Seen from Pyramid Lake, NV 6:30PM PST May 20th, 2012,had to drive there to avoid high cirrus coming in from front approaching from coast
Photo by Stacey Watts
Canon 1D ND400 filter plus G filter
Seen from Pyramid Lake, NV 6:30PM PST May 20th, 2012,had to drive there to avoid high cirrus coming in from front approaching from coast
Photo by Stacey Watts
Canon 1D ND400 filter plus G filter
Absolutely perfect photo. Hope you children enjoyed the experience.
Saw it at the Parowan Gap with the family…but my cell phone camera just gave a blob of light. Thanks for the picture!
Just to followup on my previous post, here’s some more pictures plus a “behind the scenes” of the Solar Eclipse from the Republic of Boulder.
http://www.komar.org/faq/lunar-eclipse/2012_05_20_solar_eclipse/
Saved as desktop, for some time to come. Good job, thank you
My friend and I photographed the eclipse from Lahontan State Park, Nevada, right along Hwy 50 a bit south-southeast of Pyramid Lake. Not quite on the centerline but easier for us to get to. Here is an animation of the eclipse. Images are 4 minutes apart and about 30 seconds apart during the annular phase.
http://images.aa6g.org/EclipseAnimation.gif
Here’s my photo, showing the sunspots too. More photos in my Flickr album including a sunset over the rocky hills west of Blythe, CA with the sun still partially eclipsed as it went down. Very cool to see!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38350658@N04/7245495090/
Great job by Stacey, BTW!
My favorite thing during the annular eclipse in the Midwest in 1994-95 was the shadow left by objects on the ground from the annular illumination. The shadows of leaves from bushes a few feet off the ground were stunning… as the eclipse occured, the leaf would have 1 shadow, then several until finally a ring projection onto the ground of mulitple leaves. Stunning!
So how many watts per square meter are reduced by an annular eclipse at its max?
A .gif of the eclipse from GOES-15.
http://i48.tinypic.com/bk8cp.gif
TimC says:
“Would anyone (who saw the eclipse “live”) be willing to say whether they noticed any unusual behaviour of any animals (including humans, birds etc) through the maximum annular phase…”
——
We drove several hours to be in just the right place for the ring of fire. Excellent views from Shasta Lake, California area. Well worth the trip.
Did not notice any unusual animal behavior. Unlike a total eclipse, it was still very bright outside during this annular eclipse. In fact, given how little of the sun was still showing, it is remarkable how subtle the change in lighting was. There was some change in brightness definitely — like the Sun had gone “weak” or like you were wearing sunglasses, but not at all dark. Indeed, there were a few other people milling around the park who seemed completely oblivious to the whole thing. It did get a bit cooler during the greatest extent, but, again, unless you were paying attention you might not notice it — kind of like it gets a bit cooler when a cloud passes in front of the sun.
To Almah Geddon, the1pag , climatereflections (and, in the earlier Data and Images thread Smoking Frog who described the German Shepherd dog he saw in totality): many thanks for your observations which were very interesting and essentially matched my own experiences from the total eclipse of August 11 1999 (Saros 145) at 10.15 UT that I saw in France, and the annular eclipse (Saros 147) of May 31 2003 at the 4.00 UT sunrise that I saw – through a sea mist! – off the east Scotland coast.
Thinking about it a little more I was struck by the comment from climatereflections: “Unlike a total eclipse, it was still very bright outside during this annular eclipse. In fact, given how little of the sun was still showing, it is remarkable how subtle the change in lighting was … there were a few other people milling around the park who seemed completely oblivious to the whole thing.” In the total eclipse I saw in France I also noticed that it remained surprisingly light right up to the last minute – literally – before actual totality.
Bearing in mind (a) that the day only goes truly dark in a total eclipse (otherwise I agree it is indeed just a “subtle change in lighting” during an annular or the partial stages of an eclipse, (b) without effective filters or viewing apparatus no animal (or human) can look directly towards the sun to see the encroaching moon during the partial stages; (c) I don’t think simple confusion (cattle thinking its milking time when it gets dark so heading back to base, or birds thinking it’s early bedtime) can be thought in any way unusual; (d) total eclipses in any given location are extremely rare (land areas in the UK saw about 6 minutes of totality throughout the whole 20th century (1927 in Wales and 1999 in Cornwall), and will see just 2 minutes of totality (2090, Cornwall again – it must be something in the beer) in the 21st century, so it will be very rare for any particular animal to notice an eclipse during its lifetime – I have decided my earlier idea (see my posting up-thread) is essentially impractical, and cannot yield any informative results.
My thanks, however, are due to Anthony for allowing me to float the idea for any comments.
How is it that people look straight at the full sun when the moon is nowhere near it. Well of course they look away quite quickly; but I know I have looked at it many times. No I don’t recommend doing it; much easier to just look at a pin hole image or many of them formed by the leaves of a tree; (actually the gaps between those leaves.
But that very well timed photo, looks almost like one of the rare shots on one of my small bore (22)shooting targets. If you shot ten of those on a sheet, they would score you ” a hundred ten “. Well actually only 101, because you got 10.1 for putting the 22 round through the inner bullseye, and leaving the white ring (0.25) intact. well that was way back in high school when I was 16 and could see the target. (no optical aids aloud). I believe I shot a hundred ten three times. Some of the kids on the team did it routinely. Yes you only shoot one round at each target on the sheet, plus two on the 11th target for aiming.
Maybe it was looking at the sun that screwed up my eyesight, and my shooting.
For Tim C, here’s another comment regarding the actions of wildlife during the depth of a total eclipse. It’s from one of my twin daughters now living in Portland, Oregon. I think she was only 4 years old when we went to Cape Charles to wtness what I have concluded must have been the total eclipse of 1968:
Dad, I remember that! I remember a drive, but didn’t know we drove that far!
I remember that you made us some sort of pinhole box, right? I also remember that all the birds got confused and started flying around, squauking and roosting in the trees.
Jane
climatereflections says: May 21, 2012 at 11:22 pm
There was some change in brightness definitely — like the Sun had gone “weak” or like you were wearing sunglasses, but not at all dark. Indeed, there were a few other people milling around the park who seemed completely oblivious to the whole thing. It did get a bit cooler during the greatest extent, but, again, unless you were paying attention you might not notice it — kind of like it gets a bit cooler when a cloud passes in front of the sun.
If I remember correctly, sunlight is around 100,000 lux. A cloudy day is 1000-10,000 lux and you can still think it is light at around 10lux (possible to read).
Just looking at the elipse, I would guess around 1-4% of it was still showing. That is 1000-4000 which is a cloudy day. Most people don’t notice such a “small” change in lighting.
Another gif showing the moon’s shadow during the eclipse. Pretty cool stuff.
http://hoot.metr.ou.edu/eclipse_2012.gif
Chuck says:
May 21, 2012 at 2:42 pm
> Here is an animation of the eclipse. Images are 4 minutes apart and about 30 seconds apart during the annular phase.
> http://images.aa6g.org/EclipseAnimation.gif
Cute, though I can’t resist noting that “4th contact” is the least observed interesting astronomical event.