Solar Eclipse this month

[alffink]

Hello All, afraid it has been the better part of a year or more since I have posted here, but the world keeps turning and moving on around the sun. I just wanted to remind y'al that on Sunday, May 20 there will be a Partial Solar Eclipse that can be seen over much of North America, sorry but it does favor the Pacific coast over the Atlantic. If you can travel and on this forum, I hope you can, there will be a track that runs from Lasen Vocanic Park in CA through NV right over Cedar City Utah, crosses rt 66 near the Grand canyon, over Albuquerque, NM ending in western Texas Along this track the Eclipse will peak with an Annular Eclipse or Ring of Fire, this means that it will be nearly a total eclipse, but the moon will be too far from the earth to totally cover the sun.

Google, "Eclipse 2012, May 20, for details about this event

Along the same line on Tuesday, June 5, Venus will transit the Sun, or simply Venus will march across the face of the sun.
both of these events are fairly rare but the transit of Venus won't happen again until 2117 or 105 years from now.
These are events that happen with the Sun, and can be harmful to your eyes, view with proper eye protection
Rainbow Symphony, carries Ecipse Shades, similar to the old fashioned 3D glasses but made specifically for looking at the sun.
They are less than a dollar a pair an can still be delivered in time for the eclipse. I have no connection to this company, but they make a safe product.

belowe is a sample of times and locations across the country, these just happen to be where my grand kids can be found.

Annular/Partial Solar Eclipse - Sunday, May 20, 2012
Location Start End
Riverside, Ca 1:56 PM (Sunset)
Phoenix, AZ 1:56 PM (Sunset)
DesMoines, IA 3:56 PM (Sunset)
Evansville, IN 3:56 PM (Sunset)
Atlanta, GA 4:56 PM (Sunset)

Venus Transit – Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Location Start End
Riverside, CA 3:03 PM (Sunset)
Phoenix, AZ 3:03 PM (Sunset)
DesMoines, IA 5:03 PM (Sunset)
Evansville, IN 5:03 PM (Sunset)
Atlanta, GA 6:03 PM (Sunset)

Be Safe!

Protect Your Eyes From Harmful Solar Radiation!!
Eclipse Shades® - Safe Solar Eclipse Glasses and Viewers manufactured by Rainbow Symphony, Inc. are "CE" Certified and ABSOLUTELY SAFE FOR DIRECT SOLAR VIEWING. Eclipse Shades provide the ultimate in protection from harmful solar radiation. Lenses are made of our exclusive scratch resistant optical density 5, "Black Polymer" material. Eclipse Shades filter out 100% of harmful ultra-violet, 100% of harmful infrared, and 99.999% of intense visible light. These premium filters create a sharper ORANGE colored image of the sun.

[cuyeda]

Al,

Thanks for the info on the upcoming event. Don't own a telescope yet, and wish I had something to take a solar picture. I am considering the Julian Star Party coming up in August to immerse myself in learning more about the different telescope hardware.

Julian StarFest August 16-19th
http://www.julianstarfest.com/index.htm

I'd like to go to this one, but it may not be in the cards for scheduling.
One at the end of this month May 23-28
http://www.rtmcastronomyexpo.org/general.html

I was lucky to connect my camera to a telescope to take this picture.



Where will you be for the May 20th event?

[alffink]

Hi Cliff

We will be in front of the Barnes and Noble book store at the Tyler Mall in Riverside (91fwy off at Tyler, turn north), the book store is separate from the mall propper, North/East Corner of parking lot with the TGI Friday's resturant

We, that is the Riverside Astronomical Society, have a great group of astro photographers, you/anyone is welcome to come out and camp with us (FREE) on the weekend of the new moon, most any month, at our darksky site in Landers, north of Yucca Valley

Checkout www.rivastro.org middle of the home page will have the info for upcoming star-parties, what to bring, directions etc.

Al

[cuyeda]

Al,

Thanks for the invite, and I was halfway there to the mall on May 20th! Then I checked my calendar and will be at the Pismo Beach rally. I'll have to time 1:56PM to sunset where i will be to view the event. I will at the very least be able view it, with luck a good photo.

[alffink]

Cliff

Don't forget the eyeprotection, rainbow symphony also carries good but inexspensive solar filters that will fit your camera lenses
when shooting the sun with your camera, use the digital screen, not the see-thru optics of the DSLR.

http://www.rainbowsymphony.com/soleclipse.html They are in Reseda, not too far from Long Beach, perhaps they have an onsite store, I have never checked for that, but you should still have time to order online and still get it on time.

I bought 50 pair for the outreach at B&N, sending a pair to each of the grand kids at $0.85, not a bad investment to keep them safe, since I can't be with all of them at the same time.

I have an 80mm solar scope that I use for my Outreach's, need to get a 2" Herchelian Wedge for the optimum whitelight views with my regular refractor about $300.00, but Baader Solar Film, makes for great filters for cameras or telescopes about $30.00 for a 8" x 10" sheet. http://www.astro-physics.com/

Al

[Forrest747]

I am going to buy a welders glass this afternoon but we are also going to try and tape a mirror with a half inch opening and broadcast it into the garage. did a trial run yesterday in the living room and got a good disk. it was about a silver dollar size about 12 feet away and about double that 24 feet down the hall. so we may set it up at the sidewalk and run into the garage. tons of fun.

Update June 7. Well We had alot of cloud cover and i was pissed we got to do it for about 10 minutes before sunset. day before the day after all clear but know the one time it happens in 100 years it has to be ultra cloudy. Well we did get to see it and while viewing it we say a plane go infront of the sun as well. Someone else caught the plane too. it was really fuzzy the method we used but it worked. We also had some of the tree leaves get in the way.