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Science

Eclipse Today, Meteor Shower Friday 143

Posted by Roblimo from the sun-goes-dark-and-rocks-fall-from-the-sky dept.
Many people wrote in with these links: Today (Wednesday) BBC has streaming video of the total solar eclipse visible from England to India. Friday the 13th, starting at 0300 US EDT, NASA will post live shots from the Perseid meteor shower taken from a camera mounted on a high-altitude balloon. Check the links for details galore. It's an excellent week for space and astronomy buffs online!
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Perseid Meteors Live Online Friday More

Perseid Meteors Live Online Friday

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  • Yeah looked okay from Bracknell in the UK's Thames Valley (where Oracle, MS, Novell, COGNOS,JDE, BAAN, Peoplesoft, etc, et) are located).

    All the offices emptied and there was quite a buzz altho the clouds covered at just the wrong moment it was as good as we could have hoped.

    The eldritch light was cool - haven't seen it like that since I did acid last.

    The festivals in cornwall looked cool on TV tho' - Dodger is just jealous cos Harl (a mutual friend) went to the lizard with VIP tickets. I really wish I was there rather than stuck in this office coding an crappy application server on crappy NT (although as soon as Notes for Linux finishes installing I'll be playing with that).

    I didn't think i'd cope this well - not too upset that I could have been with my fiancee in cornwall - in my home town right under totality (Falmouth) with all my friends. Bah!

    A.
  • umm... i'm just thinking about the whole dual eclipse theory and wondering how that's going to happen... isn't it the case that a solar eclipse take place when the moon comes between the earth and the sun and a lunar eclipse takes place when the earth is between the moon and the sun... wouldn't these have to be at least 14 days apart so the moon could get through half its rotation?

    i'm no astronomer so i could be wrong on this i'm just wondering if there's some kind of simple explanation that i'm missing
  • I was looking to the next ridge of fields to the west, and there was a big spot of direct sunshine (lucky people). I could also see a few other fields further north and west.

    Right before the totality the field about 5 Kms west just faded out, and then a second later we got into darkness ourselves, so I missed that moment where the last bead of light winks out. I made up for it by seeing the sun re-appear, so I didnt see if there was a wave of light rushing to the west.

    There were too many clouds around the area to properly see the shadow. I've seen the shadow approach in another eclipse years ago in North America, where we had a good clear sky. But it happens so fast you have to decide where you are going to be looking, either up or in the direction of the shadow.

    The bad part about having a sky mostly filled with clouds was no interference patterns on the ground. In an eclipse with a clear sky, there are wavy light patterns all over everything. Its a pretty cool side effect.

    the AC
  • Outside of a little village called Villers-la-Chevre (the goat village).

    There was a few hundred blue sky seekers there, most drove up in the last few minutes before totality. But the big spot of blue sky kind of filled up at the last minute as the temperature dropped. Not bad enough to miss any of the eclipse.
  • The Maya calendar is accurate.
    The problem is in figuring out which of our less accurate day-labels corresponds to the day that the Maya calendar so accurately indicates.

    (Um, actually, the design parameters for the calendars are quite different. You ask two different questions, you get two different answers. The Maya calendar, IIRC, solves the problem of the year not being an integer number of days by having a 360 day year with either 5 or 6 days being completely off the calendar. You just don't do ANYTHING on those days, so there is no need to schedule appointments or record events.)


    Fear my wrath, please, fear my wrath?
    Homer
  • The man page on cal specifically states that the year is 1-9999. So I guess technically it is not a bug in calendar to not accept negative years. However it is a limitation that I would love to see fixed. It might get tricky since '-' means that an option is to follow. So that might get a bit tricky syntactically (sp).
    err..... a bit tricky with the syntax. (thats better)

    As for "cal 5.5".. that looks like a bug. Kinda lame of cal to swallow stupid numbers.
  • One thing about watching the BBCs real video is that you get to see one of the world's most unlikely TV presenters - Partick Moore (the old bloke with the dodgy eyes in the beginning of the broadcast).

    He has been broadcasting his programme (the sky at night) for so long, nobody can remember it not being on.

    Also, as nobody watches it except for (former Queen Guitarist) Brian May, if it was taken off the air, and old Patrick was just stuck in a studio somewhere - sans camera, nobody would ever notice.

    Play that funky xylophone white boy!

    In the words of Red Dward, "What a guy!".

    Mark.
  • Moreover this Friday is also the end of July 1999 in Julian calendar (the calendar that was in use before the current Gregorian calendar). And Nostradamus predicted the following:

    L'an mil neuf cent nonante neuf sept mois,
    Du ciel viendra grand Roy deffrayeur
    Resusciter la grand Roy d'Angolmois.
    Aunt après Mars regner par bonheur.

