[HN Gopher] Weather Planning for Eclipse Day
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Weather Planning for Eclipse Day
Author : wallflower
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-03-24 14:31 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eclipsophile.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (eclipsophile.com)
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is my biggest concern for eclipse day. In the past, when
| ever I spend money to take pictures of the sky, something always
| goes wrong. Rent a camera with the IR filter removed specific for
| astro purposes...it rains so much that the state park with very
| dark skies closes due to flooding. Have a free weekend with no
| scheduled activities, a new moon on the weekend, and most
| importantly, blessing from the SO, yup, weather.
|
| This time of year is thunderstorm season, and I'm already
| concerned about it since I've purchased plenty of solar
| protection for my gear. I'm just hoping my cunning plan of buying
| it all last year so far in advance confuses whatever it is that
| decides when I spend money we get bad visibility. ????
| ppierald wrote:
| I happened to get invited to friends of my in-laws who own a
| vacation property on the Oregon coast for the 2017 eclipse. Of
| course, the Pacific coast is dicey at best, so we were crossing
| our fingers. When the time came, the stars lined up and we had
| that magical moment, except right at that moment, the waste
| truck came through picking up the bins. If you have the
| opportunity, GO. The worst case is you don't see it. The best
| case is one of the most memorable experiences of your life.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Luckily, I don't have to go. It's coming to me. It was even
| kind enough to respond to my RSVP.
| pixl97 wrote:
| If the 8th is anything like today then 50% of the eclipse path
| would be covered by the clouds. You'd have to drive 600+ miles
| to get out of the overcast.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Thanks for the pick me up with that one!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, plan on hitting the road and more or less following the
| path if the forecast doesn't look good where I am.
|
| In general it looks like the closer you go to Mexico, the better
| your odds -- historically.
| Loughla wrote:
| Yeah. We have tickets to the event at Southern Illinois
| University Carbondale, but plan to keep driving southwest or
| turn back around and go northeast if it's supposed to be cloudy
| in southern. Drive all night, sleep in a field if we have to.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's the great thing about this kind of event. You really
| don't have to be anywhere special once you're in the path.
| The side of the road is as good of a point as some field
| where they're charging money to attend. Just look up (with
| correct viewing glasses of course).
| jrapdx3 wrote:
| That's exactly what happened at the last eclipse back in
| 2017. To get to the path of totality, I had to drive on an
| unpaved forest service road for several miles. Where the
| road ended there was a big clearing with a bunch of people
| already there. Fortunately they were very friendly, it was
| kind of a party atmosphere.
|
| Anyway, it was worth all the trouble. One thing was that I
| got some great photos of the eclipsed sun. I'm looking
| forward to the upcoming event in April. I'll be in Mexico
| where viewing should be good, bad weather being less likely
| in that region. Hopefully I'll be able to get even better
| photos this time around.
| yyyfb wrote:
| Countryside roads that normally get very little traffic can
| quickly get clogged. If you're prepared to sit in your car
| for a few hours you're good though.
|
| Also no need for glasses during totality. Before totality,
| you can look at the shape of shadows through a piece of
| paper with a whole punched in it.
| al_borland wrote:
| I ran into clouds at the last eclipse. It was still cool, but I
| didn't get to actually see it. I was thinking of going to Texas
| this time around, but will end up much further north. I'm
| hoping I get lucky. If not, I'll be planning some international
| trips around future eclipses. This is a bucket list thing for
| me.
|
| I have pretty vivid memories of my first partial solar eclipse
| from when I was in school, but being in the path of totality
| was a completely different experience, and about 10,000x
| better, even without seeing it.
| PhyllisEngine wrote:
| SpotWx is excellent, use it quite a bit for mountaineering
| objectives, definitely recommend people check it out for precise
| data
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| I need to be in a city the eclipse is passing over, for a reason
| unrelated to the eclipse. I can't get a hotel room that night,
| and I think I will have to drive out of its path for one night. I
| don't even care about the eclipse but this is so inconvenient and
| I'm very frustrated.
| mbauman wrote:
| Be prepared for day-of eclipse traffic, too!
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| Oh god I didn't even think of that. But surely that would be
| in the opposite direction from me?
| dylan604 wrote:
| There are plenty of stories you can look up from the 2017
| event where people did not consider the traffic. Reviewing
| some of those might give you a better idea of what to
| expect for places in the path
| ars wrote:
| Don't expect to be able to leave the eclipse area for hours
| after.
|
| Traffic will be in all directions. If you can just chill
| for several hours and then leave.
| roughly wrote:
| I'm sure you've heard this from everyone, and I don't mean to
| minimize your frustration here, but - if you can find a way to
| see the eclipse, you really should. It's a uniquely memorable
| event.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I would at least consider grabbing a sleeping bag and sleeping
| in my car for this.
