This Day in the Future -- August 21, 2017: Total Solar Eclipse

[mabfan]

On this day exactly ten years from now, a total solar eclipse will be visible over much of the continental United States. The eclipse's path will start in the Pacific ocean, and will pass through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, the northeast corner of Kansas, Missouri, southern Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, northeast Georgia, and the Carolinas. Millions of people will be able to see the eclipse, assuming the weather holds out.

The duration of the eclipse will be about two and a half minutes at maximum, at the center line. The width of visibility will be about 115 km.

This will be the first total eclipse to pass over any part of the United States since 1991, when a total eclipse passed over Hawaii. Plan your trip now! (Ten years into the future is not as far out as you think...)


References:
USA Total Solar Eclipse 2017, everything you need to know to plan to see the eclipse, including links to details maps, courtesy of Dan McGlaun
Hermit Eclipse: Total Solar Eclipse: August 21 2017 (with some excellent maps)
Path of Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 Aug 21 (a NASA website with coordinates, which links to a map of the globe with the eclipse's path)
Wikipedia: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

Comments

[jamietr.livejournal.com]

Finally! An excuse to visit the northeast corner of Kansas! :-)

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

Worldcon in Knoxville in 2017? Or perhaps Nashville?

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

I don't "do" the middle of the country. When will the next total eclipse pass over the East Coast?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I believe the next one scheduled for Boston is on May 1, 2079.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Got any weather reports for that day so we can figure out where to go?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the science of meteorology hasn't advanced to the point of giving us an accurate weather forecast ten years out....

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

And yet scientists claim to know what happened billions of years ago! :>)

[delkytlar.livejournal.com]

I don't remember there being any other parts of the country getting a chance to bid to host Eclipse 2017. Was there a vote I don't recall? New York City would have put up a major campaign for such an event. The whole concept stinks to high Heaven! I demand a recount!

[magid.livejournal.com]

In the meantime, enjoy the total lunar eclipse next week?

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

it's at a bad time for those of us in North America. it will be at moonset for us, so totality will be 4:52-7:22 AM.

the other one on March 3 was at a good time, visible right after shabbos.

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/OH2007.html

[carolf.livejournal.com]

There was at least one total eclipse after 1993 and before 1995 which was visible from SE Michigan. It was the first total eclipse I've ever seen.

What struck me the most was how still the world was in those few minutes. It wasn't completely dark -- it was more like a twilight, only not really. All the birds went silent, as did the insects. I swear even the breeze stopped. (I don't think it did, but then, I wasn't paying as much attention to it.)

Then the sun came back out, nature continued on with its gossip, leaving me still bemused and amazed by the experience.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it was total? I remember an annular solar eclipse within those years, but not a total one.

[carolf.livejournal.com]

Well, now I don't know. Your question prompted me to do some Googling. It *might* have been an annular eclipse from some of the descriptions, but the unnatural twilight and the appearance of a few bright stars is the description of the total eclipse. I could see what I took to be the corona (which I now understand might have been the photosphere?) and it lasted a few minutes.

Evidently, there is also such an animal as a "hybrid" eclipse, which appears as an annular eclipse to some areas, a total eclipse to other areas and a partial eclipse to the largest area. Perhaps that is what I saw, and was in the right place to see it as a total elipse?

See here:

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

I saw the annular eclipse of May 10, 1994, at Hartwick College, in Oneonta, NY, which was just inside the band in which the annularity was visible. Buffalo and Rochester were closer to the center of the path. Basically, I knew the astronomy professor there, and could stay with my uncle overnight. I didn't know people in Rochester then.

See http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEgoogle/SEgoogle1951/ASE1994google.html
for the path.

[carolf.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

This is indeed the eclipse I meant - so I have yet to see a *total* eclipse. That said, I still wonder if it was a hybrid -- I wasn't on the center path, but almost midway between center and northern edge, a little to the center side.

What I experienced certainly matches all the descriptions of a total.

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

Well, now I know what I'm getting for my 12th wedding anniversary. :)

[querldox.livejournal.com]

and the Carolinas

YES! 47 years later, I'll finally get to see a total solar eclipse!

Some may recall the total solar eclipse of March 1970, which basically has a totality path up the east coast of the US. I was then 9, a major space nut, and living around 75 miles from the totality zone. My father promised to take me, but, as I didn't know at the time, he'd been diagnosed with cancer the previous summer and the morning of eclipse day turned out to be one of his bad days. So he couldn't take me, and my mother wouldn't because she wanted to take care of him. So I only got to see a near total eclipse via pinhole devices and the like and what was shown on television.

Assuming predictions of decent weather, I'll almost have to go to the Carolinas to view this one.