  • Hmmm... I'm pretty sure that the Mayan calandar ends Dec 22, 2012. At least, if my shadowrun memory is correct. =) I think the Aztec Calander [cencar.udg.mx] is a cyclical calander that doesn "end". But I'm not sure... =/
  • East European servers couldn't handle it as well... http://www.zatmenislunce.cz/ [zatmenislunce.cz] stopped responding about a half hour before it went through Prague (only about 90% here...)
  • As opposed to Oslo, the capitol of... wyoming?

    :-D

    I just wanted to protect myself from comments like; "Norway? Isn't that the capitol of Sweden?" or "Oslo? Isn't that north of Dallas?".

    BTW: No; there are not polar-bears in the streets.


    Var det noe mer du lurte på? ;)
  • There's a folk festival in Oxfordshire which I usually go to which coincides beautifully with the Perseid shower each year. The weather is traditionally wonderful and appalling in alternate years :) In those nights with clear skies, lying back and watching the sky for the Perseids with a drink by you and friends around you is just lovely...The Perseids are definitely one of my annual "look-fors". Eclipses solar and lunar, comets, meteors, haloes around the moon on a cold night... I love these things.

    ObEclipse: cloudy in Swansea (95% or so), but the pinhole camera worked. I'd forgotten how much fun such things were. Eerie light quality, and a definite temperature drop.

  • So can we take the continued existence of the earth as a refutation of Nostradamus' predictions in general? Can we have a "celebrate rational thought and the fruits of science" day?

    Of course not, as we'll be told: the continued existence of the world only proves that Nostradamus didn't say it would end.

    The millennial-insanity stuff is just getting started.
  • While I dont exactly believe in Doomsday predictions, but in two of Nostradamus' quatrains he forsees both of these astronomical effects. In one (quatrain 72) he says that in July 1999 a great object will fall from the sky. While he may be 1 month off, in another passage (quatrain 51) he tells of a great meteor that is hiding behind a solar eclipse will fall to the ground at the end of the millenium (he doesnt specify which millenium). Could this all be coincidence?
  • Guess I hit lucky this morning. We had a 98.8% eclipse and perfect weather, blue skies and just a hint of cloud, here in Brighton. Got to sat on the beach and watch the sea-gulls go ape-shit. Freakiest thing was how cold it got all of a sudden - I was shivering for about half an hour afterwards.
    Paul M

    "There are no innocent bystanders
    What where they doing there in the first place"

  • I noticed no difference in the light at all in Stockholm, although I was having Lunch outdoors throughout the entire thing. I guess its not that surprising, 70% is not reffering to the strength of the light.

    I wasn't looking at the Sun itself (I'm committed to destroying my eyes by stairing at small text on a monitor, nothing else), but people who did did see something of a moonshadow.

    However, the weather here was perfect :-).
  • Does anyone have a track of where the eclipse should be visible?

    -awc
  • The eclipse looked pretty good here in Watford this morning. Apparently, there was cloud across most of southern England, and Watford was one of the few places which was (mostly) clear.

    And I've seen that meteor shower before, one year when I was in Israel. We spent the night in the desert, outside, looking straight up at the clearest skies I've ever seen. Stunning!
  • I watched the eclipse on the asahi site, and for my money, the best view was in Austria...Since eclipses are something like the Kentucky Derby...several hours of build-up, two minutes of glory, I fired up my UNIX box next to the iMac and played Paranoia while waiting. I was rewarded by a view of the last sliver of sun disappearing...a suspicion of a lunar mountain...and then... Glory. The solar corona must have been especially active. Beads of reddish light, the only thing missing was abberant starlight. Fantastic. It took two whole minutes, then a brilliant burst of pure SUN ....Watched the rest of the spots...Hungary, Roumania...Iran was a wash, the connection kept dropping... It suddenly hit me...no sound. Wish I had had the Eclipse music from "Einstein on the Beach", the Eclipse music from Farinelli, or even a good percussion section...gotta scare that dragon away... But a cosmic event nonetheless. (BTW, I'm first!!!)
  • Probably a bit late for you now (grin) but I used the excellent free eclipse mapper from: Here [biglobe.ne.jp]
    It has the "basic" data on eclipses up to 2200, and there are additional data packs on the same page for anyone planning to be alive after then :+)
    One thing that IS worth doing is adding your own local details into the location.new file after you expand the archive.
  • Here in Oslo, the capitol of Norway, we had a 75% solar eclipse. The result of a 75% solar eclipse is simply a banana shaped sun.. It may have been a little darker too, but the a cloud blocked the sun when the eclipse was at its peak, so it was hard to tell.
    All in all it was interesting to look at, but nothing spectacular.

    Anyway; it was an excuse to take a break from work (Y2K testing). ;-)
  • Here in Copenhagen it was only an 80% eclipse, but there was a visible difference in ambient light, kind of like wearing very weak sunglasses, also the shadows on the ground had a significantly altered form.