| scd31 wrote:
| As someone who's paranoid about missing the eclipse due to cloudy
| weather, I've been working with a few people to launch a high
| altitude balloon during the eclipse: https://eclipseplus.ca/
|
| We have several cameras on board, including one that points at
| the sun and one that takes video. It all gets live-streamed to
| the ground (actually, that's my contribution to the project - the
| communications system) and sent off to YouTube.
|
| We're launching from New Brunswick, Canada, and we'll be going up
| to about 30km, or 100k feet. So the clouds definitely won't be an
| issue for us.
| nelblu wrote:
| Awesome! I'm driving myself to Kouchibouguac to experience the
| totality. Considering that maritimes is always cloudy during
| this time of the year I'm not expecting much of a "view" but
| just want to experience the total darkness. Where we live (NS)
| we are getting about 95% darkness but I figured a couple of
| hours drive is worth to experience 100%!
| scd31 wrote:
| Absolutely. I've never experienced a total eclipse before but
| I hear the difference between 95% and 100% is stark; due to
| the logarithmic nature of the human eye. I'm not even sure if
| 95% coverage would even be noticeable without eclipse
| glasses.
|
| I'm from NS myself (Halifax) and have been trying to convince
| my parents to drive up to NB to see the eclipse. I'll be home
| for Easter so that'll probably be my last attempt!
| ars wrote:
| Even 99% is barely noticeable. Totality is a different
| category, it's not just "a bit darker".
|
| And a camera is not the same experience as looking around
| and being in a circle of darkness with a lit horizon in all
| directions.
| nelblu wrote:
| haha took me a couple of attempts to convince my wife too.
| I'm so looking forward to it though!
| dylan604 wrote:
| How do you keep a camera pointed when attached to a balloon?
| I've done a similar balloon launch, but very much on the cheap.
| Our payload had no stabilization, so it just acted as a
| pendulum under the balloon, and would spin as the torsion of
| the rope commanded. I've had thoughts after seeing those
| results, but just never had the opportunity to try it again.
| Based on the pics on your link, my balloon looked very similar.
| I'm guessing you'll be using a totally different balloon than
| those on the landing page.
| scd31 wrote:
| Our payload has no stabilization either, and in past launches
| we've had quite a bit of rotation and swinging. Here's a
| video of one of last launch, for reference:
| https://peertube.scd31.com/w/7CQCYB4BmJzngoZTiMociY
|
| To point the camera we have a lot of clever software and
| hardware. I didn't have any part in it, so I'll try to
| explain it as best I can. There's a diagram here, which
| hopefully will help you to follow along:
| https://eclipseplus.ca/Project_Details/Payload_Design/
|
| We have a fixed camera mounted above a mirror. The mirror is
| on a special gimbal, which can be maneuvered using two servos
| and a bit of math. For coarse aiming, we have an IMU on board
| which uses the magnetic field of the Earth to figure out its
| orientation. For fine aiming, we do a bit of image processing
| to try and center the sun in the field of view of the camera.
| It's not perfect, but since we're only capturing still
| images, it's okay if not all the images have the sun in view.
|
| Also of note is the filter, which starts in-place (to protect
| the optics) and automatically moves out of the way during
| totality. It also moves back into place afterwards so that we
| can continue safely taking images after the eclipse.
|
| The balloons on the landing page are accurate! Those pictures
| are from past launches, which used the same payload (with
| some changes between each launch)
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's a much more hacker way that my thoughts of adding a
| swivel to the rope and some sort of tail on the payload to
| attempt to keep it oriented with the wind. I will
| definitely keep an eye on your project to see how it works
| out. It sounds like an interesting idea to be sure. Good
| luck! Just remember that whatever is happening with the
| balloon to at least enjoy the event for yourself as well
| btbuildem wrote:
| I wonder if you could attach multiple lines to a bar/triangle
| that's fixed under the balloon. This would eliminate the rope
| twisting/untwisting, but of course nothing stops the balloon
| itself from rotating.
| ghaff wrote:
| A bunch of us are going to Maine. We consider it a house party
| with actually seeing the eclipse as a bonus.
| ssocolow wrote:
| Where in Maine? It passes over Katahdin, a mountain I love to
| climb, but it would be too much of a hassle for me to see it
| there.
| ghaff wrote:
| The Forks. Things are pretty sparse up in that area of Maine
| though at that time of year.
| fghorow wrote:
| I found this site a few weeks back. It was built for generic
| astronomical clear-sky use in the US and Canada (at least) but it
| has this page[1] for weather along the eclipse track.
|
| [1]https://www.cleardarksky.com/ec/2024-04-08_eclipse_map.html
| Tepix wrote:
| Related problem: How do i convince someone that it's worth
| traveling 30 hours (by boat) to be in the path of totality?
| Ideally i need something convincing in German. Thanks for your
| help!
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(page generated 2024-03-24 23:00 UTC)