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Reuters file
A "ring of fire" glows around the dark moon on Jan. 26, 2009, as seen from Bandar Lampung in Indonesia during an annular solar eclipse.
Eclipse-chasers have been known to plan their expeditions months or even years in advance, but if you can get to the western United States, there's still plenty of time to plan your party for this month's solar eclipse. If the skies are clear, all you have to do is look up — with the proper eye protection, of course.
The May 20 event won't be quite as spectacular as a total solar eclipse, but if you can make it to a 200-mile-wide strip of territory that extends from the Oregon-California coast to northwestern Texas, you just might see a rare "Ring of Fire" eclipse near sunset. And that zone of annularity runs through some of the most picturesque parts of the country, including the Grand Canyon and 32 other national parks.
Outside the strip, Westerners will see a partial solar eclipse for the first time in seven years.
"Think of Pac-Man taking a bite out of the sun," Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, said in a news release. "That 'bite' will take out 55 to 80 percent of the disk of the sun, depending on where you are, and that's still a very special experience."
The park service has put together an interactive website that shows you where the eclipse will be visible, lists events tied to the eclipse and provides more online resources about the phenomenon. Don't dawdle over your travel plans: Some of the park events, such as a viewing session from New Mexico's Petroglyph National Monument, are already sold out.
This eclipse will be an international spectacle that's not to be missed. Over the course of three and a half hours, the moon will blot out at least part of the sun, as seen from earthly locales stretching from Southeast Asia through China and the Pacific to North America and Greenland. Because of the moon's position with relation to Earth, the lunar disk will never block the sun completely, but will leave at least an edge of the solar disk exposed.
Safety first
For that reason, it's important to use the proper protection when gazing at the eclipse, even during the "Ring of Fire" phase. You can buy safety glasses for less than a buck each from Telescopes.net, with all of the proceeds going to support Astronomers Without Borders. Eclipse shades are available as well from Rainbow Symphony and lots of other online vendors.
You can also put a solar filter on your telescope or binoculars — but regular sunglasses won't do the trick. The filters should be specially designed for solar viewing. Same goes for your camera: Unless you know what you're doing, taking a picture of the sun without the proper filter is a good way to ruin your point-and-shoot. NASA's top eclipse expert, Fred Espenak, offers a guide to photographing any kind of solar eclipse easily and safely.
National Park Service
A graphic shows U.S. national parks within the zone of annularity for the May 20 solar eclipse. A partial solar eclipse can be seen from parks outside the zone that are marked in orange. Click on the interactive map.
Another way to view the eclipse is to fashion a "pinhole camera" from a box, aluminum foil and a sheet of white paper — or even from just two squares of cardboard. This Exploratorium webpage shows you how. The simplest way to get a sense of the eclipse is to find a semi-shady spot and watch the circles of sunlight falling through tree leaves. During a partial eclipse, the circles will turn into half-moons or crescents. If the sun goes annular, you'll see bright rings on the ground.
If you're in the Western states, the best time to look will be in the late afternoon of the 20th. NASA has put a clickable map online that shows you when the different stages of the eclipse occur for the locality you click. One caveat: The times are listed as Universal Time, so you'll have to subtract seven hours for Pacific Daylight Time, six hours for Mountain Time, or five hours for Central Time.
Where to go
You can track eclipse visibility using the maps available from NASA or the National Park Service, but how do you pick just the right place? Paul Doherty, senior staff scientist for the Exploratorium in San Francisco, advises matching up the maps with places that are accessible and tend to have clear skies. Eclipser's Forecast Desk provides long-term projections of global sky conditions for the hard-core eclipse-chaser, and when you get within 48 hours of the event, the Clear Sky Chart can give you a better idea what to expect.
It's a good idea to scout out your location in advance if you can, and it's also a good idea to retain some flexibiliity in your itinerary, just in case you have to shift your base of operations to find a clear patch of sky. I'm planning to head for Crescent City, Calif., to see a close-to-sunset eclipse over the Pacific, but from what I've been hearing about the fogginess on the coast, it'd be prudent for me to check out some vantage points farther inland.