    For more streams and general eclipse info see http://www.solar-eclipse.org/ [solar-eclipse.org]

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'm sure Nostradamus fanatics will claim afterwords that Nostradamus' 1999 prediction was a prediction of the JFK jr. plane crash or something.

    Nostradamus' quantrains are like poetry, and are cryptic. I've seen many predictions of the future based on them (Killer Earthquake in CA in 1988, etc.) all have failed.

    But people claim afterwords that he predicted things like the death of Princess Di, because they found a quantrain that sounds like that event. I've even found someone who claimed that one quantrain predicted the Pentium bug! The same quantrain has been interpreted by others to be a prediction of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Even if Nostradamus's "Centuries" do predict the future, they're pretty useless because nobody understands what they mean. Personally, I think he deliberatly wrote a book of giberish poetry, knowing how gullible people are.

  • The meteors that you'll see streaking across the sky are only the size of a grain of sand. Of course they're hitting the atmosphere at 30,000 mph, but they're harmless.

    Yes... but the meteors themselves are not as much of a concern as what happens if one hits Cassini. Sure, they're harmless to the earth, the Perseid shower in itself is nothing to worry about, but a grain of sand hitting Cassini at 30kmph while it's so close to earth could cause a bit more damage.

    I love a good meteor shower, I just imagine my enjoyment of it will be rather tainted by the knowledge that 72 pounds of plutonium 238 are bouncing around up there with 'em.

  • No, I believe it is Dec. 22, 2007. I remember this from a book i read a while ago only because It's my 22nd Birthday and freaks the hell out of me!

    --
    remove government if you want to reply to me thru email
  • I heard nothing about a planned blockade, and my parents live down there.

    It'd be a pretty stupid thing to do - Cornwall desperately needs all the money it can get...


    Tim

  • L'an mil neuf cent nonante neuf sept mois,
    Du ciel viendra grand Roy deffrayeur
    Resusciter la grand Roy d'Angolmois.
    Aunt après Mars regner par bonheur.

    The year millet nine hundred and ninety nine seven months,
    From the sky will come large Roy deffrayor
    Resusciter large Roy d' Angolmois.
    Aunt after Mars regner happily.

    Hooray for babelfish!

  • I don't know about the Aztec calendar, but the Mayan calendar ends in 2011 or 2012 (depending on who you listen to)

    Also I think there is a planetary alignment called the "great cross" sometime this week, and NASA's Cassini space probe, which is carrying a large quantity of plutonium, is supposed to flyby earth next week, within only a few hundred miles (to use Earth's gravity as a boost to go deep into space).

    Some speculate that the Cassini space probe will crash into Earth, causing a major environmental disaster, NASA says that there is no problem. Nostradamus says that the "King of terror" will "come from the sky" during or after the seventh month of 1999.

    In short, it's an interesting week! ;-)
  • I can't remember what that the haloe around the Moon is called. I see that often here in Colorado where the evenings are often cold. I don't remember how the phenomenae occurs either.

    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
  • I'd sorta like to know whether or not there'll be a massive ecological disaster next week.

    No need to wait, we can answer this question now: There won't be a *new* ecological disaster next week. But there will still be all the ecological disasters we already had.

    If you want to see where Cassini is right now, look here: Where is Cassini Now? [nasa.gov]

    aj
  • I understand why eclipses happen, and the pattern or the earth, moon and sun and all that stuff, but one question no one has ever been able to answer me: Why isn't there an eclipse every month?. The moon revolves around once a month, and therefore must pass in front of the earth every month, right? I have read several astronomy books, even textbooks, and they don't address this simple question. Also, some guy posted there was going to be a lunar eclipse too tonight. Sorry, but I don't think the two can happen at once, as the moon has to be on one side of the earth for one, and on the complete opposite for the other. Let me know if I am wrong here. Ever notice when the moon gets kind of orange? Well that's a really weak version of a lunar eclipse. Those happen often, though I've never seen a complete one. And yes it is a little eerie that the Persieds(sp?) and a solar eclipse are happening at the same time.
  • It's either 2011 or 2012, on either Dec 22, 23, or 24, or maybe July... (depending on who's counting)

    Anyway they say that the Mayan calendar is more accurate than our own.

    So here's my question:

    If it's so accurate, why can't we even figure out the exact day it ends?
  • I think that the Plutonium dioxide would hardly be detectable against all of the other radiation sources (most notably our Sun).

    Anyone can look at this issue at the Cassini web site: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassi ni/rtg/rtginfoframes.htm [nasa.gov]

    ~afniv
    "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
  • Do you know *anything* at all? If something hits Cassini nothing at all will happen.

    You watch too many B movies, and you worry about things too much.

