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I'm an astronomy nut, and even though I don't bust out the telescopes as much as I used to, there is no way I'm missing this. I'm in southern Illinois, not far from St. Louis, so I didn't have to drive far to catch the total eclipse last time. I kept all the stuff I bought, too, so I don't have to do that again. I'll be somewhere in the southern part of the state, filter on my telescope, on the big day.
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May 11, 2023 16:49
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 23:33 |
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I'm rolling the dice this time. We saw totality in 2017, and I even got some pictures and video because I brought a telescope and the appropriate filter. This time, the path will be just as close, but if it's cloudy, I can still say I saw a total eclipse.
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Jun 6, 2023 17:24
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I wouldn't take any picture without a telescope equipped with a white light filter. Last time, I used a simple 70 mm refractor, a filter over the objective, and a horrible contraption that held my point-and-click digital camera up to the eyepiece.
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Jul 17, 2023 22:32
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No visibility here today, sadly.
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Oct 14, 2023 17:36
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I saw a post in my Facebook feed from a local bike shop (not my usual one, but one I've been to a couple times) that they were arranging a ride from O'Fallon to Fayetteville (Illinois) to catch the total eclipse. They had a van available to take folks back, or a slightly longer bike ride back to the shop to turn it into a metric century. It was a B-/C+ class ride, whatever in the hell that means. And I'm not going to lie, it was tempting, as long as B-/C+ isn't super fast. But, the location had totality of less than a minute. Which... is nice, but if I just drive to Mt. Vernon, I'll get a few minutes of totality. So, I'm driving to Mt. Vernon. We've got tickets to an event now, so Gosh willing, the weather will be good for at least a few minutes. The spot we'll be at has about 3:40 of totality. (Cross-posting to the bike thread.)
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Mar 7, 2024 05:07
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root of all eval posted:I can point out places with 24 hours showers and bathrooms and about a billion quiet county roads you could nap on near Mount Vernon. It's my home town and I know the area very well Not the OP, but by coincidence, I'm headed to Mt. Vernon myself. My wife, son, and I are going to Cedarhurst Center for the Arts. The main reason we chose Mt. Vernon is because there's a Bojangles there, the totality time is fairly long, and it's not too far from my corner of southern Illinois.
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Apr 6, 2024 21:27
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I plan on parking my vehicle in the overflow parking area near where we'll be taking in the show, but I don't plan on moving my vehicle until I'm ready to go home. What's the cycling scene like in Mt. Vernon?
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Apr 7, 2024 23:26
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root of all eval posted:Just saw this, but not good at all for cycling. Everyone drives slow as hell but there is no dedicated cycling infra or especially scenic areas. Hmmmm... well, my main plan is to hit the overflow parking since that's what the venue is suggesting, and considering everything I've seen on the maps and what you're suggesting here, maybe I'll leave the bike at home. My main reason for bringing it would've been to run and get food or something. The idea of couriering some Bojangles in my panniers back to the vehicle sounded fun, and I believe I could've done it around these parts: it's not too far, the roads don't look too insane, etc. But, I live in a fairly cycling-friendly county (Madison) that has a large number of miles of rail-trails. I know all too well how drivers who aren't used to cyclists tend to behave. Also, I'd be locking my bike to my vehicle, which wouldn't be where my wife and son would be. So... yeah, not ideal. Just looking to kill some time, because we plan on getting there pretty early, well before the shuttle service starts.
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Apr 8, 2024 06:25
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Heading out from my corner of the Riverbend in a few minutes. Chairs, telescope, and kit is all packed up. Sodas are in the cooler. Most of this trip will be on I-255 and I-64, so I hope I can avoid the worst of the traffic. High clouds in the forecast may or may not be an issue. We'll see. Good luck, everyone!
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Apr 8, 2024 12:58
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Mt. Vernon, checking in. I ended up leaving the bike at home, but I have my family with me, so it would be weird to leave them here while I rode around. We have the overflow parking almost totally to ourselves; shuttle service doesn't start for a couple hours. Time to take a stroll.
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Apr 8, 2024 15:22
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Here's what I'm carrying my telescope stuff in here at the museum.  Sorry about the image size; I'm phone-posting.