Make sure you've got good western exposure, though. "You don't want mountains to be in the way," Doherty said. The farther east you go, the later the eclipse occurs — and the closer the sun will be to the western horizon. Some observers have dubbed Albuquerque, N.M., as the prime urban spot for seeing this eclipse, but the "Ring of Fire" will flash there just before sunset. That means you'll need a clear line of sight to the far horizon.
Jan. 15, 2010: Astronomers believe a solar eclipse seen across Africa, Asia and the Indian Ocean may be the longest annular eclipse in more than 1,000 years. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Hang onto those glasses
After the eclipse, you can put your sun-viewing glasses through another tryout during the transit of Venus on June 5. Over the course of several hours, the planet Venus will be visible as a tiny speck of black, making its way across the sun's disk for what Doherty calls a "micro-eclipse." This map from NASA shows that the transit will be visible from most of North America in the hours leading up to sunset (although Alaskans will be out of luck this time around).
The same eclipse safety rules apply to the transit: Don't gaze directly at the sun with your naked eye. Use the proper solar filters on your telescope, binoculars or camera. Feel free to make a pinhole projector, although Venus' tiny speck will be much harder to track than the effects of a solar eclipse.
Looking even farther ahead, there's a total solar eclipse on tap for Nov. 13, with the track of totality running across the northern tip of Australia and a wide expanse of the Pacific. That's the year's big prize for eclipse-chasers, but time is running out to make arrangements for a trip to Cairns or a Pacific cruise.
"A year or two is the rule for getting to a total solar eclipse," Doherty said. "But there's always this tradeoff between time ahead and money spent. If you want to go the less expensive way, plan early. If you're willing to pay a little bit more, go late."
The good news is that Americans have plenty of time to plan for a convenient total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017. On that day, the path of totality will stretch diagonally across the United States, from Oregon to North Carolina.
"That eclipse, you're just going to be able to drive to," Doherty said. "So if you miss this one, start planning now for 2017."
Tune us in online
To hear more tales of eclipses past, present and future, join us tonight for "Virtually Speaking Science," an hourlong talk show that plays out on BlogTalkRadio and in the Second Life virtual world. Doherty (a.k.a. Patio Plasma) and I will be at the StellaNova Small Auditorium, courtesy of the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics, starting at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT/SLT).
If you miss the live event, don't worry: It'll be archived by "Virtually Speaking" on BlogTalkRadio as well as iTunes.
On Friday, head on over to the Cosmic Log Facebook page for our weekly "Where in the Cosmos" picture puzzle. If you're the first to solve the riddle, you'll be eligible to receive a pair of sun-viewing safety glasses for this month's eclipse and next month's transit. In the meantime, check out these podcasts from previous episodes of "Virtually Speaking Science," plus links to eclipse-related resources:
- Get set to chase a solar eclipse
- Photo gallery: Greatest hits from solar eclipses
- Interactive graphic: What causes a solar eclipse?
- 12 must-see skywatching events in 2012
- All about solar eclipses on msnbc.com
- Podcasts: Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto on Yuri's Night
- JPL's Dave Beaty on the search for life on Mars
- Shawn Lawrence Otto on science and politics
- Ig Nobel impresario Marc Abrahams on silly science
- Rocket scientist Robert Zubrin on Mars exploration
- Propulsion expert Marc Millis on interstellar spaceflight
- Sean Carroll on the puzzling frontiers of physics
- Rand Simberg on the private-enterprise vision for spaceflight
- Martin Hoffert on the future of energy policy
- George Djorgovski on science in virtual worlds
- Alan Stern on suborbital research and NASA's mission to Pluto
- Col. 'Coyote' Smith on the outlook for space solar power
- Tim Pickens on rocket ventures and the Google Lunar X Prize
Corrections for 10:25 p.m. ET: A couple of the Web links went to information about the November total solar eclipse when they should have referred to the May annular solar eclipse, but that's been fixed. I've also fixed the reference to the eclipse's timing in Albuquerque. From that location, the annular phase will last a little more than four minutes, from 7:33 to 7:38 p.m. MT, followed by sunset a little after 8 p.m. I originally (and erroneously) wrote that the "Ring of Fire" would occur four minutes before sunset.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
This is just a ploy from Obama and the Fed to get people to go spend money in the National Parks. Romney 2012!
