Friday March 20th eclipse

[MarkH]

I notice that the next dsc  is starting on 20th March but is the society organising an event to observe the solar eclipse on the Friday morning?

[Kenny]

Jim and Hugh are organising a public Outreach solar eclipse event in Bromley near Intu. Not sure whether anything else is planned at the moment though I was to take my camera out for the eclipse.

[MarkH]

I photographed one in the eighties with an om10, I taped together all of the Cokin filters I had ( about 8 ) the results were surprisingly good even capturing sun spots.

[Hugh]

Outreach is doing a 'Pavement Astronomy' event on Friday 20th March in Bromley High Street (South end of the pedestrian market area), junction with Ethelbert Road, outside the Metro Bank.  From here the High Street drops away giving a good view South East which is where the Sun will be at 0931 for maximum eclipse.

We will be there from 0800 to 1100 (eclipse is 0825 to 1041).

Check the OAS website from today.

All are welcome to join us.

Hugh, Jim and Ken will have scopes.

Hugh 

[Canadian Roger]

I love eclipses, lunar, solar, partial, annular or total...doesn't matter.  I really like the idea of being witness to the motions of the solar system.

Total ones are the best, of course, but each event has it's own unique character.

My daughter was in Australia at Uni (Teachers College) in 2012, and managed to scrape enough money to get to Cairns for the November 2012 total eclipse.  She used her Canon T1i to record from a few minutes before, and right through totality.  Unfortunately, she was clouded out.  She called me from totality, voice only, as there wasn't enough bandwidth for video.  I later figured out that if she'd moved about 1 kilometre north of where she was, she'd have been OK.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YMHNDb0tA8  .

This just increased her resolve to see one, and will be joining me in 2017 to see the next one in North America, as the path of totality cuts a nice swath across the USA.  Considering the excellent road network, it should be possible to travel 1000 miles in either direction in search of clear skies, so she'll "Meet Me in St. Louis" (about 12 hours away from me).

When she was in Oz, she took her class outside to see the June 2012 transit of Venus.  I was watching from the shore of Lake Ontario, where it would start about 10 or 15 minutes earlier than for her.  We talked several times throughout the next few hours as I sent her pictures.

She still has a pair of the eclipse glasses from 2012, and she's hoping to get outside tomorrow (well...later today) with her year 7 class.  She's had them building pinhole cameras, and she's shown them the above video.  Her school is near Aylesbury.

I hope the weather is kind to you.

[Mike]

Bloody typical British eclipse viewing weather as usual....

[Mike]

Watch it live from the Faroe Islands instead...

LIVE VIDEO

[Mike]

Couldn't even see it through the clouds

[Rick]

I think your clouds have more features than the flat grey I had here...

It did get decidedly gloomy, but I stayed in and watched TV instead. Some of the HAB crowd got some attention.

[Mike]

Yeah I saw that on Stargazing Live. I was also watching the live feed from the Faroe Islands, which was also cloudy but at least they could see it through patches.

[JohnP]

I had to laugh Luke phoned me up was sitting in Hyde Park said sky was so monotone he couldn't even figure out which direction sun was in..... I bet tomorrow will be clear blue skies...

[The Thing]

YUrrrggrggrrrrrrhhhhhhh! Same story as the Transit of Venus, bloomin' British weather. I have a picture of the 1999 eclipse from a Mayfair rooftop. No such luck this time.

[Kenny]

I've got 2 hours. Post it later.

[Ivor]

If I'd paid several hundreds of pounds to get to the Faroe Islands to experience totality I would not have been impressed with the news crew at this point

[Rick]

I would not have been impressed with the news crew at this point

Oh boy... which idiot crew was that?