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Enjoy the Eclipse, but watch out for the cosmologists and druids!

Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags astronomy, Eclipse, Solar Eclipse, total eclipse, Total Eclipse of the Sun, total solar eclipse on April 7, 2024 by telescoper

Ahead of tomorrow’s total eclipse of the Sun visible from a large part of the USA, I can’t resist sharing this excerpt from The Times warning about the consequences of a mass influx of people to Cornwall for the total eclipse of the Sun that was visible on August 11th 1999, almost 25 years ago. No doubt there are similar things going around about tomorrow’s eclipse:

I did write a letter to the Times complaining that, as a cosmologist, I felt this was very insulting… to druids. They didn’t publish it.

Anyway, I did get to see the total solar eclipse of 1999, not from Cornwall (where it was overcast and rainy) but from the island of Alderney (one of the Channel Islands). There was quite a lot of cloud cover in the morning of the big event so I was expecting to be disappointed. Indeed, the very start of the eclipse was hidden by cloud and there were groans from the large crowd assembled to watch it. A few seconds later, however, the clouds parted and we got a wonderful view. I remember very well that it seemed to get much colder during totality and an eery wind started to blow. Another thing is that all the birds thought it was night already and started to roost, although it was only around 11am.

You might think astronomers would be a bit indifferent to eclipses because they are well understood and totally predictable. But to experience an eclipse in person has a very powerful effect (or did on me anyway). We may be scientists but we don’t respond entirely rationally to everything. Nor should we.

Here’s a (not very good) scan of a (slightly damaged) picture from that eclipse:

Anyway, tomorrow (i.e. 8th April 2024) the total solar eclipse crosses North America with parts of 15 states able to view it: the eclipse will first appear along Mexico’s Pacific Coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT, then travel across a swath of the U.S., from Texas to Maine, and into Canada. About 31.6 million people live in the path of totality. The path will range between 108 and 122 miles wide. An additional 150 million people live within 200 miles of the path of totality.

Do make the effort to see it if you can. It’s a remarkable experience that will live long in your memory. But watch out for the cosmologists and druids!

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That Was The Eclipse That Was..

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags Eclipse, partial eclipse, Solar Eclipse, Sussex University on March 20, 2015 by telescoper

It’s been an astronomical and meteorological rollercoaster of a morning. When I woke up at 6am this morning, the Sun was just rising. There was hazy cloud and there seemed to be every chance that it would break up to allowing viewing of today’s partial solar eclipse. Unfortunately, however, the cloud thickened rather than breaking up so I abandoned my plan to watch from the seafront and headed up to the University of Sussex campus at Falmer. Being higher up and a few miles inland, the weather is often clearer in Falmer than in Brighton. Unfortunately it was even murkier when I got here, so I assumed I was in for a disappointing morning.

Nevertheless I did join the large gathering in Library Square to experience the event. First contact between the Moon and the Sun happened at about 8.30, but the cloud cover was total at that point so nothing was visible. It did get gradually darker, but this happened slowly enough for eyes to adapt to the dark so it wasn’t all that noticeable to us humans. The birds on campus certainly noticed, however, and began to perform display roosting behaviour thinking it was evening. It also got really very cold.

Around 9.30 the coverage of the Sun by the Moon was about its maximum – 85% or so – but everything was still enshrouded in cloud. The crowd waited patiently in the gloom. It was a very British experience, a large group of people sharing their sense of collective disappointment in appropriately stoical fashion.

Gradually the wind seemed to increase, pushing the clouds over more quickly and causing them to break up. Then, suddenly, a small gap in the cloud opened up and there was the eclipse. For about a second. It may have been only a moment, but it generated a huge cheer which, I should add, wasn’t entirely ironic. The breaking up of the clouds continued and we were treated to several good views of the main event. It was definitely worth it.

Most of the pictures I took didn’t come out at all well, but here is one with the famous Meeting House in the foreground:

And here’s a rather nice picture from John Sander of the International Office at Sussex University, showing yours truly during the final stages of the eclipse..