    If you're really worried, please take a look at some useful web sites like www.nasa.gov, www.jamesrandi.com, and www.snopes.com and you will learn that Cassini isn't going to hurt you and you can't believe everything you heard in the checkout line at the grocery store.

  • Actually, the Perseid meteor shower peaks
    Aug 12 21UT (2pm PDT). Continues through
    to Aug 13.

    Observing tips from Nasa Science:
    http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast09a ug99_1.htm#observe

    The shower's radiant is in the Constellation
    Perseus. Brief info on Perseus:
    http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/ constellations/Perseus.html
  • I wish i thought of that, my eyes hurt :-)
  • I also saw it in Reading.

    One really neat effect was that leaves
    of trees effectively produced hundreds
    of pinhole cameras, causing lots of bright crescents in the shadow.
  • Wow - are the bits in secti on 6/8 [ohio-state.edu] talking about Bill Gates (antichrist), or what!!! I liked the bit at the end about the length of the antichrist's reign... ;)

    perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-: ,hacker Perl another Just)'
  • What you're probably missing is that the earth makes a complete rotation around its own axis every 24 hours. The moon, making a complete rotation around the earth every 28 days, follows the earth as it rotates, therefore completing only 1/28th of a complete rotation during this 24 hour period. i.e. the earth can be between the sun and the moon roughly 12 hours after the moon has been between the sun and the earth.
  • > I'm sure Nostradamus fanatics will claim afterwords that Nostradamus' 1999 prediction was a prediction of the JFK jr. plane crash or something.

    Hey, this is Slashdot. Our interpretations of Nostradamus' predictions should at least have something to do with computers. How about this: On the day of the great eclipse, a great king from the sky will bring much wealth to Linux (the RHAT IPO...). And this prediction even has the advantage that it still can fail (due to those pesky delays...) ;-)

  • He doesn't actually say "July" he says "seven months", and he doesn't say during the seventh month, so he could mean after seven months. Also he doesn't say 1999 AD, so he could mean 1999 years after he made the prediction or something.

    Anyway, we do know that he was an astrologer, and as such could predict eclipses, planetary conjunctions, etc through non-supernatural means, so he probably figured out that there would be an eclipse across Europe in 1999 (he lived in France)

    I don't really believe that Nostradamus could predict anything. If you wrote a book of 900+ Giberish verses, I'm sure I could convince people that you predicted things because some of your verses are remarkable close to real events.
  • Why isn't there an eclipse every month?

    I guess it's because the moon doesn't have a perfect orbit. As I understand it, the moon doesn't actually revolve around the Earth, but instead sort of waves around (well that's the best I can describe it) earth's orbit. There is a Solar Eclipse every month, but most times to view it you'd have to leave the planet.



    Also, some guy posted there was going to be a lunar eclipse too tonight.

    You're right, that is impossible, I think there was one at the end of July though (25th?)



    There are between 2 and 7 eclipses every year (counting both Solar and Lunar). 5 is the max number of Solar Eclipses in a year (according to NASA's page)

  • I wouldn't say it can be eaten safely, but at least if you did eat it, you should pass it in about 24 hours.

    Whether or not you consider having an active alpha source sitting inside you for 24 hours or so safe is another matter.... :o)

    Tim
  • I believe it was about 97% coverage here, and we were lucky enough to have clear skies.

    It was a fairly strange and worthwhile sight. Even though it remained light throughout, the daylight did have a bizarre washed-out quality, sort of like twilight, but still with sharp shadows and the sun high in the sky.

    Well, it was a fine excuse for the entire office to stand outside with their homemade pin-hole cameras for 20 minutes... it's amazing what you can do with a 17" monitor box, a pin and sheet of white paper :-)
  • What you're probably missing is that the earth makes a complete rotation around its own axis every 24 hours.

    So? What does this have to do with anything?

    The moon, making a complete rotation around the earth every 28 days, therefore completing only 1/28th of a complete rotation during this 24 hour period.

    So 12 hours after a solar eclipse, the moon will be 1/56th of a rotation further along in its orbit, which hardly puts it on the other side of the Earth from the sun. It is in fact about 6.4 degrees from the sun (roughly 13 moon diameters) - not 180 degrees.

    Get a flashlight, a tennis ball and a ping pong ball....

    aj
  • eponymous cohort wrote:

    Even if Nostradamus's "Centuries" do predict the future, they're pretty useless because nobody understands what they mean. Personally, I think he deliberatly wrote a book of giberish poetry, knowing how gullible people are.

    The quatrains are a lot like inkblots. Everybody sees something different, and if you give a person a quatrain and tell them it predicts [insert anything at all here], most people will go "Oh yeah, I can see that."

    It's like those "biorhythm" charts or whatnot. One debunker, as a demonstration, gave a woman a biorhythm chart for a completely wrong birthdate. She wrote back praising him for his skill at predicting her rhythms. He wrote back and (deliberately) enclosed a second wrong chart, with a note of apology saying the first one was miscalculated.

