There's a partial solar eclipse happening right now...

[zelda25]

and I can't see it--fucking rain! 

[ijack]

I thought it's peak was at 4:45 mountain time?

[aurora]

Oct 23, 2014 15:52:51 GMT -5 ijack said:

I thought it's peak was at 4:45 mountain time?

I'm seriously trying to think through this. 

Wouldn't it actually peak at different times in different places since the earth is spinning?  I mean, the time when the sun is at its peak in the sky is ~2 hours earlier on the east coast than it is in the Rockies, and the moon takes a whole month to go around (so it's staying at close to a fixed point in the sky in the time span of this afternoon), so wouldn't the eclipse be happening around 4:30 local time wherever you are in the visible area?

Do we have any astronomers on the board?

[ijack]

CNN says 5:45 eastern time, so I guess kind of the same time?
Oh and by "peak" I meant that the time when the most sun was covered by the moon.

[ijack]

must better article and time tables for all cities
eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2014.html#SE2014Oct23P

[aurora]

Oct 23, 2014 16:04:29 GMT -5 ijack said:

must better article and time tables for all cities
eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2014.html#SE2014Oct23P

Wait, it moves from west to east?  OK, that totally shoots my theory out of the water.

I'm going to need to string up some tennis balls tonight to try to figure out how this is all going down.  H will laugh at me, but maybe my dog will get a kick out of trying to catch them.

[zelda25]

Oct 23, 2014 15:58:35 GMT -5 aurora said:

Oct 23, 2014 15:52:51 GMT -5 ijack said:

I thought it's peak was at 4:45 mountain time?

I'm seriously trying to think through this. 

Wouldn't it actually peak at different times in different places since the earth is spinning?  I mean, the time when the sun is at its peak in the sky is ~2 hours earlier on the east coast than it is in the Rockies, and the moon takes a whole month to go around (so it's staying at close to a fixed point in the sky in the time span of this afternoon), so wouldn't the eclipse be happening around 4:30 local time wherever you are in the visible area?

Do we have any astronomers on the board?

Well, it's supposed to peak around 3:30 or so PDT, so 4:45 Mountain sounds about right. And while it "peaks" at that time, it started about an hour ago. And I still have mega-cloud cover here 

[WOT?*]

Yeah, 3:00 over here and I can't see a darn thin because...clouds and rain and wet.

[sparrowsong]

I watched it. We had a welding mask filter thing that we could hold up and look through. It was cool. I've only ever been able to "watch" with a pinhole device before, never looking right at it. I geek out on stuff like this.

It wasn't quite as dramatically noticable as eclipses I've experienced before. I'll have to look up when the next near complete or complete one is for N America.

[sillygoosegirl]

The sun came out about 20 minutes after it ended where I was. :-(

Not that I was going to get to see it anyway, since I was stuck in a stupid meeting in the basement.

We have a total eclipse coming up in 2016 though. And I'm definitely going to arrange to be on vacation somewhere that's always sunny. :-)

[Mrs.Rad888]

Oct 23, 2014 21:56:37 GMT -5 sparrowsong said:

I watched it. We had a welding mask filter thing that we could hold up and look through. It was cool. I've only ever been able to "watch" with a pinhole device before, never looking right at it. I geek out on stuff like this.

.

Fun! We've had nothing but rain for almost a week here, so no chance to see the eclipse, but a few years ago, DH and I used his welding helmets to watch Venus transiting the Sun.