Just to add a few cents' worth here, there are excellent resources at: http://www.eclipse2017.org/
concerning where, when, what, how. While I would echo Alan's enthusiasm that being prepared and seeing a partial eclipse is better than missing it altogether, I'd also echo the comment on the above website under "The path of totality" which has a page "'Close' is not close enough!" I fought with my spouse to travel from the south of France to be on the French coast of the English channel for the 1999 eclipse over the question of "close". I won that fight and the instant we exited from totality she turned to me and asked "When's the next one?". Totality enables you to see the solar corona which is too faint against a 90 or 95% eclipsed Sun. And watch the animals respond. And by way of small correction, solar eclipses themselves are not rare, they occur every year or two. They're not always full eclipses and, as the planet is 75% covered by water, not often visible on land and certainly not cutting a swathe across North America. Under no circumstances look at the sun with the naked eye (or directly through a camera lens or binoculars) apart from during totality (this is one of those required health warnings). Alan's box will work well to watch the moon's advancement over the solar disc. Viewing glasses are quite cheap, but be careful as I'm told some being sold are fake. Happy viewing Steve > -----Original Message----- > From: Alan W. Irwin [mailto:ir...@beluga.phys.uvic.ca] > Sent: 17 August 2017 12:08 > To: PLplot development list <Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> > Subject: [Plplot-devel] <off topic> Solar eclipse coming for North America in > 4 days! > > For those PLplot developers who are in North America on Monday, August > 21st (4 days from now) there is going to be an exciting solar eclipse visible > to > all of you who have clear skies. Most of you will only see a deep partial > eclipse (e.g., 90 per cent of the sun will be obscured from here in Victoria) > which is exciting enough (and even detectable in cloud) but the privileged > few that live in or who visit the narrow total eclipse track from Oregon > through southern Illinois (maximum totality near Carbondale) and then on to > the Atlantic coast via S. > Carolina will see a spectacular and rare event which is a total eclipse of the > sun if you have good weather. > > Barbara's sister (who lives near Carbondale) says they are now expecting > something like 100 000 (!) vistors to Carbondale to view the total solar > eclipse there which will likely completely overwhelm the resources of that > small town. Barbara and I won't join those Carbondale visitors because we > don't travel much any more. > Nevertheless, this is a pretty exciting astronomical event so I have built an > eclipse viewer out of an old cardboard box following the instructions at > <http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/multimedia/activities/eclipse- > projector.asp>. > It worked very well today to show me the round solar disk so it should be > good to go on eclipse day to show us the thin crescent left when the moon is > obscuring the sun at the 90 per cent level (assuming we have good weather > that day). Or if it is socked in that day we will throw away the eclipse > viewer, > but we should still be able to observe the eclipse effect since only the 10 > per > cent of the Sun's disk that is not obscured by the Moon will be providing our > daylight. And similarly for virtually everyone else in North America if they > just evaluate the dimness of the daylight when looking out the window at the > right time that day. > > Alan > __________________________ > Alan W. Irwin > > Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, > University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). > > Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state > implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time Ephemerides > project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package > (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux > Links > project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). > __________________________ > > Linux-powered Science > __________________________ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging > tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot > _______________________________________________ > Plplot-devel mailing list > Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