    Her reply was yet more praise about how the new chart was even more accurate than the old one!

    (Source: Martin Gardner, Mathematical Games)

    As much as I hate to say it, we live in a world where marketing to the "stupid segment" is not only possible but highly profitable.

  • Hi, we watched the complete eclipse from 11:14 first contact to the bitter end around 13:45 here in Northern Germany, about 500km north of the zone of totality. At peak occultation we had a very weird, blueish light, and the atmosphere was great with the temperature dropping by 11 degrees C.

    the site is here [schuerkamp.de] if you'd like to see some pictures.

    Uwe

  • Unfortunately it was cloudy, but here's my writeup [b0rk.co.uk] I cant copy/paste, and i dont have the time to retype it, sorry
  • Was out in eastern france earlier today, beat the traffic out there by leaving last night, then spent the morning finding a place with some sunshine.

    I was up on the top of a ridge with a few hundred other people spread around the fields. We were able to see the shadow coming at us across the fields right as the sun winked out. Then there was a lot of cheering and horn honking, and when the light came back 2 minutes later everyone just went wild.

    The temperature dropped from 17 C at 11:00, to 12 C during the eclipse, then went back up to 21 later in the day. And the clouds got thicker as the temperature dropped, which made it a bust for most people.

    The corona was amazing. It was so bright in the sky, but everything else around was dark. Didn't see any stars or planets, but that was because there were still too many clouds in the area, and most of the time I was looking at the corona through a thin cloud.

    And the GSM telephone network was saturated for about 20 minutes, as everyone phoned everyone else to swap stories.

    It took 7 hours to get back to Paris, the traffic was pretty dense. Millions of dutch and germans heading north, millions more parisians heading home. What was wild is that everyone seems friendly today on the roads, having all been out to share a common experience.

    Thats all from france,

    the AC
  • They're caused by tiny ice crystals very high up, I think? The light is refracted through them. And I simply say a halo around the moon, or a lunar halo, and assume people will know what I mean. :) I've heard the word "moonbow", but I don't think it's a common one (certainly it's not in any of my dictionaries).
  • If you don't mind getting cancer in your guts, then yes, you may eat plutonium ceramic pellets, and expect them to come out the bunhole in 24 hours or so. Nevermind that inhaling just a few *molecules* of plutonium induces lung cancer. And that the pellets won't fall into the ground intact, but be vapourised in the air during re-entry. It won't be TEOTWAWKI, but we're gonna suffer from it in one way or another... if the thing falls, anyway.
  • Well, up here in Leicester we got around 93% coverage, and I'm lucky enough to live in a south-facing flat on the top floor. I constructed a couple of pinhole cameras and got great viewing right up to the last minute - and just as I announced "It's over", the first cloud in two and a half hours obscured the sun!

    Anybody nostalgic for Blue Peter can check out my pinhole camera designs [free-online.co.uk] in case they want to get ready for the next one in 2081 CE.

  • Indeed, Cassini does fit the prophetical bill...
    The Grand Cross is actually, for those who are interested, a line-up of planets in the fixed signs of the zodiac. We have Mars in Scorpio, the Solar eclipse in Leo, Saturn in Taurus and Uranus in Aquarius. And our little blue ball earth stuck in the middle. Anybody's life a little more tense/hectic than normal these days? This is why! Doubly so if you are one of the aforementioed fixed signs. Now what is really freaky is that the animal/humanoid representations of these fixed signs appear on cathedral windows and tarot cards all over the place...on the World tarot card, the four figures in the corners are the angel (Aquarius), the lion (Leo), the phoenix or griffin (Scorpio) and the bull (Taurus). What the heck does that mean? Not sure but I thought it worth mentioning. Somebody else can take it from here. ;-)
    Class dismissed! Fornication in the streets begins promptly at 3!

    The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
  • There isn't an eclipse every month because the orbit plane
    of the moon around the earth doesn't coincide with the
    orbit plane of the earth around the sun. In addition,
    the moon's orbit plane is constantly precessing (wobbling)
    so that the orientation of the tilt is different every
    month. Because of this, the moon is usually above or
    below the earth-sun line when full or new moon occurs.
  • If you think that's something, check out Part 2 [ohio-state.edu]:

    m. Wealthy U.S. businessman a closet revolutionary and Nazi

    Ip. 154 (cV-75)

    A very wealthy and famous businessman in the U.S. will be secretly involved with the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan in the south. The man's sole ambition in life is to overthrow the American government as it is presently constituted. The man will be involved with politics but will stay low-key, spinning webs of power and expanding his influence behind the scenes. This groundwork will prove useful for the Antichrist later on. The man will have a puppet, a figurehead, but he will pull the strings. The link will not be known until the time of the Antichrist.

