The Solar Eclipse

[JimB]

This morning there was a solar eclipse, not quite a total eclipse here in North East Scotland, but the nearest to totality that I can remember having seen.

To get a better view, despite the miserable weather...

This picture was taken around the time of maximum eclipse.

I set up a makeshift viewing screen on a home made reflecting telescope...


And through the breaks in the cloud I was able to get a reasonable view of the event.

After that the sky was completely obscured by cloud.

JimB

 

[Musicmanager]

Hi Jim

Well done, impressive images of the event.
Mostly obscured by cloud layer here unfortunately, but we did get a quite eerie atmosphere for a while as the shadow passed over.

S

 

[Ian Rogers]

I watched it here in Manchester.. I got a pretty good view!! But I didn't have a welding mask to hand ( like I did last time )

Squinting through dark sunglasses was best I could do...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Heavy cloud here, couldn't even tell where the sun was!

 

[Musicmanager]

In Derbyshire it's often found hanging on the wall in the outside khasi !!

 

[Ian Rogers]

In Derbyshire it's often found hanging on the wall in the outside khasi !!

Derbyshire is too posh for outside lavvy's.... Let alone the Sun!!

 

[Musicmanager]

How many Derbyshires are there then ??

 

[Ian Rogers]

How many Derbyshires are there then ??

Well its between you and I...

So you must be even posher!!!

 

[Musicmanager]

So you must be even posher!

Huh ! Me posh ? That's a bit like a wallet full of £9 notes !!

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Derbyshire is too posh for outside lavvy's.... Let alone the Sun!!

Interestingly enough I have a book at home, it's called 'Derbyshire Privies'

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derbyshire-Privies-David-Bell/dp/1853065102

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

While we're talking 'Derbyshire' I came across an interesting location today:

http://www.stardiscenterprise.co.uk/

Never knew it was there, never heard of it - came across it by accident, really cool though.

 

[audioguru]

Have you ever seen Aurora Borealis? It is beautiful and fantastic to see the movements of many colors in the sky.

 

[JimB]

Have you ever seen Aurora Borealis?

Quite often when the sky is clear, but that is the problem, miserable grey cloudy and overcast much of the time.

JimB

 

[audioguru]

My home is higher than my neighbour's home behind my home. From my upstairs bedroom windows I can see the huge airport and downtown Toronto BUT this neighbour leaves very bright inside lights turned on all night long which almost blind me and I can't see the things I want to see. Light pollution.
I can't talk to the neighbour because we haven't met. I have NEVER seen them in their backyard. They do not have a deck and get a company to mow their grass. No flowers and no garden. It is obvious they are from another country "over there" but maybe they are from another world. I wonder if nobody lives there and they are growing Mary Wanna in there?

They (or a timer) turn off their lights just before sunrise then I see the sun rise almost every day. Because the horizon is flat (Lake Ontario) and far away the sun rises looking huge and orange.

"Cloudy and Overcast"? What's that? Looking out a rear bedroom window I see the blue sky. In the front, HEY, I see something. I think it is a little CLOUD!

 

[JimB]

"Cloudy and Overcast"? What's that? Looking out a rear bedroom window I see the blue sky. In the front, HEY, I see something. I think it is a little CLOUD!

Ooh AG, you are such a tease!

I have never visited Canada, but, I have seen a big chunk of it from 40,000 ft courtesy of messers Boeing and British Airways, and guess what - it was all white.
I guess the whiteness was due to snow rather than someone having a nasty accident with a billion gallons of white paint.

My general experience of snow is that when it falls from the sky, that sky is all "cloudy and overcast".

the horizon is flat (Lake Ontario)

You got that right!
As I peered outof the window at this white expanse, the thought occurred to me "What are those flat bits? Aah, the great lakes of course!" because they were all frozen too as this was in November 1993. (just looked at my old passport).

Just to get the discussion going further, I was flying from London (England) to Houston (Texas) at the time, so why were we over Canada?

JimB

 

[Musicmanager]

Hi Jim

I was flying from London (England) to Houston (Texas) at the time, so why were we over Canada?

Because of the curvature of the earth the shortest route between London and Houston would take you over Canada .. ..

S

 

[JimB]

Because of the curvature of the earth the shortest route between London and Houston would take you over Canada

We have a winner!

Gerardus Mercator and his well known map projection have a lot of things to answer for when looking at the whole world.

If anyone has any doubts, have a look at the usual school atlas to see the path from London to Houston, then find a globe and stretch a length of string from Londo to Houston and see the difference.

JimB

 

[audioguru]

The white is the salt used to melt the ice. The salt gets all over my boots and the carpet in my car. All the snow in my part of Canada is gone because it is spring and some days were warm.

Today was sunny but a little below freezing. The blue sky produced a little snow without any clouds. I was walking my dogs along the edge of Lake Ontario yesterday. It was not frozen. It is very deep and the water is moving from rivers (from Niagara Falls and others)

 

[JoeJester]

The great circle route.

We live on an sphereroid.

 

[ronv]

Great pictures!