders in common! Anyone remember Hands Across America? This is like that, but with colanders 🤣 Please post your pics and use the hashtag #Colanderstronomy (and maybe #ColandersAcrossAmerica?). Here’s mine, from #Colorado:
My eclipse pictures are on my photo blog: https://www.urbandinosaurs.org (though I do have to delete the Twitter link…).
For those who don't want to go there, here’s a picture of totality (note the solar prominences), and another of a post-totality crescent sun—it's smiling for the great show it gave us. #eclipse#eclipse2024
In the 2019 solar #eclipse in Chile there was this couple next to me. Right when totality started, the woman turned around, facing away from the Sun, and asked her husband to take a pic of her with the eclipsed Sun behind her.
The guy was visibly confused, his face clearly saying "wtf are you doing, you're gonna miss it." He struggled to get a pic, as the Sun/Moon are much smaller on the sky than what most people think.
Totality is brief, enjoy it! Forget about pics if you're not experienced.
We had a super fun (surprisingly tiring) afternoon watching the #eclipse. The big zoom lens, telescope, and solar filters worked great. Neighbors came out and we watched the sun spots get covered up. The telescope had enough detail to see the craggily edges of the moon. Milli enjoyed the sun and observed some diffraction from inside. One neighbor said “you have the coolest gizmos on the block!” All things considered, it was a lovely experience, no regrets. #Astronomy#Astro#Eclipse2024
Did you get to see the total eclipse? We had cloudy skies here and only a partial eclipse was visible on the west coast anyway. So I finished "After the Eclipse" instead!
If the weather looks like it's not going to be cooperative for the eclipse today, NASA and many science pages will livestream. NPR is also doing a science broadcast from 2-4 PM ET so you can tune in to your local public radio station to hear an interesting commentary even if you can actually see it where you are.
So. That was impressive. Here’s a quick sample from the backyard. Of note: temperature drop from 79.3 to 74.8, #solar production from the panels dropped to 0 and the house draw from the grid was the usual constant 420 watts, once the sun started coming back out the panels ramped back up, the temperature continued to drop for a few minutes to 74.5 but finally started edging up, and the dog could give a shit and just wandered around sniffing like usual.
Wow. The pictures don’t do it justice. Jupiter was visible to the left and Venus to the right (not in picture).
It was a little cloudy here in central Texas, but was able to get a decent capture thorough the clouds. It was undeniably beautiful and weird. This was taken hand-held with a Nikon Z fc 50-200mm zoom lens. #photography#eclipse#nofilter