    Does that give you the chills or what? Wonder if it's Billy G..

  • Other more likely candidates:
    Newt Gingrich
    Patrick Buchanan
    Steve Forbes

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • It's not the end of the world after a
    John
  • There is _no_ way that a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse can occur on the same day. A solar eclipse only occurs when the moon is between the earth and the sun. A lunar eclipse only occurs when the earth is between the sun and the moon. So, no, there is not a lunar eclipse tonight. There was a lunar eclipse across Europe 14 days ago (it almost always happens that there is a lunar eclipse on the moon cycle before the solar eclipse). But the moon is new now, which means a lunar eclipse is impossible. BTW, there is a lunar eclipse coming up soon in the US. Mid-January of 2000, I believe.
  • THere's a lot of distance between the earth and the moon, and the shadow that the moon casts is small by comparison, so if you think of the orbit of the moon as not a two-dimensional ellipse, but as a 3 dimensional ellipse, sometimes wobbling up and down as it goes, you can see that probably even a few hundred feet "northward" or "southward" variation in the orbit could cause the shadow cast by the moon to miss the earth, most of the time. The moon is ALWAYS casting a shadow, and every month, that shadow does cross the earth's path (if you look at it straight-down, from say the north pole), but most of the time, the shadow passes either above, or below the earth - due to these north-south variations in the moon's orbit.
    (to visualize this, tie a small rock to a 10-ft. string, and spin it around yourself, faster and slower, and as you go faster, the rock will become level with your hand, slow down, and the rock will get closer to the ground. The difference between the rock-string model, and the moon-gravity model is that gravity is somewhat elastic, allowing the moon to vary inwards and outwards, and there is no overall "downwards" gravity force, so the moon's orbit oscillates northward and southward over time. It's not in a perfect two-dimensional plane.
    capiche?

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Don't you mean 24 Kilograms?

    Just what kind of ecological disaster are you refering to? PU-238 has a half life of ~88 YEARS. Its primary decay is Alpha. Radioactively its not that dangerous. Its only slightly worse than the Americium in your smoke detector. (or do you live in a fire proof cave somewhere?) Or course we're talking kilograms not milligrams.....

    At this point the only "disaster" I can think of is the scientific lost if the probe does get hit. The chances of it hurting anyone on earth are so frighteningly small its not even worth debating.

    If it had blown up at launch the only people that would have gotten hurt were all the anti-nuke whiners that it would have landed on...
  • "If it's so accurate, why can't we even figure out the exact day it ends?"

    Because the real task isn't using it to count the days, it's comparing their calendar to ours in order to see when they match up. The first one I heard was Dec 22, 2012, but I haven't heard of other dates until now. Any idea where they get 2011 from?
  • Moondog - halo around moon
    Sundog - halo around sun

  • ...sorry, I was just so proud of myself for figuring out your acronym. :)
  • Cassini passed earth on swing-by today, IIRC. Everything went fine (in spite of the total eclipse :-), and Cassini is now on its way away from earth. If it would be destroyed, nothing would fall on earth.
  • A few molecules of Pu inhaled would not suffice. I think it's around 1 or 2 milligrams.
  • Thanks.
    If I think about things long enough to write something sensible the topic has normally disappeared to the archives.
  • Also, if I am correct, I believe the same symbols line the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card as well...

    Driph
  • We were in the Englischer Garten, waiting for the corona to show. My friends and I had bought a bottle of champagne for the occasion, and we had just gotten our lunch to each during the show. Although the sky was partially cloudy, it was clear in the section that the sun was until about 3 minutes before the actual corona showed (read: total eclipse). Then, as if by an act of God, a large cloud came over the sun and covered everything up. We ended up seeing the corona (and by the way, it was much more visible than at night; I could easily read a paper if I had wanted to at that time) for about two seconds. So much for the "two minutes of spectacular corona" that filled the hotels in Munich and all the surrounding town to overflowing. Too bad that where I actually lived, in the south of Munich, where my parents and brothers were, it was perfectly clear and we could see anything ;-P
    I hope other people had better experiences with the eclipse, although it was kind of funny when a bunch of sun worshipers ran through the Garten yelling "Wir waeren alle tot!" (that is, "we're all gonna die!".
  • To see why its so hard, type "cal 1752" on your Unix box and look at September. "man cal" explains why September is so strange, but in that context, our calendar is actually very inaccurate. To try and determine dates that are mentioned in historical documents, astronomical events are used to try and solidify the true date.

    For "vague" instance, phrases in the bible are interpreted to mean a lunar eclipse, or planet alignments, or etc.. From that they use a decent astronomical program to try and trace backwards to get a date in reference to our current date. However, how many programs take into account September 1752, as well as all the other leap year issues that occurred in the past. It's very difficult to pin down ancient dates.