Haha! Too funny - I'm pretty sure that's a joke :)
LMMFAO!! you're hilarious; I haven't had a laugh that hard in a few years.
Yup another sign for the Myan end year j/k
@ZZ2011
I know, hard to tell sometimes isn't it?
Especially if you are crotchety...
Seriously, I don't understand what going to a national park has to do with seeing the eclipse? You can see it ANYWHERE within the path of the eclipse, including your front yard. What's the big emphasis on driving to a national park to see an eclipse? Are they serving refreshments or what?
Hey-first comment is all MINE! AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!!
Doh!
Hey Clap...If I didn't have to register, I would have had the first comment! Damn your eyes!
Ha ha. (Nelson Muntz voice)
@joejoe1234
If it's any consolation I wish you had been first seeing as TheClap's comment was utterly worthless.
Or maybe 'twas a joke. I find humor to have great value. I am sorry there are those that live without.
T@heClap
Sorry but when every single thread turns into a debate about politics or religion, regardless of the topic, it stops being funny pretty quick. And face it, there are an assload of people on NewsVine who would have made that exact comment in all seriousness so please excuse me for not being able to tell you apart from the nutjobs when you make a post sounding just like them.
Aside from that, if that's the best joke you can come up with you'd probably be better off leaving the humor to someone else.
I'm sorry your butt hurts that badly.
Hey ! My middle name is Butt : )
Well looks like I'll have the first on topic comment at least
I'm already making plans for 2017, thinking Grand Tetons or Yellowstone might be pretty cool.
Nope there aint gonna be no 2017, this is the last one you better go see it!!
As far as first on topic comments go, I have seen better. It was mundane and average at best. I would have opened with a political joke instead or at least something like "I'm planning on climbing the grandest Teton of all and jumping off in a wingsuit during the 2017 eclipse and viewing it at 125 mph as I glide toward Earth."
Yeah but you didn't, you opened with a lame-assed Obama joke instead. Guess you should have spent a few more minutes thinking about it. Instead you got excited about being first and blew your load prematurely; sorry if I was less sympathetic than your girlfriend usually is.
Angry people are not that fun to be around. I am not as sympathetic as your hand.
@TheClap
I'm pretty sure you are the only one getting "angry".
Getting better, I'd give that one a C- because there really is nothing original about it. Keep on practicing.
yep, definitely would be cool, but all I really have to do is plan to be home that day (only a couple miles from center of totality). so if all else fails :)
Awww, now I'm jealous. I've got at least a 4 hour drive to reach the edge of totality and the parks are about 12 hours away. Sitting in the backyard with a bud would suit me just fine.
I'm totally going to go see this thing! I've always wanted to see a solar eclipse! I'm in El Paso, so I can't wait!
El Paso?
You've been eclipsed by illegal Mexicans long ago, and the shadow darkens our country.
Joke? No joke? See what I mean, it's just too hard to tell with all of the yahoos on here.
waaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!
@TheClap
What was that you were saying about angry people?
This is a trick by Obama and his evil doer's. Beware young Americans. You could be staring at this thing and before you know it the tooth fairy is going through your sock drawer and knockin up your sister. Ive seen it happen before
Now this was obviously a joke. Evil doer's, tooth fairy, sock drawer, are you taking notes TheClap? A more subtle joke should at lest have an "lol" at the end of it if you're going to post it on NewsVine.
Sorry bro. You need at least a hundred IQ to get subtlety, but I'm not going to dumb down my material for you anymore.
Sorry Clap,
Backcountry clearly has no sense of humor and needs more then a hand to cheer him up. Maybe he should try spending some time in the backcountry......oh yeah almost forgot...........lol
@aaron-3309248
Except if you check TheClap's history you'll see that he wasn't making a "joke". It was the standard partisan slam that we constantly see on NewsVine. Mocking those conservatives who blame everything under the Sun (or in this case in front of it) on Obama. It's people who can't cross the street without coming up with an excuse to bash the "other side" that need some cheering up.
btw- I was in the backcountry just a couple weeks ago and yes it was refressing. Best thing about the backcountry is that there are no idiots there, natural selection sees to that.
