The North American Solar Eclipse, Aug. 21, 2017 Options

[PDP8E]

As all of you know, by now, there will be an amazing Total Solar Eclipse this summer in North America stretching from coast to coast, and basically from 10 AM to 2 PM local time, from west to east.
An estimated 75 million people will be less than a half day's drive away from totality.
My family and I will be in Missouri that day, prepared to zip east or west in case of inclement weather.
Do you plan on observing this event?

[fredk]

Nice - I think the pinkish glow is the sun's chromosphere - a layer just above the blindingly bright surface.

From eastern western Idaho the prominences (pink flames on the right side of that image) were easily visible by naked eye, which surprized me. I saw the right edge brighten momentarily before the diamond ring appeared, but didn't notice any pink colour.

Generally the eclipse caught me completely off guard. 45-odd years of reading about them, seeing thousands of pics and movies, and understanding the geometry and dynamics left me thinking I knew too well what to expect. I was wrong. You can know that the dynamic range of the diamond ring is something like a million to one, but seeing it was utterly shocking. Maybe the single most overwhelming sensation was of complete surprize at the utter bizarreness of the whole thing.

[Airbag]

I saw it from Weiser (pronounced "Wheezer") in Western Idaho from the motel lawn. Hung out with some groups of veteran eclipse chasers (including one group from Japan); this was my third "total" attempt and second success. Weather was perfect; not a cloud in sight.

As an experiment, I set my digicam for manual exposure and exposed for pre-eclipse lighting, and continued to take pictures of the crowd leading up to totality. It is amazing how dark those photos become closer to totality and in contrast just how well the human eye/brain adjusts for the ever-decreasing lighting. If I get time (I took more than 3000 photos overall for this trip) i may post some here later.

Totality is indescribable. Best I can do is that suddenly the sky was all "wrong" but stunningly beautiful at the same time. It was fun hearing the loud cheer all around the town as totality started! Then after a few seconds everybody became quiet (stunned, I suspect) except for some call outs of the temperature drop (13F in the end), locations of prominences and time remaining etc. The big prominence at 3 o'clock was easily visible with the naked eye - amazing! (I had seen it the day before though a H-alpha filter telescope). I saw Venus and Mercury with the naked eye but missed Mars. I did not have a clear horizon and did not see the shadow approaching or departing.

Somebody had staked a white sheet on the ground and the shadow bands were clearly visible just after totality ended. I took a movie of that which came out well but is too big to post here. I also took a time lapse and a movie facing the crowd leading up and during totality, just for the reactions. I did not attempt real photography of the corona, preferring to stick with the Mk I eyeball for this oh too short (2 min 5 sec) event.

One of the eclipse chaser groups was also a wine tasting club from Phoenix, and when totality ended I heard the champagne corks popping! Headed out ASAP after totality ended as a long drive was ahead that day, but by avoiding highways there were only some delays getting out of the town and nowhere else.

Simply fantastic all around and Weiser put on a great multi-day eclipse festival.


Airbag

[edit: Also someone had made a piece of cardboard with the letters "IDAHO" stamped out with small holes; made for neat sun image projections during the partial phases]