Anyone see the Solar Eclipse?

maytag85 · Aug 21, 2017

Did anyone see the Solar Eclipse? I am in SoCal, and I don't if I am going to be able to see it happen.

frigilux · Aug 21, 2017

I'm watching it on TV because I don't trust myself enough not to look directly into the sun. Also, we have a severe thunderstorm with quarter-sized hail about to bear down on us.

Spoiler Alert:

lordkenmore · Aug 21, 2017

All I really saw was the light coming in the window darken noticably... I'm surrounded by trees.

I had concerns about looking at the eclipse directly. Particularly since there have been so many stories about totally inadequate eclipse glasses. Better not to take a risk--an eclipse is a short lived wonder, but seeing pretty pictures of vintage washers can be a daily joy!

cfz2882 · Aug 21, 2017

got a good look

used welding helmets and a Coronado solar telescope to view it-was ~94% in my area-I thought the 1979 eclipse was much more impressive in my area.In 1979 was at school,watched this one from my unfinished observatory site

rp2813 · Aug 21, 2017

Only 75% Here

It just seemed like a hazy morning with only 75% coverage in our area. We had something similar in 1968 or '69, and probably 1979 as well.

I was in Washington for totality in 1979, not far from the Columbia River near a Stonehenge replica. That was memorable. Now that we're well into the information age, it was impossible to consider driving north this time. Already on Thursday last week there was a 15 mile back-up heading into Madras, OR. This will, by far, be the most documented solar eclipse in history.

No glasses are required to view totality, but even at 99% coverage, glasses are necessary. This morning I used a colander over the patio pavers when it reached 75%. The camera refused to focus, so the attached picture is the best of the bunch.

panthera · Aug 21, 2017

We had 97.x% total coverage here

And it was way cool.

lordkenmore · Aug 21, 2017

I'm remember the 1979 eclipse...although I only remember that it happened. I don't remember any real details of the eclipse itself. I think I was in school, and we may have seen something on TV--probably the only time the TV was used as a TV. (Rest of the time, the TV set was used entirely for video tapes.)

revvinkevin · Aug 21, 2017

A friend sent this to me from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Very cool!

lordkenmore · Aug 21, 2017

LOL

tomturbomatic · Aug 21, 2017

Yes, but we were only 80% so the best thing was to look at the sun through the special glasses and watch the moon obscure it. It did get noticeably darker in the house as we approached 2:42, our time for peak glory, such as it was.

gansky1 · Aug 21, 2017

We were at 98% here, very cool except that we had some thin, high clouds that obscured it some. Through a welding helmet, it was pretty clear. Lots of traffic in the metro this morning on the roads leading south and west out of town, 100% totality was only an hour away.

circlew · Aug 21, 2017

About 90% of the sun blocked here at 2:29 PM. I noticed a definite decrease in the brightness by 2 or so. At the peak it looked like it was much later in the evening, like 7:30 or 8.

revvinkevin · Aug 21, 2017

In Los Angeles near LAX... 70% coverage. (not my photo)

revvinkevin · Aug 21, 2017

AWESOME photo!

Posted by Alaska Airlines... notice the curved shadow below.

DADoES · Aug 21, 2017

Non-event here. 62%-ish obscured ... but fully obscured by clouds so I didn't try to look.

100% zone passed over a friend's house in Nashville.

wayupnorth · Aug 21, 2017

Non-event here too. Looked overcast and sun came back out. Supposedly, we are in the direct path of the next one in 2020 something.

twintubdexter · Aug 21, 2017

Many many many...

...many years ago when I was in elementary school there was a partial eclipse. As kids we were all excited so our group got together after school to watch the big event. I remember hearing something about not staring at the sun. It was recommended that you look through photograph negatives (everyone has those around today) to protect your eyes. But we were tough. rugged kids, no sissy eye coverings for us. Many of my friends did permanent damage to their eyes. I recall one best-friend, Lyle, who ended up having to wear thick-lens glasses all the way through high school. He looked like Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Lyle was sort of a a "brainiac" and was always interested in anything scientific so the look fit right in.

1900...that's about the right date

[this post was last edited: 8/21/2017-19:40]

joeekaitis · Aug 21, 2017

This is as dark as it got in Sunny SoCal.

Pardon the small size. This is cropped from the full iPad camera image. The sun itself looked normal but this internal reflection revealed how much was covered.

gusherb · Aug 21, 2017

We reached about 90% here. Went to an eclipse party at the beach where they had a telescope with the reflection setup. I had eclipse glasses. It was pretty cool, next time I wanna go and see it in totality.

askolover · Aug 21, 2017

Nashville and surrounding areas were having one more PARTY today! It was weird seeing the darkness and streetlights coming on in the middle of the day, very eerie.

cornutt · Aug 21, 2017

Yeah, I drove to Pikeville, in eastern Tennessee, which was near the center of the totality path. Very strange experience. Got dark really fast just before totality. Streetlights came on and crickets were chirping. Birds were very confused afterwards.

supersuds · Aug 22, 2017

I'm just a few miles northeast of the "totality" path, but we did have 99.9% coverage. It was quite easy to pick out Venus and Jupiter in the dark skies -- not that I'd normally know, but there was a diagram in the paper that showed where they'd be!