I am sorry that this has gotten under your skin to the point where you actually checked my history. I hope you get to venture into the backcountry again soon to help you lighten up.
@TheClap
This hasn't gotten under my skin in the least. I checked your history (clicked on your screen name) to make sure I wasn't wrong about my assumption and see if I owed you an apology.
I just don't get the need to take little jabs at people you don't agree with at every opportunity. danwill and I probably don't agree on much politically and have gone back and forth before. But here, where politics are not the subject, we can agree and make civil, polite comments to one another without feeling the need to throw in some little cheap shot. #4.6, #4.7
If anyone has to ask if it was a joke then as a joke, it failed. Now, lets talk about annular solar eclipses.
I don't think I will be able to be in that part of the country to see it. I do remember seeing one here in the north east in the early 90s though. It was very odd looking, the bit of sun shining through the leaves cast ring shaped projections onto the ground. Annular eclipses are almost as cool as total eclipses.
Sloppy -- VERY sloppy: In Albuquerque the ring of fire will last about 4 1/2 min centered at 7:37pm, WELL BEFORE sunset at 8pm!! Also Venus is ~1/100 the diameter of the sun but at ~1/3 the distance and the sun is about 1/2 degree across, so the spot will be about 0.015 of a degree across or ~ 1 arcsecond, which a 20-20 human eye can barely see with a constricted pupil (which the glasses will not produce), glasses with perfect optics, and no atmospheric turbulence, which never occurs in daytime. So unless you are a hawk, forget seeing it without very good binoculars, and then it would be just a tiny black spot.
Venus will actually be about 1 arcminute (not 1 arcsecond) in size during the transit, which most people should be able to see with non-magnifying eclipse shades, given the high contrast between the bright sun and the dark spot. Of course something like binoculars or a spotting scope would be much better ... just be sure to project the image onto a white sheet of paper (never looking directly) unless you have a safe filter to put securely in front of the optics (not at the eyepiece where the filter could melt). There have been quite a few sunspots recently; you can try all this before the days of the eclipse (May 20) and transit (June 5).
Dang, sorry about that error. I should have taken a bit more time to check the timetable for Albuquerque. But Eric is right about the arcminute vs. the arcsecond. It'll be hard to see with the unaided eye, as was discussed during tonight's talk. If you listen to the podcast, you'll hear Doherty's advice for setting up binoculars with a filter to view the transit.
paleodwight,
Oops, I know this probably only matters to astro-heads like ourselves, but you seem to have misspoken. An angular diameter of 0.015 deg = 54 arcseconds, or about an arcminute, as I am sure you are aware. I agree with the overall point of your comment that a naked-eye sighting of Venus crossing the solar disk will be possible only for people with good to superior vision.
Just to warn everyone again, don't try this without using an appropriate filter to reduce the brightness of the Sun to a safe value for your eye. Aluminum and gold-coated mylar filters, designed for solar viewing without a telescope, are very effective and inexpensive. You may be able purchase them at a local planetarium, nature store or online from the optics companies that advertise on the web pages for Sky & Telescope and Astronomy magazines.
To prevent unfiltered sunlight from unintentionally entering your eyes, look first at the ground, then place the filter over your eyes. After you have done this, raise your line of sight to view the Sun. After you have finished viewing the Sun, look at the ground again, and then and only then remove the filter from in front of your eyes. Do *not* look at the Sun and then place the filter over your eyes! Do *not* take the filter from in front of your eyes while still looking up at the Sun!
Barring bad weather, the above rules should allow everyone to safely observe an awe-inspiring but accessible-to-all phenomenon. At some level, everyone is an astronomer.
Here's what Paul does to simulate the appearance of Venus against the sun during a transit: "I take a white paper plate that's maybe 7 inches or 150 mm in diameter, and I take a 5 mm diameter black dot, about a fifth of an inch, and I put that black dot onto the 150 mm diameter white plate, and put it on a wall, and step back about 15 meters or 45 feet, and that's exactly the way the transit of Venus will look. If this little dot moving across the disk looks good to you, then the transit will look good to you. But I like to blow it up some."
