Tuesday, August 22, 2017

solar eclipse from Casper, Wyoming

Click on the photo below to enlarge, then right-click and select "Open Image in New Tab" to see at full size:


This image came courtesy of TIME Magazine's live feed from Casper, Wyoming, with the obviously recorded voice of Jeffrey Kluger (who is he, again?) telling us that he was with us "live" from that location. The black TV screen on the left showed an image that, thankfully, wasn't cloud-obscured the way the actual event was. When the eclipse hit totality, the sky did indeed darken a bit (it had been perfectly bright despite the sun's having been almost totally occulted when I began watching the live feed), but as you see in the image, there was still a stubborn globe of brightness in the sky, even with the moon front and center. Totality—or what passed for totality—lasted for less than three minutes in that part of the world. I get the impression that Casper, Wyoming, wasn't the place to see the land go totally dark for a few minutes, which—along with the damn cloud cover—made this event a bit disappointing for those of us watching remotely in Korea. Still, I guess some eclipse is better than no eclipse.

Take a moment to ponder your smallness in the vast cosmos, but also ponder the gift of consciousness that allows us to appreciate both that smallness and that vastness.

And that's that. As my buddy Mike likes to write: carry on!



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

NASA website had multiple live feeds across the country. Unfortunately some of the ones I really wanted to see were obstructed by clouds. The raw feed site quit after a while and the only choice that worked was the site with commentators--think Macy Parade.

It was impressive. I had seen a partial eclipse years ago, but never a total.

Bill

SJHoneywell said...

Mostly a dud here. Clouds throughout the eclipse, and of course sunny skies after.

Kevin Kim said...

Sorry to hear it, Steve.

Charles said...

I was down in Tennessee with some friends and we were fortunate enough to see about half of the totality, before a rogue cloud came in and obscured the rest. It doesn't get pitch dark; it's more like a twilight, but you can see a 360-degree sunset, and the night insects/frogs/etc. start their chorus. They do get mighty confused when the sun comes back out, though.

Oh, and the difference between 99% and 100% totality is incredibly significant. Everything changes when the moon passes completely in front of the sun.

Elisson said...

http://cheeseaisle.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-hole-in-sky.html