Comments on: Comments on 17730

Post number 17730

xowie — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:09:41 -0800

Beautiful eclipse yesterday. The shadows were amazing too. p.s. - some audio CDs can be used as an eclipse filter.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:17:32 -0800

Beautiful photos via SpaceWeather. Man, I wish I could've seen it. We got nothing here on the East Coast.

By: kebab

kebab — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:18:32 -0800

Loving those shadows!

By: XiBe

XiBe — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:36:27 -0800

Yep, those shadows are incredible. Never thaught that could happen.

By: bittennails

bittennails — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:39:13 -0800

Beautiful shadows, real nice, on a side note how do eclipses affect or interact with zodiac signs, it was my dad's b'day yesterday, the big 70, wondered if he morphs into a butterfly or something?

By: Danf

Danf — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:46:51 -0800

I was able to see it through a small telescope. . .what struck me was the sunspots, as well as the shadow of the moon. My "eclipse glasses" got passed around pretty thoroughly. . .

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:55:18 -0800

Heh, our neighbors thought we were insane when the came out and we were up in a second story window rigging binoculars and a screen so as to project the eclipse...cause the houses blocked it from street level. Wish I could have seen the sun spots, but I didn't have strong enough filters for my camera or my binoculars to actually look at the sun itself.

By: laz-e-boy

laz-e-boy — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:38:56 -0800

Walked around the neighborhood with pin-holed cardboard yesterday; many people didn't realize an eclipse was going on, although they did notice it got cool all of a sudden. People at the local cafe were passing around welder's glasses.

By: arielmeadow

arielmeadow — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:56:13 -0800

I love natural events that bring people together...I was walking home from work around 5:45 yesterday, and everyone was standing out on the street with pin-hole viewers, binoculars pointing at sketch books, and welder's glasses. It was one of those exciting neighborhood happenings. When I got home at 6, I walked up to the roof of my building and set up my little pin-hole viewer...one of my neighbors was up there sunbathing and chatting on her cell, and she clearly had no idea what was going on OR what the hell I was doing. Since she never got off the phone, I never explained. Her loss!

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 10:33:34 -0800

Speaking of those groovy sunspots that Danf mentioned, here's some pictures of that very thing. :)

By: fotzepolitic

fotzepolitic — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 11:14:09 -0800

Yesterday I was wearing a shirt with rhinestones on it, and noticed that if I faced the sun, it reflected both rainbows and little eclipse crescents onto the wall. I was magically delicious.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 11:19:08 -0800

We had intermittently stormy weather in Chicago right at the end of a mostly beautiful day. All I got to see was a projected shadow on a cloud bank. Dramatic in its own way, but not quite the same thing.

By: swank6

swank6 — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 11:25:14 -0800

Well, someone told me about it but I couldn't see it. How exactly do I do that next time?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 11:33:36 -0800

I was on the bus when it started and got off and ran into a record store and said "this is going to sound crazy, but can I just take one of these CDs outside for a few minutes....?" and he asked why and I explained and I ran out and got to see the eclipse, and then I went in and watched the counter while he went outside and peeked at it.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 20:11:29 -0800

Wow, jessamyn. That's moxie. swank6, first of all, never look directly at a solar eclipse. Either use a suitable filter, such as welder's glass, or see the eclipse in a shadow created by an aperture of some kind. Enjoy the few minutes of surreal dimness -- it's quite different in character from dusk. In natural areas, listen to the animal life react. Then get on the web and see some of the gorgeous photos people took with the right equipment.

By: Wood

Wood — Tue, 11 Jun 2002 23:22:50 -0800

How bad is it to look directly at the solar eclipse? Is it worse if it's a total eclipse? I've been looking at the sun since I was a kid. Not for very long of course. Only in glancing. It is, after all, extremely bright. I first looked at this eclipse in a reflection of the sun in a window. It seemed like a good at the time. Hmm... anyway, I glanced at the sun later but I couldn't make out the eclipse. Maybe that's the point.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Wed, 12 Jun 2002 02:14:22 -0800

couldn't see anything either, and certainly didn't see the funky shadows. wood: looking at an eclipse directly is no more dangerous than looking at an unobscured sun for an equal duration (in fact it ought to be less dangerous because some of the light is obscured). the danger is in maintaining that gaze for longer than you ought to. which is to say: in either case a glance is likely to be ok, but staring is a bad idea. looking through a telescope without appropriate filtering is an even worse idea. as i understand it: the problem is you don't have any pain sensing nerves in the backs of your eyeballs so short of actually going blind there's no way to tell when you're burning your retinas out.

By: Wood

Wood — Wed, 12 Jun 2002 08:33:06 -0800

Hell, I tried for an hour to put in contacts and couldn't get them in. Maybe I don't have the pain threshold required to stare at the sun until I go blind.