Hey geezers...there's going to be a solar eclipse on Monday...sadly from our location we will only see half of totality. That's pretty good as we generally see 50% of what we are supposed to see anyway. We're doing good. I wonder if there's going to be an Eclipse Party somewhere in the 'hood? We'll take any excuse to have a party.
An eclipse is not really a big deal. There are several every year, but they are not always visible from the USA. I witnessed the last solar eclipse in the USA in 2017 and these are my pictures. Totality was an amazing thing to see. The sky went black. The temperature fell several degrees. Shadows shimmered. For seventeen minutes we were in darkness in the middle of the day. It was magical.
You can read about eclipses on Wikipedia and get completely dazed by the terminology dealing with 3 celestial bodies aligning to perfection to create darkness during the day. Go to wikipedia to get the full dry gory details. Encyclopedia Britannia has a similarly boring explanation. NASA says "A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun. The sky will darken as if it were dawn or dusk."
I'm sure the media will have folks out taking pictures of the event as it traverses our nation. They did last time. Given that, you don't have to do anything other than turn on the TV and watch. That's probably safest as the sunlight is bright.
I remember a partial eclipse when I was about 10. I think it had something to do with Venus or Mercury. We were studying the solar system and the class was prepared for the event. We made eclipse books and the last page was for drawing a picture of the eclipse. We brought to school little pieces of clear glass. We taped the edges at home so we would not get cut. In class we used candles to smoke the glass as black as possible. The eclipse was afterschool, so we stayed at school and watched the show from the playground with our teacher. When it was time for the eclipse to happen we looked at the sky through our darkened glass and saw a partial eclipse. I thought my wonderful teacher had ordered it just for us. What a day!
I cannot imagine that happening in schools nowadays. First off, no candles...no glass...no safety procedures. Our teacher told us to be careful and that was enough. We were not stupid. We knew that the glass could cut us. We knew the candle could burn us. I think Billy or Eugene (the 2 boys who always pushed the envelope) got in trouble for getting burned, but they were always in trouble. (One time Billy did a complete 360 degree circle on the monkey bars, lost his grip and fell to the ground bashing his head -- at school the next day, he bragged about his great crash.)
Nowadays the lesson would include safety glasses that are duct taped to your head without fear of them falling off during the eclipse. Not nearly as much fun as making your own. Oh well...
So geezers, on Monday we have another chance to see a total solar eclipse. If you live in an area of totality, take the time and look at it with your safety glasses (unless you want to make your own...which I don't recommend). Remember, we're all in this together.
No comments:
Post a Comment