Solar eclipse - are you gong to be out?

hegyestomi

So tomorrow is the day of the end of the world when the sun will leave us for a couple hours.
I'm/was intended to commute but it means going in the shade for two and a bit hours while (as reported) drivers are going to be very distracted by this natural phenomena.
What are you going to do?

roger_merriman

hegyestomi wrote:

So tomorrow is the day of the end of the world when the sun will leave us for a couple hours.
I'm/was intended to commute but it means going in the shade for two and a bit hours while (as reported) drivers are going to be very distracted by this natural phenomena.
What are you going to do?

go to Bushy Park and take some photos!

tgotb

I'm going to turn my lights on, just like I do every other time it gets dark.

rower63

Unfortunately I'm not going to do what I did last time in 1999: drive the night before to a random field in Falmouth getting there at 0300, kipping in the car and experiencing it with about 10 other people who'd had the same idea evenly distributed about the field. It was a great experience. As it went dark, temperature dropped sharply, birds went haywire, the smooth dropping-off of the illumination level was almost tangible.

This time I'll go outside and probably be part of a gawping crowd in a City of London street.

hegyestomi

TGOTB wrote:

I'm going to turn my lights on, just like I do every other time it gets dark.

I'm always using lights, day or night anyway but I'm a bit worried by the "Look at the Sun mum!!" or "I'm going to take a picture of that now!" types: don't want to be SMIDSY again.

philcubed

I always get my gong out to celebrate an eclipse!

ddraver

Once again I'm going to be staring up at total cloud cover feeling cheated...

elbowloh

ddraver wrote:

Once again I'm going to be staring up at total cloud cover feeling cheated...

Ditto. Got my camera out and ready, solar filter fitted....

scrumpydave

Only light cloud cover in York. This is great so far!

veronese68

Very cloudy here, it's just like most winter afternoons at the moment. I don't think I'll bother moving from my desk. Disappointing.

Wunnunda

Is there an eclipse? No-one told me...

anthdci

Clouds provided a very nice filter when paired with my cycling glasses 8) I got a good view in Newcastle through the small gaps in the clouds.

bompington

Good here in Fife. Sunny this morning but low cloud blowing across just in time for max eclipse - but it was that sort of thin cloud that gives a perfect filter for the sun, so we had a really good view. 94% round here, spectacular enough.
We bunked class and stood around outside the school with hundreds of kids getting their first sight of an eclipse - both fun and intellectually stimulating, huge number of them wanting to talk science, which sure don't happen every day.

roger_merriman

Veronese68 wrote:

Very cloudy here, it's just like most winter afternoons at the moment. I don't think I'll bother moving from my desk. Disappointing.

amusing watching the confused dog walkers and birds! did get very cold not terribly dark, but clearly darker.

peat

The cloud thinned for a few minutes just as the moon took it's place dead centre. twas lovely it was.

One joyless colleague then remarked "You see the moon like that most nights. This is such a non event." and walked off. But he's the Quality Assurance Manager, being a tw@t comes naturally.

CYCLESPORT1

Too much cloud cover for a good photo, so with a bit of editing:

elbowloh

Peat wrote:

The cloud thinned for a few minutes just as the moon took it's place dead centre. twas lovely it was.

One joyless colleague then remarked "You see the moon like that most nights. This is such a non event." and walked off. But he's the Quality Assurance Manager, being a tw@t comes naturally.

I'm a Quality Manager.... :evil:

veronese68

bompington wrote:

We bunked class and stood around outside the school with hundreds of kids getting their first sight of an eclipse - both fun and intellectually stimulating, huge number of them wanting to talk science, which sure don't happen every day.

Nice. My daughter was very upset last night that only the year 7 kids were allowed to watch. She probably won't be as upset now she knows you couldn't see anything around here.

UndercoverElephant

Set up a pinhole camera on the window of my office and projected the eclipse onto a whiteboard.

First.Aspect

I used some sunbed glasses, combined with two pairs of polarised sunglasses at 90 degrees. Worked a treat. The clouds came over at 9:30 just enough to view it comfortably without any of that, though. Astounding actually.

Our cats were totally wigged out. Or hungry - difficult to tell.

secretsam

Frankly a bit of a damp squib here in Bucks, was grey cloud all over so you couldn't see the sun anyway! of course, now it's passed, the sun's come out and it's lovely. Typical. Kids were saying they're going to live until 2090 when the next full eclipse is here. They will be 85.

gbsahne001

bompington wrote:

Good here in Fife. Sunny this morning but low cloud blowing across just in time for max eclipse - but it was that sort of thin cloud that gives a perfect filter for the sun, so we had a really good view. 94% round here, spectacular enough.
We bunked class and stood around outside the school with hundreds of kids getting their first sight of an eclipse - both fun and intellectually stimulating, huge number of them wanting to talk science, which sure don't happen every day.

Nice, we had a letter from the school stating that

For safety reasons, however, we will not be taking students outside to observe the eclipse. Parents are asked to show their support by not allowing students to bring in eclipse viewers or any other device with which to observe the eclipse.

They were however going to view it on a live video feed, which as it turns out is the only way in Berkshire that you could witness it in any case owing to cloud cover

bompington

gbsahne wrote:

bompington wrote:

Good here in Fife. Sunny this morning but low cloud blowing across just in time for max eclipse - but it was that sort of thin cloud that gives a perfect filter for the sun, so we had a really good view. 94% round here, spectacular enough.
We bunked class and stood around outside the school with hundreds of kids getting their first sight of an eclipse - both fun and intellectually stimulating, huge number of them wanting to talk science, which sure don't happen every day.

Nice, we had a letter from the school stating that

For safety reasons, however, we will not be taking students outside to observe the eclipse. Parents are asked to show their support by not allowing students to bring in eclipse viewers or any other device with which to observe the eclipse.

They were however going to view it on a live video feed, which as it turns out is the only way in Berkshire that you could witness it in any case owing to cloud cover

Oh, rest assured that we had all the same stuff sent our way. I must have forgotten about it all in the excitement of the moment :twisted:
Of course if anyone has their eyesight damaged I'm really screwed. If they can find me after I move jobs on Monday... :twisted: :twisted:

rick_chasey

SFA here in the City.

ddraver

Yah boo sucks to all of you that saw something *sulks* ( )

The Rookie

Had a convenient break in the cloud here, wasn't overly impressive, a little gloomy and a little chilly, but nothing like 1999 when we went to Oxford which was about as close as you could get in the UK and still actually see it...that was impressive!

veronese68

ddraver wrote:

Yah boo sucks to all of you that saw something *sulks* ( )

Glorious sunshine now, typical. :?

First.Aspect

For safety reasons, however, we will not be taking students outside to observe the eclipse. Parents are asked to show their support by not allowing students to bring in eclipse viewers or any other device with which to observe the eclipse.

I dispair.

dhope

First Aspect wrote:

For safety reasons, however, we will not be taking students outside to observe the eclipse. Parents are asked to show their support by not allowing students to bring in eclipse viewers or any other device with which to observe the eclipse.

I dispair.

Which school is that?!

whoof

Watched it through some welding goggles in Bath (the city not the washing tub). It was really good.

First.Aspect

dhope wrote:

First Aspect wrote:

For safety reasons, however, we will not be taking students outside to observe the eclipse. Parents are asked to show their support by not allowing students to bring in eclipse viewers or any other device with which to observe the eclipse.

I dispair.

Which school is that?!

God knows but it encapsulates the amazing balancing act that the teaching profession manages to pull off - by being both mediocre and uninspiring, whilst at the same time talking down to everyone. Its quite an art.