My daughter’s school is allowing the third through eighth graders go outside to watch the eclipse with school-provided eclipse glasses. We’re in the 97% zone. Parents are welcome - wow - but must bring their own eclipse glasses. I’m frankly amazed that the district is allowing this.
I plan to make a pin hole viewer as well tomorrow morning, mostly for myself because I wear glasses, and I’m not confident in fitting them under or over the eclipse glasses. I’m so nearsighted that squinting through the eclipse glasses without corrective lenses would be pointless.
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Just wear it over your glasses. Make one of those face shield things like I showed in a pic if you’re afraid of light getting in around the side.
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And it is a wet overcast morning for me… boo.
ETA I see I still have some time left before the show begins so fingers are crossed.
While you wait…
Huh the sun’s out over here on the Eastside. You can come sit on my lawn.
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Oh sorry. I have umm moved (me anyway) for a few months. On the plus side yay employment, on the minus side Iowa.
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And it cleared up enough that the viewing glasses I scored from the Seattle Public Library worked just fine.
So YAY.
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In Toronto, the daylight seemed a bit funny. I wondered if it was my imagination, but we are at the midpoint here. I’m not going to bother rigging up anything to check the sun.
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Hang on, I have one of those 60s “make your TV bigger” fresnel lens in the basement. If I shine it on something, I should see the disk and set something on fire. Cool! /brb!
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was a bit overcast here in CT, so at 68%, it didn’t seem too different than a cloudy day. Pretty cool looking through the glasses, though…
… now I just gotta get through the next couple of days of stress about whether our glasses were legit or not.
just a follow-up to my earlier post–
so we kept all 700 inside. i had bought a pair of paper viewers with the appropriate filter and brought my camera to school. i also had asked another teacher without a class at the time to watch my class for 10 minutes or so during the peak for our area (75%). when i mentioned it to my principal and told him i had bought the viewers 3 months back because i wasn’t going to miss it he told me in all seriousness that i had to fill out an early release form for teachers and that i should have turned it in friday because they are required to be turned in the schoolday before the release. i came within a millimeter of asking him if i needed to fill out a form for the next day in case i have to go to the restroom during my class time. i think he could feel the sarcasm and irritation flowing from my eyes because he told me to get the paper to his assistant as soon as i could and he took off down the hall at a fast clip. after i got done i passed the viewers to as many teachers on my hall as i could before it was over so they could duck out for a few seconds and watch it.
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I saw on the news that ATL was getting 98% occlusion at 2:37pm. I always have mondays off, so I figured good enough, I’ll just step outside around 1pm and suss it out. I did no research into viewing but I hoped 98% might be enough to look at it unaided. I figured I’d pick up some glasses anyway but… I didn’t. So I stepped out at intervals during the afternoon and just gave the sun the briefest of glances, enough to realize I wasn’t going to be able to see jack shit, at least until I was nearer the peak. So, I went in the desk drawer where I for some reason have 7 pairs of sunglasses even though I don’t wear sunglasses and I put them all on at once, shielded the tops and sides with my hands while holding them all together, and gave the briefest of glances at the sun. Hey, neat, this actually works but I can’t do anything but glance since the UV rating is wrong. The sun was still full on my first try but I got to see the onset this way, at intervals.
So I broke out the camera. I used to know a fair bit about analog photography so I had bought a digital camera that is nice-ish. Not an SLR with the gear you need to really shoot this thing, but I tried anyhow. I maxed the aperture but it only gave me f8, then I took the ISO down to lowest: 80. It has a digital exposure dial that gave me 2 more stops down. I had a little rig that allows filter attachments that I’d never used before, but it came with a UV filter, so I slapped that on there. Aimed it at the sky and shot. Big ol’ screen full of light. But then: clouds!
Only problem is it made it look like a lunar eclipse but oh well. The clouds were lucky for photos, but they were mostly too thick to see through, so now was I gonna see anything else? More luck; Before 2pm they all cleared up and I was back to stealing glances through my ridiculous sunglasses rig. So I’m out there on the balcony when my neighbor comes out to look, she has eclipse glasses. She has two pair and would I like to use one? I provided the lawn chairs and we sat in the driveway and chatted. She was the first to notice that the ambient light was getting dimmer. Makes sense, but it was still pretty strange. She remembered a prior partial eclipse she saw that made the tree-leaf shadows go funny. She was right:
after we saw the sunlight turn into a little sliver on the left side of the sun which then dipped to the bottom of the sun, we realized this was the peak but you still could not look directly at it unaided. You could tell the sun was not full but it was still blindingly bright. Then I finally hit on holding the eclipse glasses over the camera lens, but it made the exposure times too long and the light streaked a bit when my hand wiggled.
I wasn’t trying to bust out the tripod and fool with the settings anymore, so i let it go. still kinda neat. Fun times.
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This is an excellent write up! thanks!
First day of classes at GSU. They had a telescope and viewer set up in the library courtyard, which was packed. I was able to head out between my 2nd and 3rd class with my eclipse glasses, which I shared with some of the undergrads around me who didn’t have a pair. Apparently, though, the place to be was in Woodruff park, as everyone came out, including John Lewis (I could have seen some of the moons that trees in the park made - no trees in the courtyard!).
Just after it passed, I had to head inside to get ready for the next class.
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in a major school district in the dallas area the pto bought viewers for every kid in the district and they had a blast watching it and partying about SCIENCE! i could only envy them.
although it is quite possible i may be retired by then, i am going to work for the next 7 years to guide and/or goad my district into a much more intelligent response for the 4/8/24 total eclipse during which the very center of the path of totality will come through my school district, even if i have to buy the fucking viewers myself those kids are going to be out and watching it then.
on a related note i am predicting thunderstorms and a tornado warning in my part of texas on 4/8/24.
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Quick and dirty slideshow of Toronto’s eclipse view today. Taken without a tripod so centered poorly, sorry.
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Moon’s Over My Hammy.
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