2024 Total Solar Eclipse

[hitbyambulance]

staying at my brother's house in Austin, TX - he did a lot of research the days before to make sure we were we traveled to a place with minimal cloud cover. windy.com is good for this, and we verified the night before that we were going to head to Burnet, TX and hang out in Burnet Co. Park. it took an hour and a half to drive there in the morning - arrived about 11AM with no significant traffic to deal with and easily got a parking space at the park. we were concerned about clouds, but 'miraculously' enough, the clouds parted for the totality itself (and there's a good meteorological explanation for that). it's true that the difference between 99% and 100% coverage is _huge_ and it's not something that can easily be conveyed unless one experiences it for themselves. hearing the birds shift from evening song, to night (along with chirping crickets) back to morning song in the span of a few minutes... also the 'twilight' (dusk/dawn) appearance along the _whole_ circumference of the horizon was memorable. you could see what i assume was a solar flare in the lower right corner of the sun in the corona. you could just imagine what the ancients might have thought and felt when this would occur.

we stayed at the park for a few hours afterwards to wait for traffic to die down before leaving. have to give credit to the Burnet County constable present for being super nice and keeping traffic going.

really amazing experience and totally worth the expenses of getting here - i would do it again!

question..... how is it that the distance we are from the moon - and the size of the moon - is JUST the right diameter to perfectly cover the sun's disc at the distance where it is?? you know, not too big and not too little?

[Kraken]

question..... how is it that the distance we are from the moon - and the size of the moon - is JUST the right diameter to perfectly cover the sun's disc at the distance where it is?? you know, not too big and not too little?

Pure coincidence, and almost surely very rare in the universe, for those bodies to have that exact size/distance relationship. And for that relationship to exist around a planet that has sentient observers might even be unique (although given the infinitude of planetary systems in existence, it's hard to say that). For one thing, Earth's moon is much larger in proportion to the planet than any other planet/moon system that we've seen (not that we've seen many outside the solar system); some scientists even consider ours to be a double-planet system, so out-of-whack is the size relationship. Moreover, the moon has been receding from the Earth by a few centimeters per year ever since it formed. It used to be much closer, and a million years from now it'll be too far away to totally "cover" the sun. So it's not just an accident of place, but of time as well.

[Holman]

Pure coincidence, and almost surely very rare in the universe, for those bodies to have that exact size/distance relationship.

Maybe not so rare if it turns out that planetary formation mechanics involve bodies colliding as ours did and exchanging mass in the proportions that ours did. Who knows?

[Isgrimnur]

The lunar orbit is less than 6 degrees off of the ecliptic.

Theoretical considerations show that the present inclination relative to the ecliptic plane arose by tidal evolution from an earlier near-Earth orbit with a fairly constant inclination relative to Earth's equator. It would require an inclination of this earlier orbit of about 10° to the equator to produce a present inclination of 5° to the ecliptic.

[Unagi]

question..... how is it that the distance we are from the moon - and the size of the moon - is JUST the right diameter to perfectly cover the sun's disc at the distance where it is?? you know, not too big and not too little?

It's not perfect. It's just close. And there are times we don't get a total eclipse exactly because the orbit of the moon and/or it's size is NOT perfect.

So - it is too big, and it is too small. Just not when it isn't and then we all get all nuts about.

[Kraken]

Pure coincidence, and almost surely very rare in the universe, for those bodies to have that exact size/distance relationship.

Maybe not so rare if it turns out that planetary formation mechanics involve bodies colliding as ours did and exchanging mass in the proportions that ours did. Who knows?

True, we only have a smidgen of relevant data, but the geometry that gives the moon and the sun the same apparent size is so specific that we're unlikely to ever find it elsewhere.

One school of thought avers that having a relatively large moon, with its attendant tides, is a vital part of the secret sauce that allowed life to evolve here. If so, then any other worlds similar to the earth/moon system might be more likely to house beings that can appreciate eclipses.

[Rumpy]

We just got back from our trip. it was a rather long trip for us, because we first had to travel to West Virginia where my Sister currently lives, then we all travelled together to Lakewood, Ohio. Because of the long way, we decided to pack a lot into the trip, and spent a few extra days to make it more worth the travel time. The eclipse was absolutely beautiful, the corona more an impact one than the one witnessed in 2017, and the prominence at the bottom was as bright as a lightbulb. We viewed it on top of a condo roof, where Cleveland's skyline could be seen. As totality hit, we could see a 360 degree sunset, along with the ensuing darkness and chill in the air.

[Blackhawk]

Painting has taught me to pay attention to lighting. The lighting during the leadup was really interesting. Since it wasn't actually setting, the light wasn't directional (true dawn/sunset is the sky and clouds lit from beneath, while this was the sky and clouds lit from everywhere.) The sun itself was mostly hidden, but what wasn't was hitting the atmosphere and spreading out, creating a really odd soft, diffuse light with no single source, few shadows, and distorted colors (Purkinje effect.)

I wonder if the sudden lack of shadows, which messes with depth perception, combined with the change in color perception was the cause of some people feeling disoriented. Messing with perception can create exactly the kind of feeling that some people described - everything from a floating feeling to light-headedness to nausea.

[Rumpy]

It's probably related to how animals are affected by the change in different ways, such as in how they orient themselves. I thought I had noticed some bats flying around where we were when it had darkened. And when it was lightening up again, I started to see birds come back in mass formations.

[Redfive]

That was more impressive than I expected. Without the glasses, it wasn't much. The temperature dropped a few degrees and the daylight turned dusky. With the glasses, though, there was only the barest sliver of sun visible. Funny how less than 10% of the solar disk can still produce near-normal daylight. Coinciding within a couple minutes of maximum coverage, an airplane flew between me and the sun, causing a very brief blink that was quite neat.

This was our experience as well. I was about 40 min west of Kerrville, TX, so, almost dead center of totality.

Intermittent clouds, but enough clearing for us to see it happen and even the solar prominence at about 5:30 on the dial.

Everything about it was very impressive, but we specifically commented on how little of the sun it took to make it still look like full on day time, if a little dimmer. The best part of the overall dimming / brightening was when the sun reappeared like a brilliant shining diamond on a ring and immediately it was like day time again.

[Unagi]

I couldn't help but think how easily and just how much deference primitive man would freely give a high-priest who said this would happen ahead of time.

And if he could time it right, and call the sun back? and telling everyone what they did wrong while they were in the darkness? oh man.