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Apr 8, 2024 17:33
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My kid got a pic with these three who are wandering around, making the vibe pretty cool. 
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Apr 8, 2024 18:15
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Partiality has begun! Terrible camera telescope thing is set up.
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Apr 8, 2024 18:53
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I'm one of the only ones here with a telescope, just like in 2017. It looks great through my scope.
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Apr 8, 2024 19:06
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The daylight is starting to look trippy in southern IL. If day we were somewhere around 1/3rd to 1/2 obscured.
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Apr 8, 2024 19:31
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The high clouds made totality look ghostly, but we had clear diamond rings and just a beautiful show. My camera battery went critical right before totality, so I had to swap it for my last charged one in seconds, but I got it done! Lots of terrible totality video, and one good still. Lots of shots of partial. There was a cool little red dot on the bottom. Anyone else see it?
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Apr 8, 2024 20:10
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bawfuls posted:that was a solar prominence, or flare That's what I figured. So cool. I wonder if it'll last long enough for most people to see. I hope so, because it was cool. Star Man posted:WE GOT A PROMINENCE Yes we did! I'm waiting in Mt. Vernon for things to settle, traffic-wise. In the meantime, I threw away the Celestron eclipse kit I bought a few months before the eclipse in 2017 and held on to for all these years. tarlibone fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 20:35
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The trip from home to Mt. Vernon took the usual amount of time--about 1.5 hours. The trip back easily took more than an hour longer than that. While we were able to beat the rush on the way to the event, there was no avoiding the rush to get home. We stayed at the event until maybe 3:30 PM CDT, ate at Bojangles around 4 - 4:30 or so, left town at 5, and I-64 W was just... well, normally it'd be annoying, but I was in a good mood. The only places where I'd say it was parking-lot-levels of slow were from where we entered the Interstate to the I-57 exit, and again around the IL-4 interchange. There were other slowdowns to be sure--miles where we were rolling along around 30 MPH at best separated by miles where we could open it back up to 70--but those two areas were just awful. After IL-4, we got to the Metro East proper, and the road just opened up at Fairview Heights... just in time for me to exit 7 miles later. I hate this kind of traffic, but not today. I saw a few people try to hack the highway's programming, trying to stay in whichever lane seemed to be moving faster at any given moment. We started giving them nicknames. All I could think was, didn't they see the eclipse? Chill and relax, brothers! In 2017, we had totality for around a minute. This time, it was for almost four minutes, and a pretty good spot that had both shade and just enough sky to get clear views of the sun. I took a bunch of pictures on my Canon PowerShot, which was the same camera I had in 2017 I think. It's a decent quality point-and-click for its time, said time being back when phone cameras could not quite yet outperform a good point-and-click with optical zoom. I was using it today because my G21's camera is awesome--I got the model with the best camera--but when you get it close to the eyepiece of a telescope, it starts switching lenses in an effort to outsmart you. Disaster almost struck, though. When I switched to video mode, after a minute or two, the battery icon started flashing. This was bad because I have only three batteries--two aftermarket ones from a few years back that have lots of capacity, and the one that came with the camera a decade ago. One of the aftermarket ones died quickly, I'd probably worn it down the last time I farted around with the camera. The other one was dying just as totality was approaching, and changing the battery would require a quick realignment of the camera in my telescope camera holder contraption thing. But, the original battery was charged, and I was able to record the event. It's not pro, I have to realign the telescope in a few spots, and I paused it so I could take a couple of still pics, but I got it. I can't wait until the batteries are charged, or at least one of them, so I can download the pics and video. Magical. Truly magical. The super late lunch/early supper is why we're having snacks tonight, but I'm having a few drinks, too, to let it all settle in. I'm glad so many of us managed to get clear skies. Or, clear enough skies, as we had high clouds that made the event have a little fog around the sun that was pretty cool.