    I believe the way to calculate the end of the Aztec calendar is to find a date in the past where you can synch up the two calendars and then count forward. Some archeologist has to try and determine the two days that can be synched. I imagine that is difficult and has some interpretation built into it.

  • very little clouds, so it wasn't bad at all... especially with the glasses on :->

    I've put my best picture here [multimania.com]. (This is not the artist's impression ;)

    ---

  • Viewing (Score:1)

    by parm ( 13036 )
    How happy was I when I found out that the view was better up here in Manchester than down there in Cornwall? Heh. Gutted, guys. Shame we didn't get a totality, but 90% was pretty good...

    Chris

  • While not in the path of totality, we caught about 95%. My impromptu pinhole camera showed the cresent rotate as the moon went past.

    Nice, but overhyped.

  • 95% eclipse in Reading - it was a weird twilight effect at peak, a bit like the eldritch light you sometimes get when a storm's coming.

    I tried a couple of pictures with my digicam (using the LCD as a viewfinder) but all I got was lense flare - didn't think to bring a filter...

    --

  • Yeah, but they must've had barbecues, beer, music... kinda woodstock I'd imagine... oh well, next time :-)

    ---

  • Well, we had a power-cut in the office this-morning which provided the perfect excuse to visit the near-by Regent's Park to view the eclipse. It started out well at 10.30, we could see the moon eating away at the disk (both through special glasses and a pin-hole projector made from a printout of source I am working on). As the moment of maximum coverage approached (11.18) big black clouds came and obscured the sun... typical. Some police arrived, we joked that they would take out loud-speakers and start announcing "There is nothing to see here...", which would have been somewhat accurate at that time. Irritatingly it seemed like all around London the skies were clear, but thick cloud just over us :-( There was a noticable drop in temperature, but only at about 11.10 did we notice a visible drop in light level. Fortunately the cloud thinned allowing us to see the sun without needing glasses, this was quite a sight, but by this point the moon was receeding. All in all, not quite a spiritual experience, but a good excuse to get out of the office!

    --

  • The solar eclipse should be visible along a line from 450 miles east of NY (in the atlantic) through India. If you live in Europe, there's a good chance you'll see atleast a partial eclipse if its not cloudy. Also, tonight for us Americans, there's a Lunar eclipse. It takes an hour or so for it to completely cycle, but it still looks pretty cool. When you view these things, try to visualize it in 3D, it makes it much cooler.
    A Lunar and Solar eclipse only occurrs when the Moon is full (or close to full) and its axis of revolution is even so that it falls along the same plane as the Sun. Just thought I'd drop some info out there.
  • i'd like to get a good copy of the video of the total for archiving -
  • I'm a bit disappointed, i had to stay in Budapest, and here we had 98%, but the sky was clouded, so we had not much to see. It was not to dark, and it didn't even take too long.

  • Dodger is just jealous cos Harl (a mutual friend) went to the lizard with VIP tickets.

    I didn't know that! He didn't show up at this month's 2600...

    Only reason I didn't go is because a bunch of my colleagues booked holiday time around now way back at the beginning of the year, before I got a chance, so we're down to a skeleton staff at the mo. I even had to answer a phone this morning!

    I'm glad that I didn't go now, though... At least I actually got to see it! :-)

    D.
    ..is for DOH!

  • Yes, as a matter of fact, there will be quite a disaster next week, directly related to Cassini's plutonomium. Here's what will happen...

    There are no armed guards in space. The Cassini probe is a sitting duck (well, actually a duck travelling at thousands of miles per hour, but I'm speaking metaphorically) for a terrorist plutonium mining expedition. At the last minute, Bruce Willis' character will find out what is going on, and will attempt to stop them. Here's the disaster: At one point near the end of the movie, the terrorists' rocket (concealed in an abandoned hollowed-out skyscraper in a large city) full of fuel will explode, showering the surrounding city blocks with burning shrapnel. The head bad guy will escape, though, so Bruce's character will have to chase him down for the final showdown.



    ---
    Have a Sloppy night!
  • Let's be alarmed by things we shouldn't. Did you know you're dying as we speak? That oxygen is ripping your cellular DNA apart like swiss cheeze? That your bathroom tiles emit radiation? How about sugar, gasoline, breathing, hyperventilation, and numerous other every day chemicals causing Olney's lesions on your brain?

    Every second you've got roughly 60 billion neutrinos streaming through every square cenimeter of your body? Too bad they have almost no mass. And most would travel through a lightyear of lead unscathed. (props to sciam) How about the breeding fields of bacteria on your kitchen counters? The flesh eating mites that dwell on your clothes right now.

