TheSkySearchers

good morning, good evening, to you all.

I came across a thread about the eclipse on the internet.
It gave me the idea of this thread.

what are your plans for this memorable day?
what equipment do you bring with you ?
any trip in mind ?

I'm planning to see what I'll do for this unforgettable day.

The last one, several years ago I had drive about one hour south to get to totality, it was a fun day. I found a small town park, with restrooms.
I just brought my ST80 refractor on a non-tracking mount.

We got lucky, because the darn clouds parted just long enough to see the action.
Watching the birds fly back to their nests and the crickets chirping was a treat!

2024, I will have to drive several hours north (we will be living in NJ) I hope to find another small park with facilities. I will most likely bring the 80ED with a white light filter and 2" EPs. I may also bring the PST for HA, but still not sure.

Oh, I also had filters for a pair of binos, they were a hit with everyone I highly recommend that also.

Of course we are at the complete mercy of the cloud gods, but even if it is cloudy, we will still experience that amazing darkness

Ylem wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 2:34 am The last one, several years ago I had drive about one hour south to get to totality, it was a fun day. I found a small town park, with restrooms.
I just brought my ST80 refractor on a non-tracking mount.

We got lucky, because the darn clouds parted just long enough to see the action.
Watching the birds fly back to their nests and the crickets chirping was a treat!

2024, I will have to drive several hours north (we will be living in NJ) I hope to find another small park with facilities. I will most likely bring the 80ED with a white light filter and 2" EPs. I may also bring the PST for HA, but still not sure.

Oh, I also had filters for a pair of binos, they were a hit with everyone I highly recommend that also.

Of course we are at the complete mercy of the cloud gods, but even if it is cloudy, we will still experience that amazing darkness

Hi Jeff,
it is certain that I bring my binoculars and the filters that go with it.
during my last trip to mexico, I had left them at home.
but not this time.
I think binoculars are sufficient for an eclispe.

I've never seen one. Would love to get in the belt of totality one day///

2024 is still "up in the air", as it is a relatively long way west from Tampa to find an area with high-probability of unclouded skies.

For the 2017 Total Eclipse, I had quite the (unsuccessful) adventure. I had booked a Motel Room in a small central Wyoming town just within the edge of the Path of Totality. I had mapped out all sorts of backroads to small parcels of public lands along the centerline. Starting in Phoenix AZ, I packed my truck with my side-by-side E-S 80mm APO rigged for DSLR and Orion ST-80 rigged with an Image Projector. I made it to Durango CO for the night, but woke up with a heavy FLU that sidetracked me to the Urgent Care rather than on to Lander WY.

If I can put a 2024 Trip together, it'll probably be the same side-by-side rig (which I also used for the 2012 Annular Eclipse from the Desert Castle Overlook of the Grand Canyon - I had a line of people taking shots of the Projection Screen and/or the LiveView of the DSLR) and likely somewhere in the Texas Hill Country. Like everywhere, that area will be swarmed under by looky-loo's for the BigDay...

The path of totality is going through my neck of the woods - sort of - it's a few hours north of us - so we have already rented a cabin up that way and are going to spend a few days there, in Vermont.

Hopefully the skies cooperate.

I will probably just bring camera and our eclipse viewers.

helicon wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 2:21 pm I've never seen one. Would love to get in the belt of totality one day///

same thing for me, but this one I will try everything to see it.

KingNothing13 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 6:59 pm The path of totality is going through my neck of the woods - sort of - it's a few hours north of us - so we have already rented a cabin up that way and are going to spend a few days there, in Vermont.

Hopefully the skies cooperate.

I will probably just bring camera and our eclipse viewers.

same thing for me, but my chances of having a clear sky where I live are very small.
I will have to move south I think
Mexico has a very good chance of having clear skies.

I plan on being in Uvalde TX for this event. One of my sons lives just outside San Antonio.

I plan on bringing everything needed to photograph this eclipse. I will employ the lessons I learned from the last eclipse in 2017.

Here are some sites that might be helpful,

https://eclipse.aas.org/eclipse-america-2024

https://www.mreclipse.com

https://eclipse2024.org/?lang=en

https://www.accuweather.com/en/space-ne ... %20Florida.

I hope that it will help you .

And Allen Dyer point of vue,
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-n ... r-eclipse/

I'm about 15 miles north of Syracuse, N.Y. and it appears I'll be on the edge of totality. I guess I'll have to prepare for that. Hopefully, I can get some images. Thanks to @messier 111 for the links.

I am in Ohio just 20 miles or so east of what is dead center of totality. So i am just taking the day off and staying home. For anyone even thinking about coming to Ohio for this event, consider the following as a public service announcement. April in Ohio is a cloudy month. Usually a very cloudy month. So if you are coming here for the eclipse....you have about a 70 percent chance of not seeing anything. Be ready for any kind of weather. It could be freezing cold and a blizzard to 80 and thunderstorms and that could happen all in one day. If you do decide to come here, it is said that up by Lake Erie is your best chance for a good view.

