DR. MARGARET HILL, DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ENGINEERING PHYSICS

SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO 63701

Eclipse 101: Preparing for

Darkness at Noon

WHAT’S CAUSING ALL THE EXCITEMENT?

A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE!

• Once in 375 years at a single spot on Earth

• Accessible by everyone

• Visually spectacular

• Spiritual, cultural, significance

• Rich in history and science

Two eclipses in 7 yr

TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSES ARE RARE EVENTS:

WHAT CAUSES ECLIPSES?

Our planet, Earth, orbits the Sun once every year –a little over 365 days.

Our Moon orbits the Earth once every 27.3 days.

SOMETIMES, WHEN THE POSITIONS OF THE MOON, EARTH, AND SUN ARE JUST RIGHT…..

*Illustrations not to scale

GEOMETRY OF A SOLAR ECLIPSE:

WHY DON’T ECLIPSES HAPPEN EVERY MONTH?

COSMIC COINCIDENCE:

Sun’s Diameter is 400 times the Moon’s DiameterSun’s Distance is 400 times the Moon’s Distance

Only certain places on Earth will be able to see a total solar eclipse.

More places will see a partial eclipse.

Bottom image - "Partial solar eclipse Oct 23 2014 Minneapolis 5-36pm Ruen1" by Tomruen - Own work.

Top image - "Solar eclipse 1999 4 NR" by I, Luc Viatour

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2017_GoogleMapFull.html

VIEWING THE PARTIAL ECLIPSE

• Projection of image

--Pinhole or using tools

• Directly with filter

• Live streaming the event

WATCH THE SHOW SAFELY!

PINHOLE PROJECTION

OBSERVING DIRECTLY WITH FILTERS

#14 Welders Glasses

USE SPECIAL CARE WITH FILTERED OPTICS

ECLIPSE TIMELINE: AUGUST 21, 2017PERRYVILLE, MO

11:51 amPartial eclipse begins

Totality begins: 1:18:34 pmTotality Ends: 1:21:15 pm 2:46 pm

Partial eclipse ends

Latitude: 37° 51' 51.24" N

Longitude: 89° 52' 02.61" W

Eclipse Duration: 2 min. 40.1 sec.

THE VIEW FROM EARTH:

http://www.vigiacosmos.es/turquia-2006-2/

IF THIS IS YOUR 1ST TOTAL ECLIPSE

Our Advice? Don’t.

and you want to take photos or videos…

SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 2009 IN VARANASI, INDIA. HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=EOVWIOZ4POQ

HISTORICALLY, TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSES HAVE PROVIDED GREAT OPPORTUNITIES TO ADVANCE SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Pierre Janssen discovers helium in the atmosphere of the sun, 1868

AND OF COURSE THERE WAS EINSTEIN!

Arthur Eddington, 1919 (Hyades cluster)

Test General Relativity:Mass curves space?

The Goal: to provide a continuous 90 minute record of the time evolution of the solar corona.

The Citizen CATE Experiment:

The time sequence of white-light coronal images from the CATE experiment will provide a unique tool for scientific investigations on several fronts. The broad types of science which the data will address will be static and dynamic studies of the corona.

61 SITES WITH IDENTICAL EQUIPMENT WILL RECORD TAKE PICTURES AS FAST AS POSSIBLE……

THE INSTRUMENT:

Telescope:

• 80mm diameter, 500mm focal length APO refractor from Daystar Filters

• Solar filter, Thousand Oaks #S4250

• Camera adapter, C-mount to 1.25", Baader/Agena, #2958515

• Solar pointer, Tele Vue / Adorama, #SSF-1006

Mount and Drive:

• Telescope mount, Celestron Omni CG4, #91509

• Motor drive for CG4 Celestron #93522

THE SOLAR CORONA:

STATIC STUDIES:• Polar Plumes

• Potential Field Source Surface

• Polar Plume Dynamics

• Prominence-Coronal RT Instabilities

• Active Region Loop Oscillations

• Coronal Inflows

• Coronal Mass Ejections

DYNAMIC STUDIES:

spaceweather.com/glossary/coronagraph.html

POLAR PLUME DYNAMICS:

This is how CitizenCATE data fits into the picture with NASA's heliophysics mission observations.

Inner image is from SDO 171A channel, outer image is from SOHO LASCO C2, and middle rectangle is from CATE16 Tanjungpandanobservations... all from 09 Mar 2016.

CORONAL LOOPS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFT7ATLQQx8

CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS:

https://youtu.be/N-xkZrjWcJE

HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED? BECOME A CITIZEN SCIENTIST!

• How does life respond to a total solar eclipse? http://calacademy.org/citizen-science/solar-eclipse-2017

The California Academy of Sciences invites citizen scientists like you to takeadvantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to record eclipse-related animal behavior with the iNaturalist app.

• Join the Eclipse MegaMovie Project: https://eclipsemega.movie/

The Eclipse Megamovie Project will gather images of the 2017 total solar eclipse from over 1,000 volunteer photographers and amateur astronomers, as well as many more members of the general public. We’ll then stitch these media assets together to create an expanded and continuous view of the total eclipse as it crosses the United States. (https://eclipsemega.movie/simulator?lat=37.70555348721583&lng=-89.879150390625 )

WANT TO KNOW MORE SCIENCE ABOUT THE UPCOMING SOLAR ECLIPSE?

• The National Solar Observatory has a series of 20 minute web casts that discuss such topics as • Layers of the Sun• The Magnetic Sun• Observing the Eclipse• Space Weather and Solar Activity• Mapping the Solar Eclipse

http://eclipse2017.nso.edu/know-your-sun-webcast-series/

ECLIPSE RESOURCES:

• General information regarding solar eclipses.

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/uk/newcastle-upon-tyne

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/solar.html

• Path of totality:

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2017_GoogleMapFull.ht

ml?Lat=37.7242&Lng=-89.8611&Zoom=9&Map=%27ROADMAP%27&OMap=0

• Eclipse in Perryville, MO:

http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/communities/states/MO/Perryville_800.htm

• Solar eclipse of 2009 in Varanasi, India.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOvWioz4PoQ

• NSTA “Observing Eclipses” info booklethttp://static.nsta.org/extras/solarscience/SolarScienceInsert.pdf