gasradynamics.blogg.se - How to see the eclipse in the rain

This time span of 54 years and 1 month is a cycle known as an exeligmos, or a triple saros.Īncient Greek philosophers realized that these patterns were the natural outcome of celestial motions, glimpses of the clockwork universe. This August’s event is nearly a duplicate of the shadow that crossed Alaska, Canada and Maine on July 20, 1963, merely shifted southward. Other cycles of varying duration, overlapping one another, govern the complex timing of eclipses. The Mayan Dresden Codex, for example, spans 11,960 days, an interval over which a certain number of eclipses will occur in a certain sequence, and then repeat. We can only imagine how hard that must have been, before calculators or even a real sense of how the solar system was laid out.

Ancient Babylonians, Chinese and Mayan astronomers patiently logged their observations, however, and eventually saw patterns in their elaborate tables of eclipse data. They occur infrequently enough, and in so many far-flung places, that they might seem random. For the planet as a whole, eclipses are regular occurrences, but figuring out exactly where and when they land is hard. The fact that we are able to accurately predict this total eclipse of the sun demonstrates the progress of human knowledge. Fienberg says that you’re much better off using a pair of eclipse glasses. Only masks that have filters of shade 14 or 15 are viable. Most likely a typical welder’s mask that a person might have in his house is not strong enough to be used during an eclipse. Only look at the sun during the partial phases of the eclipse with binocular or telescopes that have specially designed solar filters.ĭon’t use a welder’s mask. Fienberg, because the concentrated sunlight coming through the optics of the telescope or binoculars could burn through the filter and damage your eyes. This is extremely dangerous, according to Dr. Fienberg, and they filter out the harmful ultraviolet and infrared radiation.ĭon’t look at the sun through a telescope or binoculars while wearing solar eclipse glasses. Properly certified eclipse glasses are 100,000 times darker than sunglasses, according to Dr. Whether you are in the line of totality or outside of it, never look at the sun without proper solar filters during the partial phases of the eclipse.ĭon’t use sunglasses instead of eclipse glasses. You can then convert that to miles per hour.ĭon’t look directly at the sun when any part of its bright face is still visible.

Since the moon’s shadow has an average diameter of about 110 kilometers, or about 68 miles, you can then divide the time you got in hours into 110 kilometers and receive the speed in kilometers per hour from your location.

Then you can convert that time into decimal hours using an online calculator.

You can figure out how long in minutes it took the moon’s shadow to pass over you by taking the difference between these times.

Record the time when totality ended and everything became light again.

Record the time when the totality began and everything was plunged into darkness.

Try This: Because the Earth is a sphere that rotates on its axis, the speed of the moon’s shadow during the total solar eclipse varies in different locations.Īccording to NASA, the steps to take to roughly calculate how fast the moon’s shadow is moving by you are: How fast does the moon’s shadow race across America during a total solar eclipse? If you’re watching totality from a location where you can see a lot of land features, you may be able to figure that out. It will essentially extend totality from being about two and a half minutes to about 90 minutes. But because this eclipse is going across the United States, it presents an opportunity for people along the line of the eclipse to contribute their images during totality to the Eclipse Megamovie app. Usually during eclipses scientists only get a few minutes to study the corona before it disappears.

The corona is only visible from Earth during a total solar eclipse when it leaks out from behind the moon and creates a ring of faint streamers around it. Their goal is to get a long look at the sun’s mysterious corona, which is its white and wispy outermost layer. Give Back: The Eclipse Megamovie is a wide-scale citizen science project that aims to gather images of the coming eclipse from across the country and stitch them together to provide a continuous view of the event as it travels from the West Coast to the East Coast. You’ll probably be taking pictures during the eclipse, so why not contribute some of those images to science in addition to your Instagram feed?