2017.09.30 13:00 - Totality Revisited

The Guardian for this meeting was Bruce Mowbray. 

Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Qt.

Qt Core: Hi Bruce

Bruce Mowbray: Haven't seen you around for a long time!

Qt Core: yes, quite unsocial lately

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: Ahhhh! I can relate to that!

Bruce Mowbray: They don't call me a "hermitdog" for nothing.

Qt Core: :)

Bruce Mowbray: Did you see my video of the total eclipse?

Bruce Mowbray: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSAPdAvDfy4

Qt Core: no, haven't got news you made one

Bruce Mowbray: It's VERY amateurish.

Qt Core: got it :-)

Bruce Mowbray: I made a webpage with four other videos of the occasion . . . but for unknown reasons my website is down today.

Bruce Mowbray: I'd intended to use a better camera to take the videos, but my good camera's batteries kept discharging...

Bruce Mowbray: so I had to use the cell phone's camera (leaving the good camera on the roof of my car - which you can see in the totality video.)

Bruce Mowbray: Now I FULLY UNDERSTAND why people travel all over the world to watch total eclipses.

Qt Core: grin

Bruce Mowbray: :)

Bruce Mowbray: The weather was perfect -- just a bit warm.

Bruce Mowbray: Clear sky.

Bruce Mowbray: Congestion on the highways was unbelievable.

Qt Core: this is the fb page of the amateur astronomer group i'm part of, and there are also pics and videos both of our members and some friends too, both from Madras (Oregon) area and from Casper: https://www.facebook.com/GruppoAstrofiliCiniselloBalsamoGacb/?fref=ts

Bruce Mowbray: It took me 8 1/2 hours to make a 3-hour trip.

Bruce Mowbray: Wonderful!    THANKS for sharing that!

Qt Core: yes, i've heard horror stores about it

Qt Core: also some friends.  Due to bad weather predicted for the area, he wanted to go -- having to wake up at 3am to go somewhere else to see it

Bruce Mowbray: (Now watching a video from the FB page....)

Bruce Mowbray: the one with the fisheye lens.

Bruce Mowbray: amazing.

Qt Core: they said me that that guy (one of the group member had half of his luggage made up by instruments, much more than clothes

Bruce Mowbray: It's great to hear the crowds cheering.

--BELL—

Bruce Mowbray: I'm sorry you were not able to make the trip, Qt.

Qt Core: yesterday our group made a presentation (both "scientific" and "touristic" of the eclipse trip at the local library and the day before in a nearby villa/park we had 150 booked to a public observation

Qt Core: me too...

Bruce Mowbray: Great... I wish I could have seen their presentation,

Bruce Mowbray: although I would not have understood the language.

Qt Core: well, they will repeat it in a couple weeks, you can come ;-)

Bruce Mowbray: ha ha!

Bruce Mowbray: It was really pushing my "limits" just to drive to Kentucky.

Bruce Mowbray: I'm not nearly as swift as I used to be...

Bruce Mowbray: btw, today is my 75th birthday!

Qt Core: happy birthday then!

Bruce Mowbray: I still walk one mile every day, though. THANKS!

Bruce Mowbray: (including today)

Bruce Mowbray: ***** APPLAUSE! *****

Bruce Mowbray: ***** APPLAUSE! *****

Qt Core: and that is more than what i walk, mostly just from / to home door - car - office door

Bruce Mowbray: I made it a two-day trip. . . stayed in a motel just 17 miles from where i watched the total eclipse.

Bruce Mowbray: The folks who were parked right beside me had driven all the way from northern Michigan...

Bruce Mowbray: which is at least 200 miles farther than I drove.

Qt Core: for curiosity i had checked hotels around the totality path, in some place there were no free rooms or only incredibly priced rooms for dozens of km

Bruce Mowbray: In my video you can hear him say "It was worth the drive," and I repeated what he said...

Bruce Mowbray: I made my motel reservations four months in advance...