Like the Kentucky Derby, it was a lot of buildup for something that was over in two minutes. I would not want to build a vacation around an eclipse, but it was neat to see.

tolivac · Aug 22, 2017

No didn't watch it-was sleeping--Did wake up to go pee-noticed that it was darker then usual outside.I work mid shift so sleep during the day.At least I don't have any eye damage worries!

askolover · Aug 22, 2017

Normally I would have been sleeping too, but I scheduled myself to be off to see it and I set the alarm to get me up earlier than normal.

mark_wpduet · Aug 22, 2017

95%

Here in Lexington. It was so cool (literally)
At about noon it was so freaking hot I was outside in a chair and the sun was beating down. About 115 pm I went back outside and noticed that the sun didn't feel nearly as intense on my skin and it just kept getting cooler and more comfortable as each minute passed...Everything kept getting dimmer and dimmer but never totally dark. But in the middle of a very hot afternoon at 230 pm when it was at its max, it was so comfortable feeling. Inside my house, the light was so dim shining through the windows that you felt like a major thunderstorm was around the corner.

DADoES · Aug 22, 2017

RJ said it played some havoc with load control. The generating plant operators didn't know how to predict and react to the effects so some unusual conditions happened for a while.

tomturbomatic · Aug 22, 2017

From the Washington Post's Energy 202 blog



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On Monday, Mother Nature, seemingly unprompted, provided a test of one of the more controversial ideas tossed around by the energy and environmental staff installed by President Trump.

Here's their question: Do recent changes to way power is generated in the United States — namely, more solar and wind, less coal and nuclear — mean the nation's grid operators will not have enough power plants to meet electricity needs when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining?

Right now, the Energy Department is finalizing an overdue study asking whether the national electric grid can handle the lost of so-called “baseload” power plants as older coal and nuclear facilities are priced out of the electricity market by cheaper renewables.

“As the utility sector prepares for the short-term impact of a solar eclipse, a much larger problem looms for solar advocates — the diminishing value of intermittent solar as a reliable source of electricity,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research and a member of Trump’s transition team for energy.

The grid reliability study has been delayed since June, though Shaylyn Hynes, a press officer at the Energy Department, told me it will be published “soon.”

But the concern over grid reliability got a real-world test on Monday when the moon cast its shadow across the continental United States from Oregon to South Carolina, dampening solar energy generation in the top two states for solar capacity — California and North Carolina.

As thousands of Americans craned their necks skyward to take in the eclipse, grid operators in California didn’t don eclipse glasses but instead focused on the task at hand — working in a windowless room to keep the lights on elsewhere in the Golden State, without even seeing the event firsthand.

The eclipse went off without a hitch for the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which delivers 80 percent of the electricity in a state that has more solar energy capacity than every other state in the country combined. As predicted, solar energy production dipped across CAISO's grid beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time before spiking back up about an hour and a half later. I went to CAISO's headquarters in Folsom, just outside Sacramento, to watch the action.

“Things went really, really well,” Eric Schmitt, vice president of operations at CAISO, said after the eclipse.

dartman · Aug 22, 2017

I was just out of high school a while and was inside getting ready to go to work in Gresham Oregon at our newish built for us family house. I remember watching the parking lot of the Safeway across from our backyard and seeing it get fully dark and the headlights come on of the cars. It was cloudy outside so other then that nothing to see.
I was digging trees at the time
This time I was on a roof repairing a chimney and we watched the light ripple across the shingles of the roofs from the Carona as it got close. It got colder and the light got like late dusk but the color was different. I used my glasses and a peice of flashing to try and see the crescent shape and took very quick glimpses and could sorta see the shape. 79 was total here but cloudy, this one was like 98 percent but other than the cool light ripples and no clouds 79 was better and I'll probably never live to see another.

golittlesport · Aug 25, 2017

it was a cloudy morning in So Cal

and we only had about 70% coverage, but it was very cool the way the shadows were falling low in our yard - the light was noticeably different. I stepped outside and aimed my phone at the sun without actually looking at it and lucked out, capturing this photo.

leefree · Aug 25, 2017

Chasing totality

I was just outside of Salem, Oregon in path of totality. Almost stayed in Hillsboro with family but figured I had come 800 miles from LA, may as well make the effort. SO GLAD I did. It was truly amazing to look at the sun, during totality, without glasses. Hillsboro had 99% but could not take off eclipse glasses. It did darken significantly for them though (streetlights came on). Being in totality was surreal. A bright still summer day got cold, windy and dark and we could see stars! I'm hooked and can't wait for the next one!

Anyone see the Solar Eclipse?

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