I think it's cool you guys read our comments. I thought it was a very nice article too.
Dang also -- got the 0.015 degree right then mistyped second instead of minute
I know how you feel, PaleoDwight ;-)
I saw the transit of Venus in 2004. I saw it very easily with the naked (protected) eye. I then used binoculars to project the image onto a white sheet of paper and saw that the dot was as large as an average sunspot.
I should mention that although the article states that Alaskans are out of luck this time around, the map at shows that Alaskans will be the luckiest of us because they'll be able to see the entire transit. Everyone else in the lower 48 states will see the sun set before the transit is over.
Venus was very easily seen naked eye in 2004 with eye protection. Theory says it should be tough but reality is it's more obvious than any of us expected. Observing site was Pasargad in southern Iran with the Sun passing within a few degrees of the zenith at mid-transit and good seeing. Ideal conditions.
@Alan, thanks for the shout-out for Astronomers Without Borders eclipse glasses. It'll help us keep the programs going and the organization growing.
Mike Simmons
President, Astronomers Without Borders
Well whaddya know, I might actually be able to see this one without even leaving town. Pretty sure Chico, CA is within the borders marked on that map.
I've got a viewing spot picked out less than 1/4 mile from the house. Clear view of the western horizon from the Sandia foothills.
Obama and the feds can't trick the American people anymore. we're on to them now.
Obama's tricking us with a solar eclipse???
That is one powerful Marxist trick, eh?
The coolest thing about a total solar eclipse is the shadow zooming across the landscape. Spooky awesome.
That does sound pretty cool.
Amazing. Humans still go gaga over a normal universe phenomena.
Does anyone believe that a dragon is taking a bite out of the sun?
@Jojo-2075587
I would hardly call it a normal universe phenomena. It may not be terribly uncommon here on Earth at this particular time in history but to have a moon perfectly block out a star is probably incredibly rare in the Universe and may even be unique.
Yes, Jojo....because it's cool!! Just like people still photograph and/or paint beautiful sunsets, rainbows and mountains.
When we lose our curiosity and wonder of nature, we lose our humanity.
Backcountry has a good point. Maybe someone can answer this (and I'm sure this will be terribly worded): Do moons commonly orbit on a such a plane as to make eclipses like the ones we get to see here common on other planets, or did a lot of circumstances and variables come together to make this a very unique event in our solar system? i.e. the size of the moon, it's distance from Earth, the exact orbital plane, that it may be made out of cheese etc.
Although eclipses and transits are common in other planetary systems (including for example both Mars and Jupiter ... sometimes you can see the shadows moving across Jupiter), the coincidence of the Moon being about the same angular size as the Sun as seen from Earth is something you won't find in many other places. For example, on Jupiter, all four of the large moons would appear significantly larger than the Sun during a solar eclipse.
@TheClap
Most people totally take the Moon for granted; after all it just hangs there every night. But the reality is that it has a huge impact on our lives and the evolution of life in general. The tides may have provided a starting point for life; the rotational velocity of the Earth is not too fast and not too slow, which allows for sufficient energy from the sun in a day without baking us in the process; it stabilises our axis preventing us from wobbling too much. The exact eclipse thing is the icing on the cake, we just happen to be here at just the right time. A billion years ago it would have dwarfed the sun and a billion years from now there will be no more total eclipses as the oceans push it further and further away. It seems pretty boring but for geeks like me it is pretty cool.
I've got to admit, that was a good one. lol
Thank you guys. So the moon's distance from Earth is increasing over time? I don't understand the "oceans push it further away" part.
Also--this stuff RULES! Geeks and nerds run the adult world.
well clap, the simplest way to put it is the dragging that big bulge of water around the Earth takes energy. that energy comes from slowing the moon down in its orbit very slightly, and that slowing causes the moon to drift slightly farther away
> If the skies are clear, essentially all you have to do is look up.
who is the idiot that wrote this?
look up? towards the eclipse?
terrible writing and editing.
I'm the idiot who wrote that. I did mention that eye protection is necessary if you're going to gaze at the eclipse, but I see your point ... maybe I'll change the reference to something like "visible in the skies above."