Bruce Mowbray: but even then I could only find a motel about 30 miles away.

Qt Core: i haven't seen it all as it seems that my pc hate to show videos if SL is running and make them horrible

Bruce Mowbray: oh dear.

Bruce Mowbray: probably a bandwidth problem.

Bruce Mowbray: Yikes!

Bruce Mowbray: I've been unable to get onto my website all day: http://www.hermitdog.com

Qt Core: i doubt that - more a video driver/encoder/decoder issue, i have even too much bandwidth (a 20 Mb freely upgraded to 100Mb for all 2017)

Bruce Mowbray: Ahhh. Yes, a video encoder problem, likely.

Bruce Mowbray: I have plenty of bandwidth too.

Bruce Mowbray: My mother lived in Oregon for about 30 years.... but Madras is in eastern Oregon and my mother lived in Corvallis (in the western part).

Bruce Mowbray: Corvallis was in the totality path, though.

Bruce Mowbray: Did anyone in your astronomy group use a telescope for watching the eclipse?

Bruce Mowbray: I made very brief videos of two fellows who had very nice telescopes set up in Kentucky....

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: One was a Celestron....

Qt Core: most, especially with long/air trips prefer just using telephoto lenses (you need a 400 mm lens )

Bruce Mowbray: ahhh, I understand.

Bruce Mowbray: So, it would be a burden to pack along a telescope and tripod, etc.

Bruce Mowbray: I took a tripod for my other camera,

Bruce Mowbray: but I couldn't get the camera pointed at the sun right....

Qt Core: but the crazy one may bring both a telescope and a camera, if not more ;-)

Bruce Mowbray: so I just left that alone and used the simpler cell phone.

Bruce Mowbray: Good enough for excellent memories, anyway.

Bruce Mowbray: Do you remember when the next solar eclipse will be?

Qt Core: the maker of the 360 video said that between camera, the 360 camera, weather station etc etc had 6 things going during totality

Bruce Mowbray: OMG.

Bruce Mowbray: I wish he had put more pictures on the FB page.

Bruce Mowbray: I'd love to see his other photos.

Qt Core: i know that you Americans will get another in 2014, roughly from New York to Texas

Qt Core: 2024

Bruce Mowbray: 2024...

Bruce Mowbray: yes.

Bruce Mowbray: seven years from now.

Bruce Mowbray: I don't expect to be around by then :)

Qt Core: then there is one in Chile/Argentina, not sure if in 2020 or 2021

Bruce Mowbray: Great.

Bruce Mowbray: Some good observatories in Chile.

Bruce Mowbray: up in the mountains.

Bruce Mowbray: I was really impressed by how dark it got during totality. Could see the planet Mercury very clearly.

Qt Core: eclipses up to 2030: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEdecade/SEdecade2011.html and https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEdecade/SEdecade2021.html

Bruce Mowbray: Not Mercury. Venus!

Bruce Mowbray: Wow. One in Antarctica!

Qt Core: oh, yes, think about how scared animals and humans without prior knowledge of that can be!

Bruce Mowbray: Yes, I imagine it would be terrifying.

Bruce Mowbray: but the darkness only lasts for a few minutes.

Bruce Mowbray: Our time of totality was two minutes and 26 seconds.

Qt Core: that was a 2minutes and a half totality, it may go up to 7 minutes and a half (as a maximum)

Bruce Mowbray: Wow.

Qt Core: like the big one in 2009 that was 7 minutes and 8 seconds i think

Bruce Mowbray: btw, the eclipse in 2023 in America is only in the western part of the country.

Bruce Mowbray: but it will be going over Oregon again.

Bruce Mowbray: Well, sir. It's time for me to move along to other things.

Bruce Mowbray: I wish you a pleasant weekend!

Qt Core: that will be an annular one, the year after that there will be a total one

Bruce Mowbray: I will check it out. Thanks for the links!

Qt Core: ty, have fun

Bruce Mowbray: bye for now, Qt.