2024 Solar Eclipse

[heavyhitterokra]

As you probably already know, April 8th, 2024 will bring a full solar eclipse over quite a bit of Mexico and the United States. This morning I found a really good digital representation of the path of that solar eclipse. Since so many of our Green Country Seed Saver friends live within that projected path, I thought I'd share the following video showing just where that eclipse will be.

[chrysanthemum]

We used to live very close to the that path. I think the nearby town of Kerrville, Texas, was already last year starting to gear up for the influx of visitors it was expecting because of the eclipse.

Thanks for sharing that video. I liked the end part where he showed two different pinhole projector projects to make. i may have to do that with my youngest. We’ll still be able to enjoy a significant partial eclipse on that day.

[heavyhitterokra]

Chrysanthemum,

A word of caution about pinhole projectors:

I used to teach school back in the '90s to mid-2000s. Since I worked in Middle School as well as High School, some of the classes I taught were 5th to 12th Grade Science. We'd make pinhole projectors every year in our study of light and optics. (Not to watch eclipses), but to use in our study of "Camera Obscura".  The projectors we made were viewed from the opposite end as the pinhole.  We used oatmeal tubes, shoe boxes, and cardboard saltine cracker boxes as our projector housings.

One of the obstacles we encountered was that different-size holes (apertures) require different focal lengths, so to avoid disappointment on presentation day, it's always best to test your pinhole projector and make any necessary adjustments before the actual day of the eclipse. To do that, you can use the normal sun on an uncloudy day.

Here's a short video about that:


The other drawback was that the pinhole projectors would not work at all on cloudy days. There's nothing anyone can do about the cloudy days, but you can certainly fine-tune your focal point on sunny days.

The following is a short video about how to turn an entire room into a pinhole camera. As mentioned earlier, different size apertures require different focal lengths.  An aperture the size of a pea will require several feet distance between the aperture and the screen to locate the best focal point. 
 


The last time we had a solar eclipse, the best show took place on the paved areas below our leafed out oak trees. As the light from the eclipse shined through the canopy of green leaves above our heads, several pinholes of light projected several images of the eclipse on the surface of the sidewalk.  We got to enjoy a kaleidoscope of images all around our feet as we walked along under the trees. 

Unfortunately, the April 8th eclipse will come as our trees are all bare.

[chrysanthemum]

Thanks for those additional tips, Heavyhitterokra. I have a box in mind to use once we empty it, and we can play around with different aperture sizes if we use the aluminum foil suggested in the very first video you linked.

I remember making a pinhole projector as a child in upper elementary school. The whole class made them in preparation for an eclipse that was coming. On the day of the eclipse, however, we weren’t allowed to go outside because the administration had decided that there was too much chance some kids would turn to look at the sun. It was very disappointing.

I recall what you’re talking about from the sidewalk during our last eclipse in August of 2017, how the leaves acted as pinhole projectors. We had storm clouds roll through and filter the sun during the height of the eclipse, though. It was still an amazing event. I think I actually have a photo of that.




I’m not sure what the leaves will be like on the trees in early April around here.  Things have been warmer this winter.  Some bushes are leafing out already, and cherry trees and Bradford pears are blooming, and maples are budding.  It’s supposed to turn cooler the next couple of weeks, though, so that may slow things down.  

[macmex]

Today's the day. Just bumping this up.

[heavyhitterokra]

No clouds here today, so we had a really good viewing of the nearly full solar eclipse, by standing under the shade of a leafy and tall wild cherry tree.  The light pouring through the tiny spaces between the leaves provided us with about a thousand, spectacular, 5-inch diameter, pinhole projections to enjoy.

What an awesome show by our God above!

I've been looking forward to the event for weeks on end and woke up early this morning to get all of my chores done, so I'd have a free afternoon. Then, I got sidetracked, out in the garden, pulling weeds in the hot sun, and almost lost track of the time.

Gradually, little by little, by about 1:30 p.m., it began getting usually dim. It took a few minutes for my brain to realize what was happening, and then that little check engine light came on inside my head, "Oh yeah, there's a solar eclipse today!"

I'm sure glad I was outside at the time, or I may have missed it despite all the planning. I'm also thankful for the lack of clouds, as the rest of our week looks pretty dreary.

[chrysanthemum]

I’m glad you had a leafy tree, heavyhitterokra .  I know you’d been concerned about the leaves not being far enough along.

My seven year old and I used the eclipse as his homeschooling science for the day.  We watched the first video in this thread since it was such a good one.  We each had our own pinhole projector.  The first photo shows the full sun from earlier today.  We also did have some solar-viewing glasses and a filter for a camera lens, so we did get to look at the passage of the moon’s shadow a bit more directly, but we really actually liked our projectors a lot.

It was hard for my camera to capture a shot since there wasn’t really a focal point, but here’s a shot from the very beginning of the event.  The sun is looking orange because of the protective filter.


We also used heavyhitterokra’s trick of using leaves as pinhole projectors.  We hauled some construction materials over to my mom’s front yard where there was a flowering crabapple leafed out.  The images weren’t entirely in focus, but there are numerous projections of the crescent-shaped sun there.



We were not in the path of totality, only about eighty percent.  It was clear at the start of hte event, but clouds definitely rolled in.  With the eclipse and the clouds, the temperature dropped, and it got darker, but not as dark as night of course, since twenty percent of the sun is still a lot of light.  The next two shots were through breaks in the clouds, one with the camera filter, one a shot of the image projected in my cardboard box projector.






The last two photos were taken about forty minutes apart.  The first of them was just before our peak occurred; the second is after the shadow had been moving off the sun for a while.  With such thick cloud cover we couldn’t see the sun through the solar glasses.  Then we’d look for peaks through the clouds.

Overall it was a great way to spend a couple of hours this afternoon.  

[rdback]