    So, we've got some plutonium, non weapons grade, shielded, in safe tablets, blazing past us at mind bending speeds. So, a micrometeorite hits it, and perhaps knocks it a few hundred feet, or maybe a few inches. So what? Even if it was to by some improbable fluke slam into our atmosphere, odds are it'd a:) bounce off into space, or b:) burn up.

    It can't, and won't kill us. It won't crash, if it was to, it wouldn't be a problem. Of course... I don't pay my taxes yet, so no problem of mine.

    Now excuse me, I'll take my neutrino bombarded, flesh mite riddled, irradiated, lesioned, breathing, self out for a cigarette. They kill you? you don't say...

  • I think here in Boston there would have been about an 80% eclipse at sunrise, unfortunatly, I slept through it. It's cloudy anyway
  • Well, I figure kevlar has been flamed enough for his mistake. (Hopefully he's *wearing* some kevlar today). What annoys me, though, is that his post was moderated *up* for being insightful.

    aj
  • Whats wrong w/ the Blair Witch Project?

    As long as you stay until the 'all events depicted where not real and any relation is co-incidental' bit.....

    If you take it as true, then its a problem.
  • I'm sure I'll get moderated down for this =P, but Thanks Bud! for remembering that most of us CAN read french..
  • Why, are you going to arrest me?
  • Extracted from "Fingerprints Of The Gods"; Crown Trade, 1995 -

    "Consider the crowning jewel of Maya calendrics, the so-called 'Long Count'. This system of calculating dates also expressed beliefs about the past - notably, the widely held belief that time operated in Great Cycles which witnessed recurrent creations and destructions of the world. According to the Maya, the current Great Cycle began in darkness on 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, a date corresponding to 13 August 3114 BC in our own calendar. As we have seen, it was also believed that the cycle will come to an end, amid global destruction, on 4 Ahau 3 Kankin: 23 December 2012 AD in our calendar. The function of the Long Count was to record the elapse of time since the beginning of the current Great Cycle, literally to count off, one by one, the 5125 years allotted to our present creation.
    So, at any rate, thought the Maya."

    I should also point out that this so-called "Mayan Mythology" is actually not Mayan at all, it's Olmec. It is widely suspected that the Mayans were the descendants of the Olmecs, so it makes sense that many of their traditions would survive...it also makes this calendar thousands of years old. The Olmec prophecy stated that: "the Fifth Sun will end with the Earth 'toppling from its axis', and great earthquakes will level mountains and rend the continents apart."
  • "...From the sky will come large Roy deffrayor..."

    Ya gotta watch out for Roy Deffrayor, I tell ya. Ol' Roy's a real tough cookie.

    His friend, Roy D'Angolmois, ain't no picnic either.

    I hear that their Aunt's not so bad, though.
  • Heh... the ability to read French wouldn't necessarily even help you much, the text is so archaic, but I'll give it my best shot.

    L'an mil neuf cent nonante neuf sept mois,
    Du ciel viendra grand Roy deffrayeur
    Resusciter la grand Roy d'Angolmois.
    Aunt après Mars regner par bonheur.
    In the seventh month of the year 1999

    From the sky will come an angry disaster
    That will wake the king of the infidels
    To once again rule the happy.
    Anyone who can do a better job is invited to do so... I've twisted things around (a lot) just so that it makes any sense at all... I've also dropped some stuff and ad-libbed a bit.
    --
    - Sean
  • Except there's no Earthquake. Bummer.

    O well... apparently there was an aeroplane, taking pictures.

    *shrug*

    Fear the Earthquake!
    --
    - Sean
  • Omigod! I'm still here! I didn't die! I'm alive! I'm ali +++ NO CARRIER.
    --
    - Sean
  • pøh, we americans aren't that dumb :P

    well some of us aren't anyway.

  • Hopefully NASA's coverage of the Perseid meteor shower will include tracking of the Cassini space probe that'll be passing through it on the 17th/18th. Y'know, the one loaded with 72 pounds of plutonium 238?

    I'd sorta like to know whether or not there'll be a massive ecological disaster next week.


  • I'm not a million miles away from where you are and I, too, got a damned good view of the event...

    I think it's highly amusing that so many people booked in advance, etc. to go down to Devon and Cornwall and didn't get to see it.

    And all the greedy festival organisers look like they're going to lose their shirts, which serves them right in my opinion. They were simply trying to take advantage of all the hype. In the end, due to their greed, there were too many festivals, and they've all lost money.

    Ha ha ha... :-)

    D.
    ..is for Dastardly.

  • Hmmm... a solar eclipse only occurs when the moon is new and a lunar eclipse only occurs when the moon is full. Therefore, they should never be less than a fortnight apart. ;)
  • I haven't verified this but if I remember correctly this Friday is the end of the Aztec calendar. The end. The calendar just stops. I don't know how but it does. So my question is: does anyone know if these meteors are just a little bit bigger than usual? :-)

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