I just made hotel reservations in New Brunswick. Weather-permitting, I plan to head for Kouchibouguac National Park, right on the centreline, with a predicted totality of 3m15s.

I debated going to Prince Edward Island. The chance of clear sky in New Brunswick is about 21%, whereas it is 34% in Prince Edward Island. But only the far tip of the island is on the centreline. If there is a cloud there, there is nowhere else to go except on one road heading away from the centreline. I remember reading people's accounts of the 2017 eclipse where mobility was the biggest factor in whether or not people saw it. So I will go with a lower probability of clear sky in exchange for a better ability to get to that clear sky.

I have been downloading times and maps, and ordering eclipse glasses and solar film to make filters for my camera lenses.

I plan to concentrate on experiencing the eclipse, rather than operating technology. I'll take my C-90 (my only scope with a solar filter) and a DSLR on a tripod. I am not doing anything special to get an image of totality. I'll download better images from other astronomers than I could get. I am thinking of setting up an intervalometer to get images of the partial phases, and I might take "scene" photos of people looking at the sun, the shadow approaching, etc.

My wife is staying at home to look after the kitties. I am going to leave her a pair of solar glasses. She will get 96.5% coverage of the Sun, which is pretty good. I told her to watch for crows roosting. The area's crow population (about 50,000, I am told) all head down to the valley floor to roost after sunset. It is quite a spectacular migration. I have heard that birds will roost during an eclipse, so it will be interesting to see if the crows do their daily migration then.

I have a friend upstate NY whoes 2 hours north of me, then we could split the drive further north to Syracuse or the Adirondacks.

But the bigger problem is we are talking NY in April, so the odds are rain
So we don't have any concrete plans.

In August 2017, our Culpeper, VA group set up three scopes at the county library to support about 300 folks. We plan to do pretty much the same. Only 89 percent eclipse though.


Dave

Hi All,

I have just posted four new articles in the Articles Forum.
viewforum.php?f=94

1. EYE SAFETY FOR SOLAR ECLIPSES

2. MAKE YOUR OWN SOLAR FILTER HOLDER

3. ECLIPSE PHOTOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS

4. MORE ADVANCED ECLIPSE PHOTOGRAPHY

cheers

Joe Cali (OzEclipse)

Want to try something novel during the eclipse this time?
Get out your binoculars and see if you can find comet Pons-Brooks.
Then lower your binoculars and try to see it by eye alone. It could be 4-5th magnitude by early April.

I hope it works: being able to claim that I saw a comet in the sky during the day will be a fun thing to tell people. They will guess it's Halley's and I will tell them this name they've never heard of. It's also a sneaky way to start the conversation about the eclipse - with people who are tired of hearing me talk about the 2024 eclipse for the umpteenth time!

https://www.universetoday.com/165447/th ... -in-april/

SparWeb wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 5:08 am Want to try something novel during the eclipse this time?
Get out your binoculars and see if you can find comet Pons-Brooks.
Then lower your binoculars and try to see it by eye alone. It could be 4-5th magnitude by early April.

I hope it works: being able to claim that I saw a comet in the sky during the day will be a fun thing to tell people. They will guess it's Halley's and I will tell them this name they've never heard of. It's also a sneaky way to start the conversation about the eclipse - with people who are tired of hearing me talk about the 2024 eclipse for the umpteenth time!

https://www.universetoday.com/165447/th ... -in-april/

Stephen,
My recommendation is that you just enjoy totality forget the comet. I really doubt it is worth spending time that could be well devoted to observing totality (also something novel) to look for this comet.

My reasons are many:

1. During totality, skies range from light twilight blue to deep twilight blue depending upon the size of the umbral shadow, they are never black. Think twilight or more like a full moon. They initially seem darker after 2nd contact only because observers eyes are not dark adapted not because the sky is dark. Observers eyes are not dark adapted having been exposed to the diamond ring

2. The comet is predicted to have an integrated magnitude of 4.5 at most.

3. During totality, is is difficult to see stars of 2nd magnitude let alone an extended object with an integrated magnitude of 4.5.

4. The only comet in recent history visible during totality was Hale-Bopp in Siberia in March 1997. The eclipse occurred on March 9, a few weeks before the comet reached perihelion and maximum brightness. During totality, the comet was between Mv 0 & -1 some 100x brighter than the expected brightness of Pons-Brooks during totality.

You run the risk of wasting precious totality time, searching for at best, a poor view of something better observed at night in dark skies with dark adapted eyes. Seeing the spectacular corona, something that definitely will be visible, will be a very novel experience for most people.

cheers
Joe

Point taken. Let's not encourage anyone to get distracted during the brief event.

I do hope to get a glimpse of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury in daytime, much like I saw Regulus beside the eclipsed sun in August 2017.
But a glimpse is all they deserve, when the solar corona is the real star of the show (literally)!