Tough crowd sometimes ....
Alan Boyle has some of the most enjoyable , pleasant , educational , interesting , diverse , ect. ....
Posts on the vine ....
The "Cosmic Log" is always a must visit when browsing ....
Agreed.
Am I mistaken, or did I used to read posts by Alan on the usenet?
The "Transit of Venus" is the beginning part of the Maya 2012 prophecies...Just in case anyone was interested...Thanks Discovery Channel
Right on Alan......and nothing personnel @ arrested but only a moron would not put the 2 together as far as eye protection. Unless your 5 and have never seen an eclipse before.
Great writing Alan. And this should be cool cause I live in Kingman AZ right on the southern path. Might be neat to take the kid up a hill ( mountain to you flatlanders ) and let her see her first eclipse!!!!
OMG...I need aluminum, a box, a telescope, a furnace filter, some paper, a clear sky...WAIT a minute...am I making a solar viewing device or a bomb for my country? I get so confused!
July 25, 2009 - Shanghai, China. Total solar eclipse lasting 7 minutes! Alas, the sky clouded over and started to rain. Still, I got to see the eclipse halfway through with the naked eye because the clouds had dimmed the sun enough to let me see the moon covering 2/3 of the sun. It was AWESOME. That's the only word I have for it. The city then went into night-mode for 10 minutes. And then it was over.
if you look at the ground during an eclipse, the fragments of light that filter through the leaves on the trees are replicas of the event, the birds go silent and they will not disturb you.
Two of the Mayan calendar, short count cycles, come to an end that day also. A crop circle formed on Aug, 9, 2005, called out this day and referred to it as day 0. The sun will align with the Pleiades and a Mayan temple the same day.
Calendars end all the time if you think that's significant than we should have seen dramatic world changing events 2,012 tims already just from our own calendar ending on a yearly basis.
Would really like to see the thing, but alas cannot leave the East Coast during that time-frame. Meh, perhaps come 2017...
I've got a pair of welding glasses I've used to watch countless eclipses. They work great! Plenty of protection and then some, and much easier than pin-hole cameras and reflector boxes.
Likewise, I'd like to be there for this, what with it being 2012 and all, might not be here for 2017....
That rules! At the end of my senior year in high school there was an eclipse and my art teacher and I brought out some arc-welding masks and observed. It was pretty sweet!
Some folks specify that it should be No. 14 welding glass... maybe No. 13 welding glass isn't quite good enough. ;-) http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/safety.html
I find binoculars are the best for viewing an eclipse, but never directly. I cover up one side and use the other side to project an image onto a sheet of paper. The image is a lot larger than trying to look at the sun through welding glass, and you'll probably see sunspots too (until the moon covers them). They're a lot safer too...so long as nobody tries to look at the sun directly with the binoculars!
Excellent point about the binoculars. If you have a spotting scope, it will also work very well in eyepiece projection mode.
That 2017 total eclipse will start out in the Pacific about halfway between Alaska and Hawaii and cross the coast of Oregon just missing Portland (right on the edge) and then across Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming (including Grand Teton National Park), Nebraska, Missouri (with Kansas City on one edge and St. Louis on the other), and then on through parts of Southern Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and then off the coast of South Carolina, ending near Bermuda and the Bahamas. That is what I found awhile back on a Nasa website. Then I found 2 total clipses that will transit through Wisconsin right where I live now, only 12 years apart, both following almost the exact same paths. The trouble is they won't occur until 2099 and 2111. I sure with they were alot sooner than that.
I'm here in Albuquerque(the best spot for the viewing) and thinking we should have a party. Get some Corona and carne adovada and head on over to the West Mesa. ps don't forget the sopa's.
I'll be in the Sandia foothills.
Even better, the top of the Tram.
Thought about driving up to the crest but then figured out that I don't want to be coming down after sunset with a bunch of people who don't know the road and were just partially blinded by looking into the sun.
The top of the Tram would be a great spot. Just don't expect anything as spectacular as a total eclipse; even at maximum coverage the Sun will be almost as bright as usual.
A question, I have heard that with a welding helmet with filter #10 one can look at the sun is that correct?