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Apr 9, 2024 02:28
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Sirotan posted:Anybody know of any photographers that might have some photos of the eclipse for sale? All my photos were rear end (I only brought my cell phone so I didn't expect to get anything good), but I think I'd be interested in buying a print to frame if I could find something I liked. I doubt you'll have trouble finding digital pictures in high resolution that can have prints made of them. Just give it a day or so. Of course, there may well be some fantastic, high-resolution, copyright-free images coming from NASA or something, too. Whelp, I finally threw away the box of Celestron EclipSmart stuff that I bought in 2017. I kept one pair of the cardboard eclipse glasses and the fancy ones that came with the kit, but the rest of it, including a booklet and basic map of the event, is now going back to the Earth. I'd been keeping that box secure for seven years, and the sun had faded one side of it noticeably, but I don't need it anymore. I actually had forgotten about the booklet and map that was in it until the other day when I was getting stuff together for today's event. I'm only keeping the eclipse glasses as souvenirs, of course. We carried around our stuff in the backpack bag things we got in 2017. I could tell that the people who planned today's event were people concerned with the arts, because there was much less of a concert vibe than in 2017, when we went to watch at an amphitheater. I mean, we had avatars for the sun, moon, and stars hanging around. It's a pretty cool sculpture park, and while there are a lot of trees there, there was plenty of sky for anyone who wanted to, you know, stare at the sun. The plentiful shade was much appreciated. tarlibone fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Apr 9, 2024 |
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Apr 9, 2024 02:50
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My videos came out better than I expected! I mean, yeah, they're clearly taken with a point-and-click camera-camcorder that's held to an eyepiece with a ridiculous contraption that you can see me adjusting early on*, but it's still pretty cool, mainly because it's mine: I took it, and it might suck compared to any professional's efforts, but I did it. The stills also came out well, although I only took stills on the way up to totality (and one during totality). Nice sunspot pics. But here's a freeze-frame from the very end of totality, when the second diamond ring appears and I had to slap the solar filter back on the scope. On this frame, I am quickly getting the filter over the objective lens, right as I'm about to melt my camera's sensor. Look at what I was able to capture!!!!!!!!1  I might post the videos once I stitch them together, if anyone's interested. You can hear the whole Tarlifamily. *: I ran out of battery just before totality, and I had to swiftly remove the camera from the holder contraption thing, remove the battery, get my last battery that was hopefully charged, put it back on the thing, align it properly in 5 seconds when it took several minutes to do it on each previous attempt, and get back to filming. And I did it! I swear, I slowed down time to make it work.
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Apr 9, 2024 04:08
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The post-event blues is settling in. I get this a lot when there's some big thing that I experience, and I do it, and it's just as great as I thought it'd be, maybe even better... and then it's over, and there's a day or two of suck. In 2017, I didn't feel it very much, probably because for all the fun we had in Chesterfield that day, I had recently found out that there'd be another one in the far-off year of 2024. I bought a viewing kit a few months before the big day because there were talks of shortages if you weren't prepared, and afterward, I kept all of it so I'd have it on hand for the next one, which I though would be kind-of funny. I kept that box for nigh seven years, and every time I'd run across it in my garage, I'd remind myself that it was important to save it because of the upcoming eclipse. Initially, I was planning on setting up some grand campout years in advance, but that wasn't practical, and with time the urgency faded, and I eventually decided I'd just look for an event, buy tickets, and hope for good weather. We got it, and it was a great day--and I do mean a great day, because we left early in the morning and got home after our usual supper time. But, it's over now. Yeah, I know there are other total eclipses in the next few years for people who can afford to travel the globe, but I can't. I might not be here for the next one in the US, and it'd be a significant trip if I wanted to go. So, for me, it's over, and I'm feeling it. But, I did do one thing that hurt a little, but I'm glad I did it when I did it and where I did it.  If I'd have waited until I got home, that box would be with me now and probably forever. I did keep some of the viewers, and I plan on making some kind of display for my living room with some of the mementos of the two exclipses I saw so close to my home and so close together. But that box had to go. (Look at how faded it is from when it was sitting on a shelf near a window. It's crazy I kept that around all this time.)
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Apr 10, 2024 01:31
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 23:33 |
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Here's the picture I took in the middle of totality; I had to stop recording video to get it. It's a crappy old point-and-click held in front of a telescope eyepiece with a weird contraption, so... yeah, this is it. You can see the solar prominence on the bottom of the disc, though, which is cool. 
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Apr 11, 2024 03:20
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