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April 8, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Report: An AWESOME experience

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I had been looking forward to the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 for years. I was able to share this experience with some very important and close people in my life.  My daughter, parents and brother-in-law started out the morning at my home in The Colony, Texas. We could have seen the total eclipse from around there, but I preferred (and my group agreed) to be out in the countryside or a smaller town to be out in nature and to have less traffic congestion to escape from clouds.  Looking at the forecast for later that day on the various weather models, and looking at the satellite loops, we decided to head east. We stopped in McKinney to assess the situation. It was mostly cloudy above us, and there was a layer of thicker clouds on the south horizon, moving toward us. But behind the layer of thick clouds was a large clearing on the satellite loop. That was our target. So we headed east for a while and stopped in another town (Princeton). At this point, we were starting to be conc
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Eclipse photography

This is about eclipse photography. But I’m not going to share the technical details. I’ll leave that to some websites that I will link below. Besides, if you’re going to do more than just casual eclipse photography, you probably should have researched that by now. 😀 That being said, I’m going to share with you some tips from my experience at the 2017 total solar eclipse. Remember, regarding eye and camera safety, you have to protect your eyes and cameras by having a solar filter over the front of your camera for all of the partial phases. Of course, it’s safe to remove the solar filters and take pictures and videos during totality. For everyone: ***Be sure to turn your automatic flash off! If you don’t know how to, cover it with something dark.*** At the very least, I highly recommend everyone do a wide angle video showing the darkening sky, and showing your reactions a few moments before totality, through totality, and a little bit out the other side. You don’t even really have to sh
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Going visual: types of clouds

When it's the day of the eclipse, it's time to go visual and look at the sky itself. Of course, you can still be checking the satellite photos and loops, and even take a look at the forecast models in the morning, but now your primary focus should be the sky. I've mentioned the different types of clouds in my other posts ("Looking at Forecasts" and "Using Satellite photos and loops")  Here are some links to show you what the different types of clouds will look like in the sky: https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/clouds/ten-basic-clouds https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/clouds/cloud-types    https://scijinks.gov/clouds/ Remember, if clouds will be present, small "popcorn" cumulus and very thin cirrus are your friends: the small cumulus have a decent chance of dissipating partially or completely; thin cirrus will allow good views of the eclipse through them Everything else? Just hope for a gap or travel to get out from under them (if you safely can
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Using Satellite photos and loops to identify clouds

You can look at weather forecasts in the days leading up to the eclipse, but once you get to the morning of the eclipse, you should now be paying more attention to what the weather is actually doing. The purpose of this post is to help you learn how to use satellite photos and loops to identify different types of clouds. There are various weather satellite sites; I like to use  https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/ (you can also see others at  https://eclipsophile.com/eclipse-day-weather/ - see under satellites) On the NOAA GOES site above, click on the map to select your region Then select the GeoColor option. Select one of the options that say "px" next to it (the numbers determine the resolution of the image; higher is better if your device can handle it) You are also encouraged to look at one of the animation loops. This will show you how the clouds are moving, and - if you look carefully- if new ones are forming. So, how can you tell which types of clouds that you are
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Blog posts classified by category

Since we are just a few days away from the eclipse, I thought I would post this to help find my blog posts a little bit easier, organized by category. Just in case you wanted to do some final “studying” this weekend! There is an archive on my blog page in the menu, or you can just browse through the whole blog. I’m also happy to do whatever I can to make things easier for you. Some of the topics I have not posted yet. I will put the topic in the category and when I make the post, I will edit this to include the link. Observing tips, Eye Safety, What to look for, Photography https://eclipse482024.blogspot.com/2024/02/solar-eclipse-eye-safety.html https://eclipse482024.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-total-solar-eclipse-checklist-what.html https://eclipse482024.blogspot.com/2024/03/what-time-does-eclipse-happen-also-some.html https://eclipse482024.blogspot.com/2024/03/what-to-bring-to-observing-site.html https://eclipse482024.blogspot.com/2024/01/totality-its-getting-dark.html https://eclipse48
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Looking at Forecasts: A deeper dive

The purpose of this post is to help you understand how to look at weather forecasts: specifically, those dealing with cloud coverage. One important thing to start with is that "Weatherman Willie on Channel 5" and the weather app on your phone should not be your only resources. They can be resources to use; just not the only ones. The key thing to note is that there are multiple weather models, and when we are 5 days or more away from the day of interest, these models can be in significant disagreement. Once you are within 2-3 days, you may start to see some general agreement between models (although you will certainly still see minor to moderate differences.) Of course, realize that it's all just forecasting. I'll direct your attention to a site that I use:  https://weather.us/   Here's how to get to the cloud cover forecast. Click on "Forecast"- a menu will drop down. Then click on GFS. This is one of the weather models. Under "Parameter Selection&
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Short Range Cloud Escaping

As mentioned in my previous post, if you are in the totality path, and the forecast in the original area that you have chosen calls for overcast or mostly cloudy skies, you could possibly travel as much as few hours east or west along the shadow path to get into clear skies- as long as you do it safely. This one covers the possibility of escaping from the clouds in the final 45 minutes or so before totality. Let's  say that clouds are forecast to be in the area you’ve chosen, but you’ve decided to stay- perhaps because significantly clearer skies are too far away (long range cloud escaping is impractical), or perhaps you have other commitments later that day (although I will suggest making the eclipse a top priority!) The goal here is to help you with those scenarios.  The idea is this: if the sun has been playing hide-and-seek with the clouds during the early partial phases, and  if there are heavy clouds that start to move in- or even one stubborn cloud- then you can think about
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